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Creating
a Lesson Plan Template - Project
This tutorial demonstrates creating tables
inside of tables a new feature in OpenOffice2.
This
project is designed to save teachers time when they go to reconfigure
their lesson plans for the next year or create new lesson plans.
The focus of the project will be to create a template that represents
a specific style that is constructed in such a way as to make
it quick to read and extremely flexible.
Step
One: Page Design
The first thing to do is to create a page design that will facilitate
the lesson plan design.
8.5
x 11 paper
landscape
.67 margins to maximize space
table that not only has a heading but also has 5 columns for
each day of the week
stylized text for easy reading and quick changes
To
create the physical limits of the page open a new document and
select Format-Page. Then select the Page tab and change the
settings to reflect the settings that you see in the image below.
Note the margins are set to .67. if you were going to bind this
on one side yo may want to increase those settings on that side
of the binding.
Once
the page is formatted with the appropriate settings, insert
a table. Choose Insert-Table and then insert a table with only
one column but two rows. This will allow you to 
create
a General Heading with dates for the week and also a sub heading
with additional information that you may want to add.
One heading and two rows are used for this first table. The
border is also included to create easier eye recognition of
categories.
Here
is the example of the completed table with two rows
An
additional table must be added to get the format that is usable.
So once again select Insert-Table and this time create one row
with 5 columns.
Once
again a border is included.
When you insert the second table it will represent 5 days of
the week for the lesson plans. In the image below you will see
what it the tables will look like in raw form. Once again two
tables were inserted to create this view.
In
order to see exactly what it will look like place your cursor
in the second column and hit return until you force your table
length to reach the edge of the page.
Now
you should have a working skeleton.
Place the daily headings at the top of each column and adjust
the font and size the way that you want it to look. Once that
is done insert a new table in each daily column. This will allow
each column to have 7 additional rows that you may adjust independently.
The purpose of 7 rows for each day is to represent 7 periods,
the example shows that Monday now has the additional 7 rows.
This
illustration demonstrates that the rows are all independent.
This feature is important as each day will have different situations
arise in which you will enter different text. This ability to
nest tables within tables is a great feature that you should
capitalize on when creating projects.
Before
you save this document as a template be sure to check fonts,
font size, justification in each row and column, etc. because
you want to make it as easy as possible use the template.
Once
you have all of your settings correct then you will select Save
As and choose a template. The purpose of saving this document
as a template is that it is something you will be able to reuse
time after time.
In OpenOffice 2 the template extension is .ott, save it with
a description name.
In order to use the template choose File-Open and select the
template. If you do not see the file make sure you are viewing
all files. Once the template is open then choose Save As and
save it as the file you would like to create, for example Week32.
Now you may enter the necessary information in Week32. Do this
the first week and see if you need to make any changes, if you
do make those structural changes to the template so that it
carries over into the next week and you do not have to make
those same changes.
