FitMet

By Matthew Bassett

Developing Microsoft Word Handouts

Handouts are things that have become very important in my class. My goal is to eventually have at least one handout for every standard that I teach. This is a very slow process but the quality of my teaching increases with each standard that I focus on. Here are some tips for making those handouts a little more stylish.

#1: Make a Title
There are two ways to make a title for your handout. First, change the font size and the font style. Word comes with a variety of choices but you can also purchase font programs that give you extra fonts. The second way to make a title is through word art. From the insert menu, click on picture, and then click on word art. Here a box will open that shows the word art gallery. Find one of the word art styles that you like.  Just click on it and then click OK. Type in the text for the title. At this location, you can change the font style and also the font size. When you’re done you click OK.  This is when the word art box opens in the word document. You can click on the corner of the box and drag to resize the box.

#2: Insert a picture
Placing a picture into your handout makes it more visually appealing. What better way to talk about a motor skill than to have a picture of those motor skills? You can get a picture into the text from a digital picture you’ve taken on your camera, a scanned picture, or from the internet (by downloading the picture). All of these can be created by going to the insert menu and clicking on picture. If you have a picture on your computer already (digital picture of internet download) you can click on find file.  Then you will be asked to locate the file you are looking for. If you want to look for a piece of clip art you would simply click on clip art from the picture menu.

After you insert the picture you can make lots of changes to the pictures. First, double click on the picture to highlight the picture. I find that the layout is one of the most important menu items. This is where I can tell the document how I want the picture to be used. Do I want the picture in front of the text? Do I want it in line with the text? Personally, I usually pick the tight function and it allows me to move the picture wherever I want. The picture menu allows me to change the color content of the picture. Since I typically print my handouts in black and white I change the color of the picture to either black and white or grayscale. I always check to see which way looks a little nicer.

After moving the picture to its intended location I can resize the picture. By clicking on the picture one time I will see little circles around the picture. I can click on any circle and resize the picture. The circles in the corner allow me to resize both height and width in proportion to each other. This is usually my top option. The green circle at the top allows me to rotate the picture on the page so that it isn’t vertical or horizontal but diagonal.

If you right click on the picture and click on the show picture toolbar you will find a lot of new tools to work on your pictures. Here you will find buttons to change the colors, change the contrast, change the brightness of the picture, crop the picture, rotate the picture and place lines around the picture. The key is to keep making changes until the picture looks like you want it to.

#3: Create a table
Creating a table can be a great way to organize a lot of information for your students. Instead of writing in a paragraph format, you can divide the information into cells. From the table menu, click insert, and then click table. The table menu pops up for you to develop the table. Change the number of columns that you need by typing in the new number of columns. Remember, columns are the part of the table that goes up and down. Then change the number or rows, the part of the table that goes side to side. Click OK when you have finished inserting the correct number of rows and columns. The new table should appear in your word document.

To change the column (up and down) width, click on one of the vertical lines in the document. When your cursor changes from the arrow to a line with two different arrows (pointing away from each other), then you can click and drag the line to the desired location. You can make the table bigger or smaller or make one column bigger or smaller. If you have two columns that you want to make the same size, just highlight the columns by clicking your mouse and dragging the mouse across the affected columns. Then right click on the highlighted area before clicking on distribute columns evenly. If you find that you’ve forgotten a column or need to add a row, you can highlight either a row or column and right click. You will find the add column or add row button in the menu.

With a little work and practice you can be making some wonderful handouts for your students. I’ve used handouts for general information about motor skills, fitness skills, fitness concepts and peer evaluation forms. Adding in some style can help take a boring handout into a visually appealing handout. Be creative while working with your handouts. You can always sketch one out on a blank piece of paper before starting your word version. Remember, when you get into trouble and you’re not sure what you just did, control-V (undelete) is your friend! Until next time!