MATERIAL GENERATORS

Material generators include test generators, individualized education program (IEP) generators, graphic document makers, wooksheet and puzzle generators, PDF and form makers and desktop publishing software. My main focus is to inform you about desktop publishing software.

Desktop Publishing Software

This software allows teachers and students to design elaborated printed products and the publishing tools give them an important advantage of complete control over a potentially powerful form of communication. This control is defined as desktop publishing (M.D., Roblyer).

Desktop publishing allows you to mix text and graphics on each new page and can be done using the word processing software. It can be used to produce classroom brochures, newsletters, flyers and posters. There is a more advanced layout feature offered by the desktop publishing software which can be used only if the teacher is teaching students to design and lay out large, complex documents such as newspapers, books and booklets, magazines.

Benefits for desktop publishing includes increases in children's self- esteem when they publish their own work, heightened intrest in writing and motivation to write for audiences outside the classroom and improved learning through small group collaboration. There are a few classroom examples that you can implement into the classroom. They are:

• Allow the students to create an attractive flyer or a brochure with intresting communication. This task will allow the students to develop their grammar, spelling amd communication skills.


• Encourage students to develop their creative side by allowing them to create their own personal books. These can be sold at fund raisers and will be very motivating to them.

Some websites that can be used to assist teachers with desktop publishing are:

• Microsoft Publisher
• Adobe In Design and Page Maker
• Quark Express

These websites are according to M.D., Roblyer,2006.

The following is a video that you can use to help you better understand how desktop publishing works.

Desktop Publishing.

GRAPHIC TOOLS

Have you ever wondered what are graphic tools? Well I can let
you know what I understand about them.

Graphic tools include a number of application that can be used in the classroom. These applications can also be used privately. Some graphic tools include draw/paint programs, image editing tools, charting and graphing tools, clip art, photo and animations.

The graphic tools mentioned can be very useful in the classroom. It will ensure the accuracy of data in terms of the charting and graphing tools. The other programs will make the lessons very interesting and enjoyable. These programs will alllow the students to be very interactive with each other while being very productive.

The program that caught my attention was the graphing and charting tools. This program will ease the teacher and the student from the traditional chart and graph making that demanded manual labour and loads of material. When using the graphing and charting tools you only need the required data and paper if you need to print the chart. the chart can be displayed from a projector if desired. If you lack artistic ability then this is the ideal program for you. The software will allow you to choose the format for your chart and they will design it.

Graphing activities in science, social- studies and geography are a few subject areas that will profit from software graphing and charting tools (M.D. Roblyer,2006). A very useful software that can be used in the classroom to assist students in creating charts is the Advance Grapher. For more details on graphing and charting tools you can follow this link to charts.