Microsoft Project Tools

Microsoft Project Tools allows students to learn how to write papers and reports, prepare for presentations as well as how to make charts and graphs. This range of applications is firmly rooted in the directed model, where students are allowed limited choices, but given many directions. Furthermore, there are many tutorials in this specific set of tools that cannot be anything but objectivist. The options given in this area are:
• Papers & Reports: this consists of Start a Project and More Writing Tools.
Start a Project: in this subset of directions, students are given templates (that is, an example of how to do something- trying to get students to develop automaticity) for anything from writing essays to recording science projects. They are also given large number of tutorials (which are clearly direction-oriented) for the aforementioned areas as well as for creative writing and creative projects. Finally, they are given writing tools in all of the preceding categories to help further develop their writing capabilities. These range from the thesaurus to a citation guide to literary excerpts.
More Writing Tools: this section deals with writing tutorials and tools (which are found in the preceding subset), and Organizing and Brainstorming tools. The organizing and brainstorming tools have essay-plan templates for each of the four types of rhetorical modes of writing, as well as one for a literary analysis. This section is evidently objectivist.

• Presentations: this is divided into Presentation Templates, Presentation Tutorials and Writing Tools. These tools are all of the Directed Model type.
Presentation Templates: these templates cater for a wide range of subject areas, varying from book reports to controversial topics to scientific discoveries to timelines. Again, this section undoubtedly falls within the directed model.
Presentation Tutorials: this section, as its name implies, is equipped with tutorials to teach students how to prepare and execute excellent performances. They cater for both PowerPoint and Oral Presentations. The tutorials are personalized using the second person “you”, and contain reassuring phrases such as “Relax. You will do just fine.” and “You’ll do a great job on your next presentation.” It follows the path that tutorials should take, in that, they provide simple steps to do a task and provide the reinforcement that if students follow the instructions given then everything would be easy. This section is also unmistakably objectivist, due to its content.
Writing Tools: these are also found within the first section as More Writing Tools.

• Charts& Graphs: this comprises Chart& Graph Templates, Chart& Graph Tutorials and Tools& Resources. All of these tools are Objectivist.
Chart& Graph Templates: this section has templates for each of the different graph types, as well as a graph paper section for if one needs graph paper. There are six different types of graph catered for in this section. They are bar chart, line chart, pie chart, scatter plot, organization chart and Venn diagram.
Chart& Graph Tutorials: this section contains tutorials for making charts on Microsoft Word and Excel. These tutorials concise and teach the different types of charts and graphs, as well as how to create and insert them into Microsoft Word or Excel.
Tools& Resources: this section has a unit conversion tool and statistical data on the countries of the world. The unit conversion tool is useful for converting units of measurement, and the World Statistical Map has an option for one to see a country’s statistical data as it would look on a graph.
This may be the last blog for a while. I thank you for following and/or reading my Weblog entries. I leave you with a scene from Tobago.