Creating the FACTBOOK Template

Creating the FACTBOOK Template

What would your facebook page look like if you were Alexander the Great? Or Tsar Nicholas II? Or John F. Kennedy?

Students are motivated to conduct research on historical figures or events when put in the context of their lives and when THEIR everyday technologies are leveraged to our benefit.

You can create a FACTBOOK template in PowerPoint to share with your students. The template will look and act like a webpage when completed and viewed in SlideShow View. You must use Action Buttons and Settings to accomplish this.

It is recommended that your students are familiar with Action Buttons and Settings as well, in case they want to customize the template, add new pages and content, etc.

Here is how to create the FACTBOOK template to use with your students:
*** If you know how to create it, you will know how to edit the one provided!***

1. Open PowerPoint and create a new presentation (Blank Presentation).

2. Change the Layout of the slide by going to Layout>Slide Layout and choosing Blank.

3. Layout the home page in the manner you like. You can use text boxes, shapes, clip art, images downloaded from the Internet, or screen shots of an actual FACEBOOK page. (For instructions on taking screen shots, see last page of the handout.)

4. At the bottom right of the first page, add an Action Button. These are found in Shapes (or AutoShapes in older versions of PowerPoint). The button you will add is the one that is pointing to the right, to advance to the next page.

5. When you add this button, it will open up a dialog box (shown below)that will indicate that when the button is clicked, the slide will advance to the next slide. Click OK.

6.
You can customize the Action Button by right-clicking on it and choosing “Format Shape.” From the choices, you can change the fill color, line style and color, shadow, etc. Right click again to change the size of the button. Move the button to the location that you choose (lower right hand corner is best)

7. Add another Action Button. This time add the one that points to the left and goes to the Previous Page. Customize as in the steps above.

8. Add any other items to the page that you want, for instance, the FACTBOOK header, the sidebar with Information, Friends, etc.

9. Add a rectangle on the left side for the person’s Profile Picture. Just draw a rectangle and format it so that the background fill is white and there is a thin black line around it so that the student can see where to insert the picture.

10. Before you make the text on the header “clickable,” you’ll duplicate this slide as many times as the number of slides you will have in your finished file. For example, if you want students to have 3 pages of “Wall” entries, one page of Friends, one of Photos and one Profile page, then you will duplicate this slide 6 times. To duplicate a slide, choose its thumbnail on the left side of the screen, right click and choose Duplicate. You will have 7 identical slides if you duplicate 6 times.

11. Customize each slide as needed. For example, if you want three pages of “Wall” entries, you would add a text box at the top of that page and add the word Wall 1, or Wall 2 or Wall 3 to those three pages. Add Friends to one of the pages, Photos to another, and add Profile to another.

12. Add the appropriate items to each page. (The students will fill in the missing information.)

13. To make text on the header “clickable,” so that when you click on it, you’ll be taken to another page, you need to add transparent buttons, as outlined in the next few steps.

14. On the first slide, click Insert Shape but this times choose a rectangle. Draw it on the template, covering the text that you want to be “clickable.” Once it’s on the text, choose Format Shape again and as Fill Color select “No Fill” and for Line Color select “No Line.” When the you click OK the object will still be selected and you will see the resizing “handles.” If the object becomes deselected, you will not see it and will have to click around to find it again.

15.
With the object selected, choose Insert, Action. You will see the box below. Click the Hyperlink button and then using the drop down menu choose Slide and the slide that you want to link to. For instance, if you put the box on the first slide and had chosen the “Home” button, you want this to always link to the home page so choose Slide 1. Click OK.

16. With this still highlighted (selected), right click and Copy. Click on Slide 2 and then right click and Paste. It will put this Action Button on that slide, probably right where you want it to be. If it’s not right on the text that is clickable, move it with your arrow keys. Repeat that for each slide that links to the home page.

17. Do the same thing for each other piece of text. Make sure you know which slide has what content on it so that your file will be properly linked.

18. To test that your template works, go to the first page and Choose Slide Show>From Beginning. If you have not put different information on each slide yet, you will not be able to tell when you go from slide to slide.

19.
Now go and customize each slide to provide the data that you want students to complete. For each item you want students to add, put a text box on the page and type into that box the type of information that you want. For instance, for Wall messages, put a text box on the page and type into it, “Type your wall message here,” as shown below. The students will then replace that text with their own text. Students can add their own text boxes as well. If you want to cover up a piece of text already on the image, insert a text box and then select it, right click and choose Format. Then choose white as the fill color. This will serve to cover up the existing text and students will be able to type their own.

20. After you have added your Action Buttons and text boxes, check again that everything links correctly. On the first slide you will want to delete the button that goes to the Previous slide and on the last slide you will want to delete the button that goes to the Next slide.

21. The last step is to change the way that the slides progress from one to another. By default, slides in PowerPoint progress from one to the next in sequence when you click on them. In this case, we want ONLY the buttons to advance to a different slide according to the Action Settings we have set up with our buttons.

22. Go to View> Slide Sorter View.

23. To select all slides, press the Control (Ctrl key) plus the A key. All slides should be selected. You can tell because there will be a border around them.

24. Go to Animations and on the right, UNCHECK “On Mouse Click” under the Advance Slide Option.

25. Now choose Slide Show>From Beginning and the slide show should advance ONLY when you click the Action Buttons in the corners or the clickable text on the slides.

Lesson Ideas & Tips:

· Set clear parameters in your assignment. For example, require a minimum number of “friends” and be sure that some are adversaries.

· Have students cite all sources and images on the last page of the template or on another sheet of paper to hand in.

· Students may make up a fictional character, but one who is living in a given time frame or era, or during a war or other historical event.

· Stress proper grammar and spelling.

· Require the use of vocabulary terms.

· Specify how many and what type of sources the students can use.

Taking Screen Shots of Webpages

· On a Mac computer: Hold down the Command, Shift and 4 keys simultaneously and your cursor will become a cross hair. Make a selection on the screen and when you release the mouse, the image will be on your desktop. It will be called Picture1.

· If you have SMART Notebook Software: Open the program SMART Notebook and click on the Capture icon on the toolbar (the camera). The Screen Capture toolbar will appear. Open the webpage that you want to capture (all or part of it). Use the first icon to on the Screen Capture toolbar to make a selection. That selection will be placed in SMART Notebook software. You can then copy and paste it into PowerPoint, Word, etc.

·
On a PC without using SMART Notebook: Get the webpage up on the screen. Hit the Alt+PrntScrn button. Then go back to Word or PowerPoint and right click and Paste. You can then crop out the parts that you don’t want using the Crop tool. (The Crop tool can be found in the Format menu. Note that the image must be selected first in order for this menu item to appear. The Crop tool is in the upper right part of the screen.)

NOTE: These instructions were written using PowerPoint 2007. Many functions are different using earlier versions of the software.

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