EdTech @ ADW

Here’s a nice little article from PCMag.com that outlines some little-known but powerful features of Microsoft Word 2007. Click here to read this article.

Here’s a brief overview of the 8 features it presents:

1. Shrinking a document by one page
2. Calculating in tables, using only Word
3. Merging to e-mail and sending e-mails using Word
4. Comparing two documents to detect revisions
5. Using the Document Inspector to remove comments, hidden text, or private properties from a document before printing or sending
6. Using the Built-in translator
7. Creating fancy equations using the equation toolbar
8. Using math autocorrect to create fancy equations outside of the equation toolbar

   

I was commissioned by Ed Tech to come up with a small Flash Application that reads the RSS feeds being generated from the college web site.
The specifications for this application were the following:

• It must be 230px x 110px in size.
• It must be built using Action Script 3.
• It must be able to display RSS feeds of the 10 most recent posts related to college events on the currently-being-developed Abu Dhabi Women’s College Web Site.
• It must enable display of 3 feeds at one time.

• Each feed being displayed must have active links: That is, be clickable and take the user to the appropriate web page associated with the RSS title being displayed.
• In addition, 3 invisible buttons were used, and links dynamically set for each of these buttons by referencing the link nodes in the RSS xml.

Below is a picture of the resulting feed. An XML parser class was used, and the XML nodes referenced to produce html output in each of the three text areas on the application.

A timer event is encoded on the main timeline of the application to trigger a change event every 8 seconds, causing a wipe transition to occur on current feeds, followed by loading of the next 3 events listed in the RSS XML.

This resulting application will not go online until the college web site goes live. When it does, it will be placed in the SharePoint college webpage, and alert all faculty to recent and current events within the college.

It has been difficult to start a culture of blogging for us ‘Digital Immigrants’. In an effort to take advantage of sparks of creativity there is a link to ‘Write a Post’ on the EdTech SharePoint site. Hopefully this will help us get posting when ideas are in our heads!

I was asked by the faculty at the Enhanced Learning Centre (ELC) to modify a previous application I was working on that provides writing feedback which indicates for students those aspects of writing that require further learning and practice (i.e. communication, grammar, vocabulary, mechanics).

In this new incarnation of the application, no band scores are to be given for each writing aspect. This was decided because the ELC faculty felt it would be difficult to accurately specify bandscores for the wide range of students (i.e. Diploma to Bachelor-level) who come to the ELC for help to remediate their writing problems.

The ELC faculty recognize the usefulness of automatically being able to generate detailed comments regarding the different writing aspects specified in the application. They have also said they will use these aspects as the basis for categories under which to organize supplementary learning materials, which the feedback generator will be able to point students towards - generated as a result of the particular writing feedback these teachers provide to students using this application.

We’ll be launching an ADWC SharePoint Advanced User Certification in week 10 of semester 2.  Modules will include:

• working with web parts
• content type document libraries
• linking Outlook meetings and SharePoint meeting workspaces
• creating and working with views
• using surveys
• discussion boards
• advanced document libraries

This will be a competency based qualification, candidates will demonstrate competency on a live SharePoint site.

More details from Jean (498) or Tom (489).

You know we run this site with Wordpress, I guess. I’ve been looking at Wordpress Multi User for another site I’m working on and it’s pretty cool. It’s the stuff they run at Wordpress.com.

With Wordpress Multi User we could set up blogs for all students in the college, so they could all have their own blog.

As you may know ADW is one of the presenters of the Hayah Film Festival, a section within the Middle East International Film Festival. I’ll try to post some photos and stories from the festival at www.uaetumblr.com.

Welcome to our new web site. We are the Educational Technology Department at Abu Dhabi Women’s College (ADW) in Abu Dhabi, UAE. We hope to be able to bring you news about issue sin educational technology and updated about what we’re working on.