How to do some simple computer resources...

gaza123

Hey guys, I'm in the middle of my FYP and am looking for places to do some testing on what I've made. It's a Booklet on how to do various simple things with computers aimed at getting those who shy away from using IT resources, and trying to help them make more use of their PC's. I've a load of PDF's that I'll upload links too soon, and also a short questionnaire that I've made up.

I'd appreciate any feedback I could get on them and hope you find them useful.

Please note that the PDF's are In A5, two to a sheet as they'll be printed. Though I'm trying to figure out how to get them to A4 size without the editing being too crazy. I'm starting to think that the A5 pages is too small for some of the detail in the pictures. Also these are not final drafts, if you pick up any spelling mistakes or errors along the way go ahead and point them out.

Here's a rapidshare link for some guides: http://rapidshare.com/users/UCE9MO/0

gaza123

Seeing as this was posted late last night I think a bump is fair.

rainbowtrout

Give it a chance... most of the people who read this forum are teachers.... and are at work all day.

Just clicked your link... the rapidshare thing is a pain in the arse to deal with. I'm not signing up for an account just to read a Beginner's IT pdf file.

That's what I think the general concensus will be here....

As for your work, I'm going to sound harsh but here goes:

I can see what you're trying to achieve but I don't really see the point. If I want a picture of a beaker and thermometer I'll just look up google instead of spending the night messing with MS Paint. Or I'll photocopy or scan the one off the science book/exam papers. Or I'll just use the sciencebook rather than reinventing the wheel.

The other one of your pdf's I've looked at is the downloading files. Two things struck me: you've done all of your screenshots with Google Chrome, most non IT people for the little IT that they do use, probably stick to the comfort of Internet Explorer and if the menus aren't identical, will come unstuck. The themed background is also very busy and makes the handouts cluttered and hard to read.

Also if it is for the very basic IT user, you've left out steps, i.e. you've shown them how to save a file, but then you are assuming they know where to find the file and then right click on it and open it with paint. Most people will double click with left mouse button and it will open in whatever default mode is on the computer. Probably MS Picture Viewer.

If you think I'm being unduly harsh, I'm a Computer teacher and a science teacher. I teach adults how to use computers. And I did my FYP on the use of computers in schools by teachers 10 years ago. The teachers who are not computer literate for the most part do not want to get bogged down in drawing diagrams on their machines, and the ones that do want to do it already can.

gaza123

Thanks for your points.

gaza123

There's a lot on the internet but you can't always find the perfect picture with a google search. It's times like these that being able to put together your own diagram is useful if you want to make a decent looking handout.

Also, the time it would take to photocopy from a book, and put it onto your own handout would be a lot more than either picking a pre-made diagram that you've put together before, or making it using individual parts like in the making a labled diagram guide. Plus once it's made you've got it forever. And a photocopy from a book cut copied and pasted manually won't have the same look as a jpg file you made in Paint and printed yourself.

There's also a certain amount of ownership, and pride in your work involved. Decent resources are very important. This guide isn't for a lazy person who isn't willing to make an effort. It's for people who have difficulties knowing where to start with using computers, who want some simple instructional material on how to do and try a few new things.

I don't mean to pick a fight with you, I hope I don't come across as overly defensive. I appreciated some of your points. But if you're not interested in going through a beginner's IT guide then perhaps this thread isn't for you. If you'd like to take a look at a few more of my uploads you might find I've some interesting ideas.

There will also be a few 'foreword' type articles in it which will explain some things such as terms used, basic operation of the mouse, etc.

Peace, and thanks.

implausible

Not a computers teacher but I was expecting to see the usual pdf download options box. I'm not familiar with Rapidshare and it looks like a pain in the ass to use. People will be more inclined to look at your work if it's easy to access.

rainbowtrout

gaza123 wrote: »

There's a lot on the internet but you can't always find the perfect picture with a google search. It's times like these that being able to put together your own diagram is useful if you want to make a decent looking handout.

Most of the diagrams when following a syllabus are standard enough.

gaza123 wrote: »

Also, the time it would take to photocopy from a book, and put it onto your own handout would be a lot more than either picking a pre-made diagram that you've put together before, or making it using individual parts like in the making a labled diagram guide. Plus once it's made you've got it forever. And a photocopy from a book cut copied and pasted manually won't have the same look as a jpg file you made in Paint and printed yourself.

The time it takes to photocopy a diagram is about 3 seconds. The time it takes to draw a diagram in MS Paint and not make a total arse of it is much longer. I used to teach MS Paint as part of one of the FETAC Level 4 modules. People do find it difficult to work with.

Personally I scan all the diagrams I want. Takes about 30 seconds each and I have them forever.

gaza123 wrote: »

There's also a certain amount of ownership, and pride in your work involved. Decent resources are very important. This guide isn't for a lazy person who isn't willing to make an effort. It's for people who have difficulties knowing where to start with using computers, who want some simple instructional material on how to do and try a few new things.

I don't mean to pick a fight with you, I hope I don't come across as overly defensive. I appreciated some of your points. But if you're not interested in going through a beginner's IT guide then perhaps this thread isn't for you. If you'd like to take a look at a few more of my uploads you might find I've some interesting ideas.

There will also be a few 'foreword' type articles in it which will explain some things such as terms used, basic operation of the mouse, etc.

Peace, and thanks.

Of course there is pride and ownership in making your own resources. I make most of my own as many of the FETAC modules I teach don't have suitable books to work from and I also teach ag science for which there are very little resources available.

However, the point I was trying to make is that a person who is a beginner on a computer will not spend 1-2 hours trying to draw a diagram on MS Paint no matter how dedicated they are. They just won't. Particularly if that's all they get done in one night and then they have to figure out how to get it onto a Powerpoint slide and get arrows pointing at parts of the diagram for labels etc.

I can do a 30 slide presentation with images and fancy text etc in 1-2 hours standing on my head. That's what my jobs entails. That's what I do. For a teacher that is a beginner drawing diagrams from scratch on a computer is just effort.

I've posted on another thread in this forum before on re-inventing the wheel when it comes to Powerpoint. I use powerpoint for some stuff and it can be really useful particularly if I want to show a set of photos with captions etc. But there is a tendency to have a scenario I call 'Death by Powerpoint'. Putting everything on PP doesn't make it more interesting or exciting, it just means text (and some images) are presented by data projector instead of a whiteboard or OHP.

Same with this. I can spend 2 hours drawing a diagram or I can spend 30 seconds scanning a diagram. Students won't know the difference either way.

gaza123 wrote: »

I don't mean to pick a fight with you, I hope I don't come across as overly defensive. I appreciated some of your points. But if you're not interested in going through a beginner's IT guide then perhaps this thread isn't for you. If you'd like to take a look at a few more of my uploads you might find I've some interesting ideas.

.

Just because I'm not a beginner doesn't mean I'm not interested. I teach beginners so I'm giving you my feedback as a teacher who is teaching people at this level for the last 10 years.

I looked at another of your uploads just there - the one about turning your computer into a clock/countdown timer for tests.

Again I think this is over complicating something very simple.

1. Most classrooms have a clock. That should be sufficient to tell the time.
2. Most teachers spend enough time getting a class settled, calling a roll, without the added extra of setting up a laptop, turning on data projector and waiting for it to come on just to project a clock onto the board.
3. There is a computer in every classroom in my school. Some are new and are great. Some are crap and are slow. I don't want to wait 5-10 mins at the start of my class for the hamster in my old PC to start running on his wheel and eventually get the computer running so I can put up a clock when I could have the test started.
4. Going back to my original point, those that are comfortable with computers use them in class, those that are not will not add complications to their lives. If a French teacher is giving a verb test, they are going to say 'Take out a page, write out the verbs avoir, faire and etre, you have 10 mins' and that's it.


The zip file thing is way too complicated. Most zip files can be extracted automatically now and a beginner won't have a bogs notion what a 32 or 64 bit operating system is. They won't even know what the term operating system means.


Just one final point: I tutored a teacher in my school on beginner's IT last year because she told me she wanted to learn. We spent an hour or two once a week after school in the computer room. We spent a good few weeks working on email, the concept of an address book, sending and receiving emails, sending attachments.

She was also curious about 'the online resources I've heard about' so she gave me the addresses for a few websites that were listed in her book or she had got a leaflet about from one of the book companies. She wanted to know how to find her way around websites, how to print out the handouts and worksheets that were already up there. How to copy and paste the notes from skoool.ie, how to access the exam papers on examinations.ie, how to access the solutions website given in the exam papers from folens or edco or whoever where you put in the code given beside the question and it gives you a sample answer to that question.

All that stuff kept us going for a couple of months. Then I showed her how to type up a basic exam in Word. That's beginner's IT.

I've had a look through some of your other stuff, installing/uninstalling software, using a gradebook in excel (have you taught excel to anyone before?) and my overall feeling is that you have never taught an adult how to use a computer. If they are a beginner this stuff is just too hard.

Most teachers coming out of college now are well used to computers and can do all of this stuff - many older teachers simply cannot and are fairly set in their ways (not wishing to generalise). Those that can already do. There are many experienced teachers here on boards. By fact that they use this forum regularly would suggest that they are computer savvy. Beginner IT people do not spend their evenings voluntarily browsing and posting on internet forums.


Just finally your youtube tutorial, I'm not interested as such in the content, I've made my case about other ones above. You are opening a massive can of worms here. First of all if you want to demonstrate the experiment, bloody well demonstrate it in class, in front of the class, don't video it and then show them the video. Not when they can see it in real life. The real thing is always better than a video.

The second thing - youtube is blocked in most schools. Students won't be able to access it.

The third thing and probably most important - filming students in class is a big no no. There are huge issues about putting up videos of students on the internet. Don't even go there. You will end up with someone taking legal action against you.

Look most of what I've said is negative, so you can think what you like about me, but this is the reality of what you are proposing and I'm guessing that because you're calling your thesis your 'FYP' that you're a final year Science Education student in UL. I did that course and I used to tutor the educational technology module as a postgrad. I slated students for stuff like this. I'm just trying to point out the pitfalls before your supervisor does.

Maybe you should re think your idea and aim it at intermediate users.

gaza123

The quality is slightly affected, the files are compressed when uploaded to this site.

I'll continue to try find a more accessible site that will allow upload without reduction in quality.
______________________________________________________________
How to upload video to YouTube: http://pdfcast.org/download/upload-to-youtube.pdf
______________________________________________________________
How to uninstall programs properly: http://pdfcast.org/download/uninstalling.pdf
______________________________________________________________
How to turn your computer into a large digital timer: http://pdfcast.org/download/make-your-computer-into-a-large-digital-timer.pdf
______________________________________________________________
How to make a labeled diagram easily with paint: http://pdfcast.org/download/making-a-labeled-diagram.pdf
______________________________________________________________
Downloading and installing safely: http://pdfcast.org/download/downloading-and-installing-safely.pdf
______________________________________________________________
Gradebook(an awesome excel template): http://pdfcast.org/download/gradebook.pdf
______________________________________________________________
Extracting compressed files(zip and rar): http://pdfcast.org/download/extracting-files.pdf
______________________________________________________________
Downloading pictures: http://pdfcast.org/download/download-pictures.pdf
______________________________________________________________

gaza123

Uploading videos of students is a no no? Just youtube search 'Class demonstration' and you'll get a tonne. I'm not advising anyone to go doing anything without checking they're allowed.

There's no point in uploading work to youtube? I'm surprised to hear that from a computer teacher. I'd have expected you to have the opinion that computers could be a much more used and useful tool for teaching.

They don't really need to know what an operating system is in the extracting guide. The steps guide them without them needing to know what 32 bit means at all.

Aiming at intermediate users might be a good idea. The guide was never intended to teach people how to open a folder or insert a CD. It's aimed at people who've got and use computers already and know some fundamentals, people who know what MS paint is, or how to find a folder. There is a few basics in it like the extracting zip files, the reason being that other guides I've written rely on unzipping and a new computer doesn't come with winzip preinstalled.

gaza123

Navigate the internet efficiently: http://pdfcast.org/download/efficient-internet-navigation.pdf
_________________________________________________________
Download videos from YouTube: http://pdfcast.org/download/download-videos-from-youtube.pdf

rainbowtrout

gaza123 wrote: »

Uploading videos of students is a no no? Just youtube search 'Class demonstration' and you'll get a tonne. I'm not advising anyone to go doing anything without checking they're allowed.

There's no point in uploading work to youtube? I'm surprised to hear that from a computer teacher. I'd have expected you to have the opinion that computers could be a much more used and useful tool for teaching.

They don't really need to know what an operating system is in the extracting guide. The steps guide them without them needing to know what 32 bit means at all.

Aiming at intermediate users might be a good idea. The guide was never intended to teach people how to open a folder or insert a CD. It's aimed at people who've got and use computers already and know some fundamentals, people who know what MS paint is, or how to find a folder. There is a few basics in it like the extracting zip files, the reason being that other guides I've written rely on unzipping and a new computer doesn't come with winzip preinstalled.

I'm well aware that there are plenty of videos of students online. That doesn't make it right. If you are going filming students and putting it up online you will need permission from their parents. You are filming minors and it doesn't matter what the context is. Look I'm not sure what your teaching experience is, or if you had any before you started your degree, but I am telling you what it is like in the real world. There are a lot of issues with students using camera phones in schools and for you to think that because there's other stuff on youtube makes it OK for you to do it is a little naive.

Also, please don't misquote me. I didn't say there was no point uploading work to youtube, but the simple fact of the matter is that the majority of schools have it blocked so it is not accessible to teachers and students in schools. I can't see how you can use it if you can't access it.

I prefer to do demonstrations of experiments and get the students involved or let them do the experiments themselves rather than passively watch a video of something I did earlier. E.g. I will demonstrate the reaction of lithium, sodium and potassium with water in class. You cannot match the reaction of students seeing the sparks and flames in class with a video. However I will source videos of the reaction of rubidium etc online and show them in class as I cannot do them myself.

Computers do enhance teaching but they are not the be all and end all. Some activities are better methods of teaching than sitting a student in front of a computer.

gaza123 wrote: »

They don't really need to know what an operating system is in the extracting guide. The steps guide them without them needing to know what 32 bit means at all.

Aiming at intermediate users might be a good idea. The guide was never intended to teach people how to open a folder or insert a CD. It's aimed at people who've got and use computers already and know some fundamentals, people who know what MS paint is, or how to find a folder. There is a few basics in it like the extracting zip files, the reason being that other guides I've written rely on unzipping and a new computer doesn't come with winzip preinstalled.

However if you put in terms like '32 bit operating system' people think that they need to know what it is and get confused and flustered if they don't know and think that it's fundamental to their understanding of what is going on.

Those kind of teachers are not beginners and that doesn't match what appears to be your project brief.

gaza123

I'm quite aware of the dodgy areas involving kids and recording class. I've been on experience twice, I've about 5 months experience under my belt in the class. They made sure to let us know what we could and couldn't do.

You're kind of ranting. If you like something and think it's interesting say so. If you find something could do with more work say so. If you found a picture too small and couldn't make it out say so. Otherwise you're overly negative. Perhaps you don't understand the concept of my project. And fair enough, you've given me some food for thought. But if you're going to continue to post massive posts about certain guides you don't see the point in please take it else where.

Toto Wolfcastle

gaza123 this is a discussion forum. You asked for opinions and rainbowtrout is just trying to be helpful. Please do not tell other posters to 'take is elsewhere'. If you have a problem with a post report it and the moderators will deal with it if needs be.

rainbowtrout

gaza123 wrote: »

I'm quite aware of the dodgy areas involving kids and recording class. I've been on experience twice, I've about 5 months experience under my belt in the class. They made sure to let us know what we could and couldn't do.

You're kind of ranting. If you like something and think it's interesting say so. If you find something could do with more work say so. If you found a picture too small and couldn't make it out say so. Otherwise you're overly negative. Perhaps you don't understand the concept of my project. And fair enough, you've given me some food for thought. But if you're going to continue to post massive posts about certain guides you don't see the point in please take it else where.

Look gaza123, if you post on a public forum and look for opinions you have to take the good with the bad.

You've got 5 months teaching under your belt. I've done 10 years. Ten years teaching the stuff that you are proposing to teach through your handouts and booklets. You might think that I'm being overly negative, but really I'm just telling you how I see it. I'm telling you what I've learned from experience. E.g. most teachers will never have used Excel. They generally have no need for it. When I start teaching excel to adults I have to explain the concept of rows and columns and how to move about columns and how to edit information in cells etc etc. I don't just jump straight in hand them a template and assume they'll know what to do with it. I tried that early on and realised very quickly that it doesn't work.

If a student hands me up an ag science project and it's not up to scratch, I'll hand it back and tell them what they can improve. If a FETAC student hands me up a computer project or report and it's not up to scratch same thing happens.

I'm telling you the same thing, and you seem to be dismissing my advice despite the fact that I have a lot of experience in this area because it's not what you want to hear.

If you hand up those handouts as part of your project to your supervisor, they might be curious enough to see if they can follow them to see if they work. It won't matter what you have written in your findings about what teachers thought of them if your supervisor can't work out how unzip files or whatever. You're leaving yourself wide open.

A final thought, if you're teaching science somewhere next year and give out some sort of handout or worksheet to a group of students and a student raises their hand and says 'Sorry, I don't get it' are you going to just dismiss what they say and figure 'I wrote the handout so it should be good enough for the student' and tell them to take it elsewhere or are you going to think 'Maybe my worksheet is overly complicated and I need to simplify it for some of my class' and then adjust your work to suit the level because their needs are what counts.

gaza123

What is your advice exactly. You haven't really given me any other than maybe to aim it towards intermediate users. Out of the copious amounts you've written all I've seemed to see is that and you don't see any point in it.

gaza123

I think a more accurate comparison would be if a student was confused over something and I tried to explain it to them. For example. A student says (in fact often has said) I don't see the point in us learning science. I'm trying to give you another perspective to your own.

Perhaps I should have first stated that this would be primarily aimed at student teachers, perhaps in the university. It's not meant to be a text book completely teaching computers. Just a quick reference and ideas guide for if a teacher who didn't have a whole lot of experience other than basics wanted to try something new to try spark a little interest for a tedious topic.

Do you not think it's a little nuts that there hasn't been a computers module in my course? I get where you're coming from. That there's a lot of people who just won't have an interest in this thing. But I'm sure I'll come up with a few bits and pieces that my peers would see and like to give a shot and maybe find useful.

rainbowtrout

gaza123 wrote: »

What is your advice exactly. You haven't really given me any other than maybe to aim it towards intermediate users. Out of the copious amounts you've written all I've seemed to see is that and you don't see any point in it.

I thought it was obvious.

Either

A. Aim it towards intermediate users

Or

B. Simplify it and aim it towards beginners.

Actually what I would do is get out to a school pronto (or more schools if possible). Do a survey of the staff of that school on their computer usage and ability in using a computer. Find out what applications they are able to use, what they do use and what they use them for. Then ask them in the survey, what they would like to be able to use a computer for, you can then tailor your resource pack/handouts to your audience, you'll find some teachers fancy themselves as intermediate and would like to be able to do what you've already outlined, and some are beginners and just want to be able to format their Christmas test in word properly.

You could then build a set of handouts as a booklet, getting more difficult as they go on, where the beginners start from the very start and the intermediate can skip to what they want and need.

You may also find stuff that they want to be able to do and you hadn't thought of and also that there is stuff you think is useful but none of them want or need.

I assume you're handy enough with computers yourself as it is. Along with the handouts you could enlist one of your friends to act as cameraman. Get a digital camera and video yourself carrying out a task and record a narrative while carrying out the task. Videos of this type (e.g. creating a diagram in MS paint or whatever) could be put on a CD for the intermediate user, or indeed the more basic stuff could be put on a CD for the beginner with instructions in your booklet on how to access information on the CD and which file to click to view it.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s83dLrRSpGw

Something along the lines of this

gaza123

Thanks. That was pretty helpful. The videos part is on it's way. Been playing around with a few bits of screen video capturing software but none I've found so far work so well. Almost considering using a video camera pointed at the screen.

rainbowtrout

gaza123 wrote: »

Perhaps I should have first stated that this would be primarily aimed at student teachers, perhaps in the university. It's not meant to be a text book completely teaching computers. Just a quick reference and ideas guide for if a teacher who didn't have a whole lot of experience other than basics wanted to try something new to try spark a little interest for a tedious topic.

Do you not think it's a little nuts that there hasn't been a computers module in my course? I get where you're coming from. That there's a lot of people who just won't have an interest in this thing. But I'm sure I'll come up with a few bits and pieces that my peers would see and like to give a shot and maybe find useful.

That puts a completely different slant on it. Student teachers should be well capable of what you are doing.... just not many of teachers who have been out there for 30 years.

There was a computer module when I did the degree back in the day. Did a bit of programming but also in ed tech had to make videos and do all the microsoft stuff. It was really useful. Obviously they've scrapped it which is a shame.

gaza123 wrote: »

Thanks. That was pretty helpful. The videos part is on it's way. Been playing around with a few bits of screen video capturing software but none I've found so far work so well. Almost considering using a video camera pointed at the screen.

Try these two: this is what was recommended to us at a chemistry inservice a couple of years back

http://www.free-screen-capture.com/


http://camstudio.org/

And software for playing/converting any type of media file.

http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

rainbowtrout

This is the kind of thing we were shown just using powerpoint. Handy for chemistry animations. Probably the kind of thing you're aiming to do

gaza123

A couple more parts of it.

Oh yeah, I meant to ask a little while ago. Do ye know of any decent message boards such as this where I could find teachers who'd be willing to give my creations a look over? I've tried a few, the teacher's corner etc but you have a probationary period with them and can't post links, which means I can't put up my files.

____________________________________________________
Who wants to be a millionaire PowerPoint game:
http://pdfcast.org/download/millionaire-powerpoint-game.pdf
____________________________________________________
Password PowerPoint game:
http://pdfcast.org/download/password-powerpoint-game.pdf
____________________________________________________

rainbowtrout

I think a lot of teachers post on the forum at educationposts.ie but I don't use it myself.

Also there is a forum on ista.ie Again another I don't use so I don't know how active they are.

baalthor

gaza123 wrote: »

There is a few basics in it like the extracting zip files, the reason being that other guides I've written rely on unzipping and a new computer doesn't come with winzip preinstalled.

It doesn't have it installed, because as rainbowtrout has pointed out, Windows has the built-in ability to unzip compressed files (since 1998!)

So there is no need for a typical user to install winzip or equivalent, most users won't even notice if a file is compressed as the computer automatically extracts it for them.

gaza123

baalthor wrote: »

It doesn't have it installed, because as rainbowtrout has pointed out, Windows has the built-in ability to unzip compressed files (since 1998!)

So there is no need for a typical user to install winzip or equivalent, most users won't even notice if a file is compressed as the computer automatically extracts it for them.

You're wrong. I installed Windows 7 for the sake of checking. Needed to install Winrar.

gaza123

gaza123 wrote: »

You're wrong. I installed Windows 7 for the sake of checking. Needed to install Winrar.

Well not so entirely for the sake of checking(Vista was starting to raise my blood pressure). But having a blank computer was part of the reason for doing it. Point stands, I downloaded zip files and rar files. The computer didn't know what to do with them till I downloaded Winrar.

Now fair enough, when that happens and you choose the option to 'Search the web for the necessary program' it will probably bring you straight to winrar and you'd unwittingly download and install it.

There's probably a good chance that computer outlets such as PC world install it and a few other basics such as antivirus protection when selling a computer to an entry level user.

rainbowtrout

gaza123 wrote: »

You're wrong. I installed Windows 7 for the sake of checking. Needed to install Winrar.

My computer runs Windows 7 and if I download a zipfile when I click on it, it extracts the files automatically. Also if you right click on a file it can be zipped. Like was said above windows has been able to do this for years. I don't think I've installed winzip or anything similar on a program since college.

i've had a variety of computers and laptops since college, not to mind the ones I work on in school and they can all unzip files automatically: windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7 etc

The zip file I posted earlier in this thread, I zipped in windows 7 automatically and I only opted to zip it because you can't upload powerpoint files to boards.

gaza123

Are you certain your system had a custom install? If you chose 'upgrade' to transfer over files and programs winrar would have been copied over too. I'm not lying and not mistaken about installing windows 7 trying a zip file and getting the unknown file message. But fair enough. Let's not dwell on this one point. It may be cut out.

Had a look at any of the other articles?

rainbowtrout

gaza123 wrote: »

Are you certain your system had a custom install? If you chose 'upgrade' to transfer over files and programs winrar would have been copied over too. I'm not lying and not mistaken about installing windows 7 trying a zip file and getting the unknown file message. But fair enough. Let's not dwell on this one point. It may be cut out.

Had a look at any of the other articles?

I have bog standard windows 7 and it zips and unzips just fine. Like baalthor said, it's a standard feature for many years. If you right click on any file on your computer and go to 'Send To' the first option (in Win 7 anyway) is 'Compressed Zip Folder'. If you right click on the zipped file the option 'Extract All' is in the menu.

I haven't had a look at your other stuff as it's the weekend and I'm not working.

dingding

Had a look at the timer / stopwatch pdf.

Just 2 general comments.

The background of the plants / leaves is distracting and might confuse things if photocoppied in black and white.


I would use a different font such as franklin gothic book or Arial which are easier to read.


Cheers

gaza123

dingding wrote: »

Had a look at the timer / stopwatch pdf.

Just 2 general comments.

The background of the plants / leaves is distracting and might confuse things if photocoppied in black and white.


I would use a different font such as franklin gothic book or Arial which are easier to read.


Cheers

Thank you!

looksee

Rainbowtrout has made a lot of useful observations and to the extent that I have studied any of this thread closely, I agree the advice given.

Considering you are asking people to criticise and advise you are not very receptive to advice. I teach Photoshop and I know from experience that creating useful worksheets is not easy, and you have to be prepared to keep rethinking your approach until you get it right, rather than criticising other people (including students) for not understanding what you are doing. If you give too much detail they just follow blindly step by step and don't learn anything. If you throw in references to tools and processes that are not familiar they will spend a lot of time somewhere else looking for information.

You have to approach it in a spirit of inquiry and experiment. You also need to test it on actual people until you learn what the pitfalls are. You could also run your text through a spell check.

spurious

Just to repeat what rainbowtrout said, youtube is blocked in most schools.
You'd have to download the flv files and play them in VLC.

gaza123

spurious wrote: »

Just to repeat what rainbowtrout said, youtube is blocked in most schools.
You'd have to download the flv files and play them in VLC.

This would make the guide on downloading youtube videos useful. I'm thinking a list of useful programs would also be good.