Microsoft Publisher

Project Name:
Traveling to India!

Description of Learning Goals and Standards:
Grade Level: 5-12. The students will learn how to present information for visiting a particular country by producing a newsletter using Microsoft Publisher. Students will learn how to arrange valuable information about the country that will help someone that is traveling to that country. Students will use technology to produce a newsletter that presents their findings.
QCC’S:
8. Topic: Productivity
Standard: Uses multimedia tools to express ideas.
13. Topic: Research
Standard: Uses basic research techniques with teacher guidance.
17. Topic: Physical Characteristics
Standard: Identifies the physical characteristics of a place. (Land forms, climates)
33. Topic: Cultural Characteristics
Standard: Identifies the cultural characteristics of a region (e.g., South Asia: diversity of languages, Hinduism, Buddhism, the "Indianization of South Asia," Islam, European imperialism, nationalism, partition of India, ethnic conflict, and developing countries).

Rationale for Technology: Technology plays an immense role in this activity. Students will get most of their research from the internet, and will use multimedia tools to complete their newsletter. The technology in this lesson helps the student’s finished product have a nice presentation. Using Microsoft Publisher to create their newsletter allows them to format and design their final product. The advantage of using technology in the lesson is the wide range of information that the students can gather about their country and the program that they use to put the information together. I don’t see this goal as a disadvantage because it will help the students learn more about using technology to their advantage.

Description of Lesson Implementation: The lesson would start off with the teacher teaching the basic skills needed for using Microsoft Publisher. This will take about two or three lesson for the students to have a basic understanding of the program. Continuing the students learning about geography and different countries, the students will choose a state, country, region or continent to focus on. They will need to research their place and gather such information as, the history, culture, and the environment, where to stay, and some travel facts. The students will condense their findings and create a newsletter that someone can read. The newsletter should provide important information that someone could use if they are visiting that country in the future. Once completed, the students will make an extra copy of their newsletter. In class, the students will swap newsletter with a partner. Once that partner is done reading the newsletter, they must write a review of the newsletter. The review will state whether or not they thought it provided enough information, what sounds exciting to them about the place they read about, and if they would like to visit that place based on the newsletter they read. The teacher could then publish those critics into a class newsletter and pass it out to the students.

Assessment: In order to measure the students learning of the project, they must make a newsletter that contains three to four pages, at least three pictures, and have articles that contain the history, culture, where to stay, and the environment, and travel facts about their place. The students will also be evaluated on the critic they wrote about a classmate. The critic must answer the questions that were given, and written in a friendly way as no to hurt anyone’s feelings.

Other Places to Use this Solution: The teacher could pair up with another teacher in the same grade level, and have both their classes create newsletters. One teacher could have her class focus on a particular region and its country and the other teacher can focus on the opposite region so that more than one student doesn’t do the same country. Once completed, they can switch newsletter with each other and critic someone’s newsletter from a different class.

References/Resources Used:
A Traveler’s History of India
By: Sinharaja Tammita-Delgoda
3rd Edition Copyright 2003

Lonely Planet World Guide
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/destinations/indian_subcontinent/india/