Lesson video

Welcome to lesson one of Gaining support for a cause.

Now, in this unit, you're going to change the world, and you're going to do that by creating a blog post about a cause that you feel really passionate about.

Now, in this lesson, we'll get started, and we'll learn how to pick the right software for the right job.

We'll also look at common software applications and tools that we can use across many different software that will help us format a document.

So all you'll need for today's lesson is a laptop and a web browser, and other than that, if you can clear away any distractions that you might have, and you've got a nice, quiet place to work, that'd be brilliant.

And when you're ready, let's get started.

So in this lesson, you will select appropriate software for a task.

You'll identify key features of a word processor, and you'll be able to apply those features to format a document.

And then you're going to evaluate the formatting techniques that you've learned about in this lesson.

So let's start off with a task.

So the first task is for you to head over to your worksheet, and on your worksheet, you'll see a table which has lots of definitions of different types of software.

All you've got to do is match the software description with the name of the software, as well as the icon that you think might be most suitable to that software.

Okay, so if you head over to your worksheet, have a go at that activity.

Spend about five minutes on it.

So pause this video, and when you've completed that, then we'll move on with the next part of the lesson.

Okay, so hopefully you've completed that by now.

So we'll go through each one in turn, and you can tell me whether or not you got it right.

Okay, so the first one was I am made up of rows, columns, and cells.

Used mainly for holding formulas to automatically complete calculations.

Okay, so which one do you think that was? So shout it out to me.

So three, two, one, it is spreadsheet software.

Okay, so and the icon for that tends to be.

It looks a little bit like this.

This is a generic software icon.

So you might see something that looks similar to that.

So a real-world use for a spreadsheet.

What I've written down is that a building company would use this software to add in all the materials and costs for a project in order to give their invoice/bill to the customer.

Of course, there are lots of different uses a spreadsheet, but the key point there is it's being used to put numbers in to do some formulas and do some calculations.

So real-life use of that might be a building company or any kind of business wanting to keep a track of their accounts and the money that they are bringing in, or maybe to invoice or bill some customers.

Okay, so the next one then.

I'm a modern-day typewriter used for typing text and changing the appearance of text, such as making text bold or changing colour.

Okay, so again, shout that out to me.

So three, two, one, it is word processing software.

Okay, and again, a kind of common icon might look a little bit like that because it looks like maybe a page that you'll write on because word processing software is meant to be the electronic equivalent to actually hand writing with using pen and paper.

Okay, so a real-world example would be a supermarket using this software to write a letter to their customers to let them know some new offers that they have in store.

Okay, so next one then.

So this one's a bit longer.

So software that allows you to read and compose electronic messages that are sent between recipients across the network, usually the internet, but it doesn't have to be the internet.

You can send messages to multiple people at the same time and include attachments, such as files for people to open, read, or edit.

Okay, so this is, three, two, one, it is email software.

Okay, and the icon looked a bit like an envelope because, again, this is the equivalent to sending a letter, the electronic equivalent to writing and posting a letter.

Email is the electronic equivalent, only we can do a little bit more with an email.

For example, normal post is called snail mail, which means it's really slow because it can take a day at least to send a letter to somebody, whereas email is instant, so the second you sent it, it can arrive straight away to the recipient's inbox.

And we can also do other stuff there, such as include attachments or send that same copy of that letter by email to multiple people at the same time.

So an example of that would be a teacher using the software to send homework as an attachment to all members of their class.

So each member of the class would then have their own copy of the worksheet.

Okay, so moving on.

So software that allows you to create or edit images, such as, this includes, sorry, tools such as overlaying text, cropping, and recoloring.

So three, two, one, this is image editing software.

Okay, and the icon might look something like that.

Okay, so you can see that is an image that's on the icon.

So a real-world use would be maybe a publisher using the software to create the front page of their magazine.

Okay, so they might've got some photographs from the photographer, and they might want to just move it around slightly so they can fit it on a front cover of a magazine.

Okay, so next one then.

Software that allows you to present information in the form of a slideshow.

The presenter would use this to provide a visual aid to support what they're saying.

Okay, so we're running out of options now.

You really haven't got that many left.

So three, two, one, this is presentation software, okay.

And the icon might look something like that because, again, presentation software you use to kind of aid the presentation, aid the things that you're talking about, just like I am doing now.

Okay, and a real-world use would be, for example, a history teacher would use this software to show examples of castles so that learners can understand key parts of the castle that the teacher is discussing.

Okay, and then finally, software that creates webpages, websites without you having to write code.

So you can write, edit, and position text, add images, and embed videos, and the software will write the required code for it.

Okay, so this is, three, two, one, it is web authoring software.

Okay, and you might have an icon that looks like the different types of web browsers that you might have come across.

Okay, so a real-world use is a start-up business would use the software to build a website to promote their services and display their contact details.

So again, this software is really nice because it enables you to not have to know so many, not have to be aware of how to write in HTML, the coding language behind the web, but it allows you to just use normal kind of drag and drop tools, and the software will do that coding for you.

Okay, so now you've done all that, you should be prepared to play my game of Guess Who: Software Edition.

Now, I'm going to tell you the rules, okay? Now, I'm going to give you some clues about what software I'm talking about, and it's going to be one of the software that you can see on the screen there.

So it could be spreadsheet software, presentation software, email software, word processing software, image editing software, or web authoring software.

Okay, now, you're going to get a set of clues.

Now, the key is that you can guess after whichever clue you like, but you only get one guess.

So if you guess it after the first clue, you get five points.

After the second clue, you get four points.

After the third clue, you get three points.

After the fourth clue, two points.

Or if there's a fifth clues, it's also two points.

However, if you guess after the first one or second one and you've got it wrong, you get minus five points.

So it's really important that you don't guess too early.

You got to be pretty confident that you're getting it right.

Okay, so you got to score yourself.

So here we go.

So we'll do the first one.

So we got three ones to guess, and the first one has five clues.

So let's get going.

So game number one, clue number one as well.

Okay, you can use me to add text.

Okay, clue number two.

You wouldn't use me to add numbers together.

Does that rule any out? Okay, number three, you can use me to animate text.

Number four, you can embed videos in me.

Have you got it yet? One more clue to come.

This is your last chance if you haven't guessed already.

Number five, I am made up of multiple slides.

Okay, so hopefully that was the giveaway, that last one.

Let's see how many points you've got.

Well, you've got to make sure you're right first, so let's have a look.

So I am.

Let's see who is.

Right, there goes spreadsheets.

There goes image, email, web authoring, web processor.

It's presentation software.

So did you get that? All right, so what have you got? See if you can keep a mental note of the score that you got for that, okay.

So next one, game number two of three.

So game two.

So this is question number one, or clue number one, sorry.

You can use me to underline text.

Be quite a few of them, right? Okay, number two.

For me to work properly, I need a network, usually the internet.

Remember, not only the internet.

Doesn't have to be the internet, but usually the internet.

That might be a giveaway if you can remember the first part of your task for today's lesson.

Okay, next one, you could use me to send a message with an attachment to multiple people at the same time.

Okay, so that's the end of your clues.

Hopefully, if you haven't got anything yet, write something down, or think of something, sorry.

Think about how many points that might mean for you.

So let's see who it was.

Who's going to disappear this time? So it's presentation spreadsheet's gone.

Web authoring's gone.

Image gone.

Word processing's not gone.

It should've done.

There we go, it's gone now.

Okay, just taking its time.

Okay, and therefore the answer was email software.

Okay, so again, whatever score you got for that one, add it or minus it from your previous game.

We'll move on to the final game, okay.

Right, so game number three is your chance to really rack your score.

So clue number one, you don't need a network or the internet for me to work.

Does that rule out any? Okay, you could use me to make a table.

Again, maybe start to rule out some here.

You could use me to present graphs.

Okay, we're starting to maybe get a clue.

I think this is the last one.

You would use me to automatically work out calculations using formulas.

Okay, so what did you guess, and when did you get it? Right, so let's see who it is this time then.

So the last one then.

I am.

It's not image.

It's not presentation, not email.

It's not word processing.

It's not web authoring.

It, of course, was spreadsheet software.

Okay, so well done on that.

See if you can add up your score or take it.

Hopefully you got a positive score.

And then maybe you could share that with us later on and let us know what score you got.

Okay, so let's go to the next part of the lesson, word processing.

Okay, so I've got three questions now that I'd like you to pause the video in a moment and just spend a little bit of time trying to formulate an answer.

So those three questions are, first of all, what is the purpose of a word processor? So that's question number one.

Question number two is what does the term formatting mean? And question number three, can you name three tools that all word processors have that allow you to format a document? Okay, so pause the video.

See if you can come up with some answers, and we'll go through the answers in a moment.

Okay, so the first question is what is the purpose of a word processor? Well, really the purpose of a word processor is to process words, but to replace the way we used to do it by hand when we used to get a pen and paper and write, have to write out letters.

So when we write out things by hand, and I'm sure we've all done it, we make mistakes.

And that can look a little bit messy.

So sometimes we have to cross things out or get some kind of eraser out and rub it out and write it again.

So then we kind of developed something else that was called a typewriter.

Now, a typewriter was a mechanical device that you used to be able, with a keyboard, much like the keyboard you've got in front of you now, you used to type out letters.

And it used to put an arm on you to print letters on the page.

Now, the thing that was good about that is it made it look nice and neat, and anybody could read it.

But again, it didn't solve the problem of making mistakes.

If you made a mistake when you typed something out on the keyboard on a typewriter, then you'd have to, again, you'd have to erase it out and maybe type the letter again.

So that could be a bit slow and time-consuming.

Well, the advantage of an electronic word processor is that we can type something out on a keyboard relatively quickly, but also we can go back and correct our mistakes and also make the document look exactly how we want it to.

So what does the term formatting mean? Well, formatting means changing the appearance of a document.

So again, a word processor really allows us to do that.

It allows us to change the appearance.

So again, can you think of three tools that all word processors have that allow you to format a document? Are there any tools that you might have thought of that allow us to change the appearance, such as maybe changing the font? But that's what our next exercise is going to be about.

So what I'd like you to do is go back to your worksheet and go to task two.

Now, ideally, you'd have a word processor to help you do this.

So if you've got a Google account, or if you haven't got a Google account, if you ask your parents or carers to create you a Google account, and you can use Google Docs.

But maybe you might have something like Microsoft Word installed on your computer, and you could use that.

So the task requires you to look at the icons that I've put on the task sheet, and I'd like you to go through each one and see if you can work out what each one does.

Okay, so if you pause the video, have a go at that, and when you've unpaused, we'll go through the answers.

Okay, so let's go through the answers for task two now.

Okay, so you were faced with a table like this which has some gaps in it.

Mine's got some completed words in there.

So the first one, you were given that icon here that you can see which is the B on the top left-hand side.

And the tool name for that was bold.

Now, a little tip for you on using any kind of software.

If there's an icon like this, what you can do is you can move your mouse over the top of it, just hover your mouse with it without clicking, and quite often a little box will appear, and it will show you what that does.

So if you're struggling with that, you can, just any icon, or you're not sure what any icon does, just hover your mouse over the top of that, and it might give you a brief description about what that tool does.

Okay, so that was bold.

Now, what that does, it changes the text to be bold, and what that means, it makes it thicker and more noticeable.

And you can see here where I've written, "Changes the text to bold," that's exactly what I've done there.

Those words there have been made bold.

So you can see the way they stand out, and maybe highlight something to.

You might want to do that to make something maybe more noticeable or to highlight that it's more important.

Okay, so the next one, you saw that little box it had, the word Arial in it.

Now, that was changing the font, so the font style.

And that just changes the way the text looks, okay.

So on the right-hand side, it allows you to change the style/appearance of the text.

And you can see there, this one, this text looks different to the other ones because I've changed the font.

The next one was align centre or centre align.

Now, there are different types of alignments.

You can get align left, you can get centre, you can get right, and you can get justify.

So why don't you have a little play with all of those and see what the different is between them? But centre align moves the text so that it is in the middle of the page, rather than having the margin on the left or right-hand side of the page.

So again, you can see in the first two boxes, they're all be default.

They're aligned to the left-hand side of the box.

But in this box here where it says, "Moves the text so it is in the middle of the page," it's actually been moved so all the text fits the box, but the text has gone down the middle of it.

Okay, and the next one is text colour.

So this will be changing the colour of the text or the font.

So that allows you to change the colour of the text.

And you can see what I've done there with that wording there.

You can see I've made it to kind of a reddy, kind of pink colour.

And then finally we had a bulleted list.

Okay, so this is used to allow you to create a bullet-pointed list.

So you highlight what you want to make into a bullet-pointed list.

You click that button, and it puts those bullets in there.

And you can customise that to different things.

So you can also have a numbered list.

So it doesn't have to be the black dots.

It can be a numbered list.

Or you might even customise your own type of dots that you'd like to use to highlight the areas that you want to using a bulleted list, okay.

So why is it exactly that we format documents? Well, hopefully you've got a sense of that now by when you did that previous exercise, and that's to make the text easier to read.

It might make it easier for the audience to extract the information that they need.

It might also highlight the importance of information, but sometimes it might just be used to attract the audience to read the information in the first place.

So let's have a look at these two documents that we can see on the screen here.

If we just pause for a moment, just have a look at them and see if you can notice any differences between them.

'Cause actually what we can see here, if you do spend a little bit of time looking at it, is you can see it's the exact same text.

The only difference is the way it's been formatted.

So the one on the left-hand side and the one on the right-hand side, it's the same text, but there's differences between them.

So the question I want you to think about is which one do you prefer? Do you prefer the one on the left, or do you prefer the one on the right? Well, personally, I prefer the one on the right.

I prefer it because it's a bit more consistent.

So on the left hand side, I mean, I actually quite like that blue font, but it's very different to the rest of the text and maybe makes me focus my attention on that bit and not read the rest of it.

And then that might not be something I want to do.

Also, the one on the left doesn't have a heading on there.

It has a spelling mistake.

See if you can work out on that image on the left-hand side, what indicates that there's been a spelling mistake? And you might be familiar with this before.

You might have seen that red underlined.

So on the midway down, you can say did, and then it's got Y-O-U-Y, and it's red underlined, which means there's been a spelling mistake.

So anytime you see a red underlined, maybe you can right-click over it, and it should give you some suggestions about how it thinks you might have wanted to spell it.

Now, on the right-hand side, you can see it's a bit.

It has been formatted in maybe a more consistent way.

So it's all using the same font.

We've got the hyperlink has been made blue and underlined, like so we're maybe expecting it to be a hyperlink, something that we can click on.

The titles are different.

So we've got the main title, which is nice and bold.

We've got the second one, which has got a number, which maybe shows it's the first part of the article.

But again, the heading's a little bit bigger, not quite as big as the main heading, but a little bit bigger.

And then we've also got the text which is all the same font.

And at the bottom there, it says, it's been made into italics, "Why not try a Meat-Free Monday?" So again, highlighting your attention to something.

Okay, so bearing in mind the things we've just talked about there, if you just pause the video a moment and look at the text on the left-hand side of the screen.

So I'd like you to think about what is wrong with the appearance of this document, and how could a word processor help? Okay, so again, looking at that, we haven't got a nice big title.

It's not all the same, as in we haven't got the same font styles, and we haven't got the same font colours.

And then some of it is aligned on the right-hand side, and some of it is aligned on the left-hand side.

So really to make something look a little bit nice and more professional and easier on the eye, we need to start off by making things consistence, sorry, consistent and moving on from.

Right, so what we're going to do now is we're actually going to have a go at formatting this very document.

So I'm going to head over to the document now, and I'm going to show you how you can do it.

So I'd like you to just watch what I do, and then you're going to have a go yourself in a moment.

Okay, so now I'm over at my document.

Now, the first thing to note is that if you're doing this using Google Docs, then you'll need to make a copy of this document, okay.

So all you need to do is you need to go to File, and then you can click on Make a copy, and that will put a copy in your Google Drive.

If you're using Microsoft Word, what you need to do is click on Download, and you can select Microsoft Word and click it that way.

If you're using another word processor, I recommend using OpenDocument format, and you should be able to use OpenOffice for free doing it that way.

Okay, so first of all when we look at this document, you should see something that looks pretty horrendous, okay.

It's not great.

You certainly wouldn't want to present that and give that to somebody and expect them to want to save the earth in three easy steps.

We've got to convince 'em to do this.

So like I said on the previous slide is I think it's really important to start off and make something consistent, and then we work with the document from that point.

So you can see here I've got everything in different fonts.

I've got different colours and different alignments.

So let's start off by just fixing all of that.

So to do that, I'm going to put my mouse on the left-hand side of "Help save the earth" there, and I'm going to hold down my left-mouse button, and I'm just going to drag over all of the text like this.

Go.

Perfect.

Right, now from this point, we can make it consistent.

So let's think about the things that are wrong with this document.

First of all, it's not all aligned left, so let's sort that one out.

So you can see my alignment tools here.

And I said to you before, if I put my mouse over it, you can see what it does.

So I'm going to make sure everything is aligned on the left-hand side.

So there we go.

I click on that.

Now everything's on the left.

The next thing that I quite like to do is make everything the same colour.

So I just get to my font colour.

So if I moved to there, you can see text colours.

So I'm going to click on that, and I'm going to start off by making everything black.

So if I click on that, there we go.

Starting to look a little bit better.

Now, what's going through my mind now is this refuse single-use plastics, that paragraph there, it looks a little bit like that's bold.

So let's test it out.

So if I click on the bold, it should make everything bold.

And then if I click it again, should make everything not bold.

Right, now, that doesn't seem to have made any difference, which means the actual font style itself is maybe makes it look a little bit bold.

So let's go ahead and change all of the font so it's the same font, okay? I'm not going to have that issue.

So I've decided I'm going to use Montserrat.

So I'm going to click on that.

There we go, and it's now made everything Montserrat.

And if you want to make everything the same size, which you can do, then let's just play around with these.

So let's just start with size 12.

And there you go, now everything's the same font.

So we've got our starting point now, so now everything's consistent.

It's not time to start maybe playing around with some parts to it to make it look really customised to how you would like it to look.

So I'm going to make it look how I would like it to look.

I'd like you to watch that and maybe take some the ideas onboard, but it may well be you want to do it slightly differently.

Okay, so I'm going to start off with my title.

Okay, so it says help is not a capital H, so that's not a title, so I'm going to start off with making that a capital.

Going to highlight this.

Now, prebuilt into word processors are some styles, okay.

Now, you can customise these styles, but I'm not going to for the time being.

And we've got these Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3.

And you can see the way the Heading 1 is the biggest one, and that's the biggest, and it goes down a bit.

It gets smaller in size as we go down the options, okay.

So let's just try out Heading 1.

Okay, that's not a bad title.

I quite like that.

It's a different font.

It's now gone to Arial, but I think I'm okay with that.

As long as the titles are consistent and the body of the paragraphs are the same font, I think I'm probably going to be okay with that.

But I might not like that later on, so we can always change that.

Now, eat less meat is maybe a subheading, and it's not.

This had a gap there, so I'm going to put my mouse to the left-hand side of where it says, "Eat." I'm going to click, and then I'm going to hit that backspace arrow on the keyboard, okay? There we go.

It might be down on your keyboard as the word Delete, depending on what keyboard you're using, but it's like a backspace arrow.

It's above the Enter key, anyway, okay, or the Return key.

So that's my next one.

I'm going to leave a little bit less space.

I'm going to press that again, and it deletes that space above it.

And then let's see making this a Heading 2, and see what that looks like.

Right, okay, we're getting there.

I don't quite like so much space again, so I'm going to hit Backspace one more time.

Okay, perfect.

Now, you can see here this is a hyperlink.

Now, there's two ways in which we can make it a hyperlink.

Most word processors allow us to click on the right-hand side of a hyperlink, hit Enter, and it makes it into a hyperlink.

Now, if we hit Backspace straight away, it thinks you're going to want to delete that previous action.

So we'll do that.

It might undo the hyperlink that you put in.

It hasn't done there, but if it does, then maybe you just might want to hit Enter a couple of times and then press Backspace, and it might.

Hopefully, it will forget the fact you wanted to delete it.

So I've got my hyperlink there, okay.

Might even want to make that hyperlink a little bit smaller so it doesn't detract from the text of the article.

So I'm going to click on that.

Maybe make it 11, see what that looks like.

Maybe a 10.

Maybe that looks a little bit neater.

I quite like that.

Okay, now, if you remember, I also had, "Why not try a Meat-Free Monday?" I had that in italics in my previous one.

So I'm going to click on the left-hand side and hit Enter.

Okay, and then I'm going to highlight it and maybe put that in italics.

So use that slanted I there.

Click on that, and it makes it into italics.

Maybe I might want to even make it bold.

Let's have a look.

No, it doesn't look too good as bold.

I think it stands out a little bit too much when I make it bold, so I'm not going to do that.

So I'm going to let him do that action, which reminds me, actually.

One of the most important tools on lots of different types of software is the undo button.

If you've never come across that before, it is a lifesaver.

If I look on the left-hand side here, you can see there's a back arrow.

That's undo.

And there's also a redo, which means if you deleted something and you want to maybe put it back in again, that's redo.

But something, if you've done by accident, if you deleted something by accident and you didn't want to do that, than rather than having to go through the process or steps again, you can just click undo, and you can see the way it's made it bold.

And actually, I didn't like that, so we're going to click redo, and I'm going to put it back to how I wanted to.

Okay, now, "Refuse single-use plastic." This is a title, just like my "Eat less meat" was, so I need a space there.

So I'm going to hit a space.

And then making sure my other titles are consistent, okay, I'm going to make sure that is a Heading 2.

Okay, think that's okay.

Remember, this is a hyperlink, so I'm going to hit Enter and put a hyperlink in.

And hit Backspace.

There we go.

Now, we've got this blue underline.

Now, red underline means there's a spelling mistake.

Blue underline means that maybe it's not quite happy with the grammar that you've used or the sentence structure.

So let's read that.

"it not only takes a lot of the earth's resources to make plastic, but it is also can take up to 1,000 years." So that's saying there doesn't quite make sense.

So I'm going to right-click on this, and then it's got an option for me to say, "It also," so let's click on that.

That makes more sense now, doesn't it? So "The earth's resources to make plastic, but it also can take up to 1,000 years." So that's better.

Right, we're getting there.

Perfect.

So the last one then, "Plant a tree." So there's too much space in between that and the next one, so I'm going to hit my Backspace again and then hit Enter here, and then I'm going to highlight that.

I'm going to make it a Heading 2, okay.

Now, we've got a few things wrong with here, okay, and I'm not going to fix 'em all, okay, because I've shown you how to fix 'em.

I'd like to see if you can do that yourself.

So have a look at the fact we might have some hyperlinks in there.

Maybe don't ignore any of the blue underlines, and see what it suggests, and see if you can make some changes to that.

Okay, so all you need to do now is pause this video, and I'd like you to open your worksheets and have a go at formatting it.

So don't forget if you need to save a copy of it if you're using Google docs, but if using Microsoft Word or OpenOffice, then you go click File and Download.

Okay, so pause the video, have a go at that, and if you get stuck at any point, don't forget, you can rewind the video just a little bit and see what I did.

Okay, so good luck with that, have fun, and unpause the video when you've finished.

Okay, so that was all for this lesson.

And I really hope that you've enjoyed having a go with all the different formatting techniques and put them into practise on that word process document.

And don't forget, we also had a look at the different software applications and different uses for each one.

Now, we would really love to see the work that you've done, so if you'd like to take a screenshot of your word process documents, or maybe you could tweet us with the top score that you got in Guess Who.

So if you'd like to do that, ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

Now, there's a quiz that you can do at the end of this lesson that will recap your learning.

And once you've done that, I'm looking forward to seeing you next lesson.

So I'll see you then.