Competition for schools in the Western Cape

Schools in the Western Cape have an opportunity of entering a competition to create an anti xenophobia screensaver with some nice prizes. Look at http://www.khanya.co.za/ (just below the heading). I created the checklist below to guide learners in creating it. We are going to get our own images taken ourselves, or create our own pictures with Word draw in PowerPoint and save them as images. This exercise is rather a nice way of teaching the youngsters file management and working with an image editor.

I ...

Folder

• created a folder with my surname, then first name for saving the screensaver
• created a folder with my surname and the word pics for saving all the images used
• created a folder with my surname and the word sound for saving the sound file used
• saved all my files in my folders
• saved all files with meaningful names

Images

• used my own images taken with my own camera or cell phone, if I used them at all
• used appropriate autoshapes and Wordart that conveyed the message, if I used them at all
• edited the images to send a clear message
• cropped images so that only the really important part shows
• used at least 3 images in the project
• balanced images on the slides/images
  
• used a background colour which contributed to the message of the screensaver
• selected a background colour

Sound / Music

• used sound files suitable to the theme, if I used sound files at all
• used small sound files
• used sound files which can loop (repeat)

Text

• used a clear font
• used a font which is found on all computers
• formatted the font with a size which is readable on a moving screen
• spelt all text correctly
• used correct grammar
• formatted the text with line spacing that leads to clarity
• used appropriate bullets in lists, if I used lists at all
• balanced text and images on the screen
• positioned the text and images on the screen

Message

• added a clear message on the title slide
• presented a clear message in images and words

Animations

• used animations with restraint

Timing

• timed the screensaver based on the number of images

Overall

• checked that the images displayed in the screensaver in the correct order

Final

• clicked on the Create button to create the screensaver.
• renamed the file as a screensaver by renaming the exe with scr
• saved the file (with my surname and name) in a folder in CSSGProjects.
• checked that the whole screensaver was a realistic size