ICT Skills for Teachers
Using outlines to organise information (Intermediate level)
As an educator you teach your learners to organise information that they have collected for a research topic. Learners can export their ideas from a Microsoft Word document to create a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.
An outline is a easy way to collect information and organise it so that it can be used to create a document in Microsoft Word, or to create a PowerPoint presentation. You could collect ideas from a group discussion/brainstorm, or you could collect information which you find through research.
It is a good idea to use outlining so that your students do not plagiarise information from other sources. Let them do their research and collect their ideas in an outline, using their own words. The outline helps them to concentrate on ideas and the structure of those ideas, rather than on less important aspects such as graphics, animations, etc.
By the end of this task you could achieve the following outcomes:
- Use outlining tools to organise information into an information structure
- Be able to export the outline document into a presentation
- Use quick tools to enhance a presentation
- Use outlining to manage a longer document in a word processor
Create your own outline - one which you will find useful. Alternatively, follow this example. To do so you would typically work through the following steps:
| 1. | Start Microsoft Word. See how » |
| 2. | Insert text: Type any ideas you found from your discussion or research - put every idea on a new line. |
| 3. | Switch to outline view: You can see your document as an information structure in outline view. See how » |
| 4. | Identify main headings: Select 4 or 5 main ideas and promote them to Heading Level 1. See how » |
| 5. | Identify sub-headings: Identify sub-headings from your outline points and place them under the headings. See how » |
| 6. | Use the promote and demote buttons: Using these buttons enables you to move the outline items to the appropriate level. See how » |
| 7. | Export your outline to Microsoft PowerPoint: Exporting your outline to Microsoft PowerPoint format will enable you to create an instant presentation. See how » If you want to continue to work in Microsoft Word then skip the next two points and save your document. See how » |
| 8. | Use the outline tools in Microsoft PowerPoint: complete the information structure of your presentation. |
| 9. | Use formatting tool: Introduce formatting to complete your presentation. |
| 10. | Save your presentation. See how » |
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