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Welcome to In and Out of the Classroom with Microsoft Office 2000 Professional, a practical guide for educators. Microsoft Office 2000 Professional is a suite of programs that lets you create and manage written materials, publications, data bases, spreadsheets, and Web pages for use with your students or on your own. When you need to create a test, make a research presentation, help students collect data, or schedule resources, Office 2000 gives you tools to work more productively.
The following are components of Office 2000 Professional:
· Microsoft Word 2000 provides everything you and your students need to produce professional-looking documents, communicate your ideas, and share information with others.
· Microsoft Excel 2000 makes it easy for you and your students to build spreadsheets and then use, share, and analyze the data, as well as provide reports and present the data graphically.
· Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 allows you to organize, illustrate, and present your ideas in a multimedia presentation. It gives you the tools to communicate with impact, whether in the classroom, to parents, or to colleagues.
· Microsoft Outlook 2000 provides an integrated desktop for you and your students to use to contact other students, parents, and colleagues and to organize and manage your e-mail correspondence, calendar, contacts, and tasks.
· Microsoft Access 2000 lets you develop and use databases to store, manipulate, and share information.
· Microsoft Publisher 2000 helps you create eye-catching newsletters, flyers, brochures, programs, and Web sites. Publisher 2000 complements writing and learning activities in your classroom and can help you expand the visibility of school events and activities.
Microsoft Office 2000 Professional is the exciting new productivity suite that makes the Web work for students and educators to enhance learning and increase productivity. In today's classrooms, doing research, collecting data, collaborating with peers, compiling results, and synthesizing information into interactive presentations are activities important to increasing critical thinking skills. With new tools to enhance collaboration and information access, Office 2000 is the right tool for the classroom and the administrative office.
What's in this book
In and Out of the Classroom with Microsoft Office 2000 Professional is written to help educators use the Microsoft Office suite and offers tips and suggestions for how Office works in different teaching and learning environments. The following pages offer self-guided activities to help you use Microsoft Office 2000 as both a teaching tool and a productivity tool.
Working with the activities
This guide assumes some basic knowledge of the Microsoft Windows operating system. If you are a new Windows user, you may want to refer to In and Out of the Classroom with Windows 95 or In and Out of the Classroom with Windows 98. These workbooks can be downloaded from the Microsoft Corporation education Web site at the following address:
http://www.microsoft.com/education
In each chapter of this book, you will find the following headings:
· What you will do lists objectives for each chapter.
· New for 2000 introduces users to the features added in this release of the Office Suite.
· Exploring shows you the desktop for each component of Office 2000.
· Putting it together includes ideas for using the features of Office 2000 in the classroom. These ideas build on the activities in each chapter.
If at any time you would like more information about a topic, you can ask the Office Assistant in any Office 2000 program. For more information, see “Working Better in Office 2000” in the Office 2000 Professional Overview chapter of this book.
The Accessibility icon highlights features of Office 2000 that make the computer more accessible for people with disabilities.
The Work better icon features tips and tricks for using Office 2000.
The New for 2000 icon points out new features to users who have used previous versions of Microsoft Office.
Conventions
The procedures given in this book use the following conventions:
· “Click” means to use the mouse to point to an area on the screen and press the left (primary) mouse button, unless the right (secondary) mouse button is specified.
· Commands are in bold type. For example, “click Next“ means to place the cursor over the “Next“ button and click.
· Information you are to type is in italics.
· Some activities use shortcut keys, which are keystroke combinations that help you use the software more productively. The CTRL (for control) and the TAB keys are examples of key names commonly used in shortcut keys. When the directions specify CTRL+N, hold down the CTRL key, and then press the N key.
Before you begin
Before you begin the activities in this book, make sure that Microsoft Office 2000 Professional has been installed on your computer and is operating correctly. If you encounter problems during the activities or are unable to complete some activities as a result of network security, contact your technology coordinator or system administrator to assist you.
To install Office 2000, you must have the following:
· Personal or multimedia computer with a 90 MHz Pentium processor or faster
· Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows NT 4.0
· 32 MB of RAM (minimum)
· 400 MB hard disk (minimum)
· CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive
· VGA or higher-resolution video adapter (Super VGA, 256-color recommended)
· Microsoft Mouse, Microsoft IntelliMouse®, or compatible pointing device
Also required for some activities:
· Network connection and modem
· Access to the Internet through a service provider
· A sound card with speakers or USB speakers