Create an e-book project for your class using PowerPoint

Submitted by Fiona Beal

Did you know that PowerPoint can be used in a multitude of ways apart from it's original purpose of making slideshows. It is a great tool for creating e-books. This is part 1 of 'Presenting class projects as e-books'. This term I set my Grade 7 ICT class a task of creating a Natural Sciences project in line with their class curriculum and presenting it as an online e-book using PowerPoint. In the next post, in Part 2, we will look at adding video and sound to the e-book using the amazing PowerPoint add-in, Office Mix.

These are the steps we followed:

Step 1: Choose your topic

This task was carried out using research skills and Bing, and finding out as much as possible about one of the following diseases: Tuberculosis, Pneumonia, Diarrhoea, Malaria, Measles, Hepatitis B, Influenza, Yellow Fever, Diphtheria, Smallpox, or Black Death.

Step 2: Create the content for the e-book

The class was given a project outline to work from.
1. Title page – attractive - A4 format: Include full name, date, class and name of disease.
2. Table of contents (This must have the titles of each page in it)
3. Definition of the word disease
4. General overview of the disease you have chosen
a) Describe the disease
b) History
c) What part of the body does it affect?
d) How does the disease affect the body?
e) Forms or types of the disease
5. Incidence of the disease (if possible provide a map)
a) How many people does this disease affect?
b) Does it affect a certain age group?
c) Does it affect a certain ethnic group?
d) What is the Mortality Rate?
6. Causes of the disease
a) social, economic and environmental factors
b) How is the disease transmitted?
7. Signs and Symptoms
8. Diagnosis:
a) What tests do the doctors run to determine whether a person has the disease?
9. Treatment options
a) What are the treatment options
b) Is there a cure?
c) care and support of the sufferer
10. Strategies for living with the disease
11. Prevention
a) Are there any ways to prevent this disease?
12. Add any additional information that is useful and informative.
13. Bibliography

In each section different instructions had to be followed i.e. finding facts, adding relevant videos and images, creating links to articles to back up one’s findings. The content was collected using Microsoft Word

Step 3: Create a PowerPoint template for the content

We used PowerPoint for several reasons. The final project was to be presented on Office Mix which is a PowerPoint add-in that enables to PowerPoint to be shared with video and sound online. Another advantage of using PowerPoint is that it’s easy to manipulate images within the eBook and overlay images and text. Each slide can also contain a section or page of information in the final eBook to add to the book feel of the final presentation.

Open PowerPoint and choose your layout. Decide how you would like the eBook to look. We wanted ours to look like books. Go to the Design Menu, Click on ‘Slide Size’ on the right and make your choices. We selected the portrait slide orientation and changed the slide size to Custom 7.5 X 10 inch (my computer works in inches!). This part is optional to the size you would like to choose.

Step 4: Add the cover image

In this section we learned about Creative Commons images and Public Domain images versus ‘any’ images. The best way to add an image is to save it on your computer and then use the snipping tool to get the portrait orientation. Insert the cover image by clicking on the ‘Picture’ option in the ‘Insert’ menu, and select the cover image where you saved it on your computer.

The learners then overlay the cover image with their names and the title of the e-book. This feature is one of the plus points for using PowerPoint for making eBooks.

Step 5: Insert page numbers (slide numbers)

Start the numbering system now. Go to Insert/Slide numbers and make your choices as shown below. Select Slide number, Footer, Don’t show on the slide and Apply to All

Step 6: Create a Table of Contents page

This allows the reader to go anywhere in the presentation.  Once you have created all your slides you will link each heading in the Table of Contents to a slide heading.

Step 7: Create the eBook

The learners use the content they have recorded in Microsoft Word to create the content for their PowerPoint. They ensure that the font and font sizes are uniform throughout the eBook.

Step 8:  Insert your bibliography as you go along

I like the learners to draw a line at the bottom of each slide so that they can put links to the pages where they found their information even though the information has been synthesised into their own words. They also create the Bibliography for the last slide with the relevant links.

We didn’t learn a particular format for citing a bibliography in this project – that will come later. I simply asked them to give an explanation and a link.  In the next project we will write the Bibliography in the format below as found in A Sample Elementary Bibliography Style Sheet found at  http://bit.ly/2gOJxPe

This is how we did the Bibliography for this project. It appeared on the last slide.

Step 9: Link the slides to the Table of Contents

Once your e-book has been written link your slides to the Table of Contents.  The way to do this is:
a) Highlight the line of text in the Table of Contents you want to hyperlink
b) Go to Insert/Hyperlink
c) Select ‘Place in this document’
d) Chose the slide heading from the selection that appears
e) Click on OK

You’ll notice that all the hyperlinked lines of the eBook are now automatically underlined showing that they are active.

Examples of the e-book project

The e-books were uploaded to OneDrive, Microsoft's free online Office Suite, to give them an online presence, Here is one example that has been embedded into this blog post

In the next post we'll show how to take PowerPoint one step further by opening the e-book in PowerPoint's add-in, Office Mix and adding audio and video.