Creating Disease Report Slide Shows

Summary

Pairs of sixth grade students will create a slide show on a pathogenic disease, detailing the disease's history, symptoms, transmission, current location, and prevention/treatments. The show is limited to 10-12 slides and must run automatically. Graphics and a bibliography are to be included.

Materials

Computers with Internet access for research and slide show presentation software. Projection of the computer screen is invaluable to demonstrate key points at all sessions.

Background for Teachers

Student Prior Knowledge

Students should know how to access the Internet.

Intended Learning Outcomes

Students will learn how to find, use and cite relevant information and graphics on the Internet. They will learn how to create an effective multimedia presentation and work cooperatively.

Instructional Procedures

1. The first 4 lab sessions should be devoted to Research and Image Gathering. Instruction on creating a folder on a network drive, evaluating a web site's content, saving images and citing sources (important!) may need to be given. Instruct students to copy the web page title, author and URL of all web sites they use into a word processing document to be used to create a bibliography with the Citation web site.

2. The next 4 lab sessions should be devoted to Slide Show Creation. Stress the importance of the quality, versus the quantity, of the information.
a. Session 1 -- Open presentation software. Select a master background. Enter text and add another slide (review types of slides). Rearrange and delete slides. Save slide show, demonstrating difference between saving the slide show and saving text only. Emphasize that shows must be saved often!
b. Session 2 -- Insert images. Continue creating slides and adding text.
c. Session 3 -- Set timing and transitions for slides. Encourage other students, unfamiliar with the topic, to read slides to check timing.
d. Session 4 -- Vary backgrounds and adjust font colors. Add animation to images and text boxes.

3. The last 2 sessions should be devoted to Fine-tuning the slide show and Creating the Bibliography. Resources should be entered into the Citation Machine web site, copied into a word processing document, highlighted and then arranged using the Sort function, and copied onto the Bibliography slide. Checking spelling, punctuation and capitalization should be emphasized.

Strategies for Diverse Learners

The final product expectations can be modified to the abilities of the student by number of slides, background variety and animation flourishes.

Assessment Plan

Students will present their slide show to the class. They will be assessed by peers using the attached sheet during the presentation. A Multimedia Rubric will be used by the student and the teacher to evaluate the quality of the project.