A new section of each course starts monthly. If enrolling in a series of two or
more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two
months apart.
All courses run for six weeks, with a two-week grace period at the end. Two lessons
are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. You do not have
to be present when lessons are released. You will have access to all lessons until
the course ends. However, the interactive discussion area that accompanies each
lesson will automatically close two weeks after the lesson is released. As such,
we strongly recommend that you complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.
The final exam will be released on the same day as the last lesson. Once the final
exam has been released, you will have two weeks to complete all of your course work,
including the final exam.
Week One
Wednesday - Lesson 01
In our first lesson, we'll start by exploring the basic features of Microsoft PowerPoint 2007. You'll get familiar with the new Ribbon, which replaces the menu and toolbars most Windows programs have used until now. You'll also learn how to plan a presentation and work with different views, task panes, tabs, and templates.
Friday - Lesson 02
Now that you know the basics of PowerPoint, you can create a presentation from scratch. So we'll start today by choosing a PowerPoint theme from the Design tab on the Ribbon to add color to your presentation. Then you'll select a layout for your first few slides. You'll discover the new Live Preview feature, and we'll discuss the two things you need to do to save a file so you know where to find it later. Finally, we'll go over the different ways to put on a slide show.
Week Two
Wednesday - Lesson 03
You'll find that there is usually more than one way to perform a task in PowerPoint. In this lesson, we'll explore multiple ways to open a presentation. Then you'll see how to open a file and save it with a different name. Chances are you'll need to edit the text on your slides, so we'll use the Outline tab to work with text. You'll also learn how to create and edit tables and work with the Table Tools contextual tab and the Design and Layout tabs.
Friday - Lesson 04
No program is complete without a Spell Checker, and today you'll discover how to use this feature in PowerPoint. We'll also explore the AutoCorrect feature, which you can use along with the Spell Checker to check the spelling of your presentations. After that, we'll cover the Research task pane and the Thesaurus, all found in the Review tab's Proofing group. And then you'll learn all about the options in the Print dialog box including how to print slides, handouts, an outline, and notes. I'm sure you'll be surprised to see how the Print dialog box in PowerPoint is different from the print feature in other programs.
Week Three
Wednesday - Lesson 05
We're going to switch gears in this lesson and work with images instead of text. You'll find out how to embellish your slides with media clips, which could be a piece of clip art, a photograph, a movie, or a sound clip. You'll even learn how to download an image from a Web site and insert it on a slide. We'll spend a lot of time talking about the Clip Art task pane, which is the tool you'll use to organize, search for, and insert media clips on your slides.
Friday - Lesson 06
I hope you like to draw, because that's what we'll be doing in this lesson. The good news is that you don't have to be an artist to use the WordArt and Shape tools to draw shapes on your slide. With the WordArt feature, you transform your text into an object that you can design with color, texture, patterns, or just about anything you like. With the Shapes tool, you can draw all kinds of shapes including lines and connectors, a smiley face, a crescent moon, stars, banners, block arrows, flow chart symbols, callouts, and more! You can format these Shape objects with color and texture just like you format WordArt objects. We'll also discuss SmartArt graphics, a new feature in PowerPoint 2007. With the SmartArt feature, you can use graphics to add visual interest to your slides. Finally, we'll delve into editing WordArt and SmartArt graphics.
Week Four
Wednesday - Lesson 07
Today, you'll learn how to create and edit chart slides to illustrate statistical data. Even if you don't like working with math and numbers, you don't need to worry because we'll walk through everything you need to do and know to create a chart slide. If you've used a spreadsheet program, such as Microsoft Excel, creating chart slides in PowerPoint will be a breeze. And although you're working with numbers and math, you'll find that you can still be creative with your charts by changing the options with Shape Fill, Shape Outline, and Shape Effects on the Shape Styles group.
Friday - Lesson 08
In this lesson, we'll explore ways to change a presentation's look with masters, color schemes, and backgrounds. You use Masters to make global changes to your slides, handouts, and notes. For example, if you want to increase or decrease the font size of the text on all the slides in a presentation, make the change on the slide master. Another global change you can make to a presentation is to modify the theme colors or background. You'll get a chance to work with both of these options today.
Week Five
Wednesday - Lesson 09
Today, we'll delve into PowerPoint's hyperlink feature, which allows you to create links in a presentation that jump to other slides, other presentations, other documents, or to Web pages. You can make links out of either text or objects. In fact, PowerPoint has its own version of hyperlinks called Action buttons. You draw an Action button on a slide with your mouse, and then instruct PowerPoint where to link to. You can add interest to your Action buttons by changing their color and making them three-dimensional. In addition, you can associate a sound or other action that initiates when you click an Action button.
Friday - Lesson 10
This lesson is all about animation. First, you'll learn about slide transitions--an animated effect that occurs when a new slide appears. For example, a slide might fly in from the top or push up from the bottom. After covering slide transitions, we'll explore how to apply animation to the text and objects on your slides.
Week Six
Wednesday - Lesson 11
Today, we'll explore custom animation--a feature that helps you apply animation to text and objects on individual slides. The Custom Animation task pane allows you to customize the animation on any slide. You'll learn how to use the Custom Animation task pane to add and reorder animated text and objects on a slide and to add sound effects and music to your presentation.
Friday - Lesson 12
In this last lesson, you'll discover how to save a PowerPoint presentation as a Web page and view it online. We'll also explore the Package for CD command on PowerPoint's Office menu, which allows you to save a PowerPoint presentation on a CD.