Is Microsoft Publisher obsolete to our students?
Is Microsoft Publisher a program our students will use in the future?
The reason I ask - I gave my Sports Medicine class an assignment to create a brochure for a lower leg injury. My purpose? So each student may become an "expert" in one injury and share the information with the rest of the class. The students have to research the injury by finding specifics - What is the injury? What ligaments, tendons, bones, muscles are involved? What are the signs and symptoms? Specific treatment, rehabilitation, prevention and so on... The method of delivery to the rest of the class is through presenting the brochure while students fill out a chart I have given them for each of the injuries. The brochures are then posted around the room for students to get a better look and now that we have an LCD projector in the room I pull up the brochures during presentations. You get idea...
As I was explaining and demonstrating to the class how to use the brochure portion of Publisher I thought, "Do they need to know this?" What other methods could I use? (I use ppt. for a different unit.) I like the brochure idea because they look very nice and professional and the information is easy to read but is there something else I could be doing? Any ideas? Thanks.
posted by A. Bradley at 10:23 AM
3 Comments:
I think Publisher is fine for creating a printed document (there are more advanced tools, but Publisher is fine for most folks.)
I think the bigger question to ask is if a printed brochure is the best way to communicate the information you want to communicate? If the answer is yes, then go with Publisher. But if the answer is no, then you have to go back and think about what the purpose is.
I don't know enough about this assignment but, based on what you've said, I'd probably give the students more of a choice about how they want to present it, with a brochure done in Publisher (or whatever) as one option. But if they can effectively communicate the information in some other way, whether that's a video, a PowerPoint, a slideshow, or interpretive dance - let them.
3:48 PM
Andrea,
Have you tried using photo story? I used it last year in Physiology. The assignment was for students to tell a story about a specific cell in the immune system. Could your students tell a story about how the injury occurred, what tendons and ligaments are invovled and how to fix it? Don't worry if you don't have experience with photo story, I didn't either, I let the students teach me!
1:10 PM
I think that it is beneficial for our students to be exposed to several different ways of communication, whether it be written or typed...and various ways to present it.
Maybe some of them have not used Publisher in the past, and maybe they never will again. However, just being able to try new programs out and learn how to present the information differently and effectively will be useful to them in the future....whether they ever use Publisher to finalize their project again or not.
8:40 PM
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