Desktop Publishing Skills and Understanding (By Phil Bagge @baggiepr) Main Digital Literacy Planning

Remember if I am teaching at your school and you are stuck for ideas if you email me a copy of your planning and indicate which skills you need to cover I will come up with activity ideas. Please give me a weeks’ notice for this.

Skill or Understanding	Skill or Understanding Expanded	Example and Resource Links	Possible Activities	Possible Activities
Create a simple text box		Video	Price labels Adjectives list Verb list Display Labels Any list of objects In many different fonts and text colours. One text box per item. What font works best? Give words to SEN pupils Video
Are pupils secure with basic text creation and manipulation?	Pupils need to have covered the yellow highlighted basic KS skills from Word Processing Skills and Understanding. These can be taught within publisher instead although the natural place to teach them is within Word-processing.
Resize a text box	Text boxes can be resized by left clicking and dragging one of the manipulation points on the corners or sides of the box	Video
Rotate a text box	Know that a text box can be rotated by moving the cursor over the green spot on a stalk at the top of the box	Video
Format a text box	Right click and adjust the border and background colour and border line thickness	Video
Move a text box or any other object around the page	If you hover the cursor over a side away from a manipulation point and left click and hold you can drag the box to any part of the page or off the page to be saved for later	Video		Find the best clip art to go with a topic of your choice. Give pupils help in what words to search under. Arrange all clip art to cover the whole page Vote on the best ones as a class by looking at each other’s screens and standing by one you like most.
Multiple Text boxes and other objects on any page	Understand that you can have many objects on a page and you can rearrange them to create the best style. Understand that it is not good practice to overlap text boxes on a page.
Search for, insert and manipulate Clip Art	Know how to search for Clip Art, understanding that correct spelling is important. Know that clip art can be moved and resized in the same way as a text box	Video
Deleting a text box, clip art or other objects	Left clicking on the object you wish to delete and press delete (Del) on the keyboard
Insert picture from file	Know how to insert a picture saved somewhere in your documents. Understand that you can use any picture if you are only going to publish your work for yourself or friends but that if you are going to publish on the Web you need permission to use someone else’s picture.	Video	Combine images from a trip or class activity that pupils can all access with simple descriptions created using Word Art. Can pupils find best place on the photo to overlay their Word Art? Video
Inserting and manipulating Word Art	If Word Processing skills have been done already then this should have been covered	Video
Insert Shapes	Know how to insert shapes and combine them with text boxes to emphasise text.	Video	Create a logo or shield this could be linked to a topic or could be a personal logo/shield. Video
Format Shapes	Know how to change the basic form of the shape using the yellow adjusting diamond if available. Know how to change the border colour and fill colour of the shape.	Video
Grouping and un-grouping objects	Know how to group objects once you have arranged them as you want them	Video
Selecting, copying and pasting objects or groups of objects	Either left clicking multiple objects while holding down control (ctrl) on the keyboard or dragging a box over all of the objects you wish to select at the same time before copying and pasting	Video
Layering objects	Some objects such as shapes and clip art/text work well together but may need to be layered. Use two pieces of paper to illustrate that objects on your Publisher page have depth and can be arranged in front or behind each other.	Video
Inserting a table	Know how to create a table	Video	Tables are a great way of seeing if pupils understand what you have taught in other areas of the curriculum. e.g. Shapes in Maths with properties as columns.
Know how to format a table	Know how to add a border to a table. Know how to change the background colour of a cell or the whole table. Using a pre-set table style.	Video
Know how to mail merge	Know how to mail merge using an Excel document for information.	Video	Worth linking with Spread Sheet Work