EDUC 6000 - Week 8

I met with Sonny this week to discuss the powerpoint presentation on Microsoft Office 2010.  He likes the presentation, but he suggested some things be added.  He liked the use of the picture at the beginning of the presentation as a hyperlink, so he wanted make other pictures throughout the presentation changed to hyperlinks to the online help.  I also added shapes to those slides that included instructions on clicking on the picture to go to the website.  He also suggested adding a video to the presentation that compared 2010 to 2007.  I found a video at Microsoft's site that showed a side-by-side comparison, but I had a problem embedding it into the presentation.  For some reason, the embed code provided just wouldn't work.  Since that didn't work, I went to YouTube and found one that I really liked better than the one on Microsoft's site.  It's about 6 minutes long and gives an overview of the differences between Microsoft Office 2010 and 2007 in each of their applications.  I didn't have any problem embedding that video into the presentation using the Old Embed code.  I think that may have been the problem with using the embed code on the other video.  It was like it just wasn't recognized.  Any suggestions on that is appreciated!

Anyway, I think I'm pretty much done with this, so I'm working on my next project which is create something showing the difference between Windows 7 and XP.  I'm also researching the use of pivot tables, pivot charts, and slicers to use in a spreadsheet.  This goes back to a spreadsheet that I worked on in Week 5, and Sonny wants to see if this would work instead of creating an Access database to work with the Excel spreadsheet.  I think that's going to be a challenge!

EDUC 6000 - Week 7

This is a continuation of last week's project.  I'm still working on the powerpoint training for Microsoft Office 2010.   When I started this, Sonny said he had done some work on the project before, but he couldn't find his work.  So last week, I started a new powerpoint using hyperlinks and the screencapture function in Powerpoint as well as instructions to explain the illustrations.  Since then, Sonny found his work.  After reviewing what he had done, I integrated it into what I did last week and made some changes to make the presentation flow better.  This took about three hours.  I've sent it to him again to review.  I'll let you know what he thinks when I find out. 

EDUC 6000 - Week 6

I finally got to work on the training document for Microsoft Office 2010 this morning.  Viewlet Builder turned out to be a bust.  Neither Sonny nor I could get it to work.  However, Sonny discovered that the 2010 version of Microsoft Office Powerpoint has a screenshot function.   I used it to start a Powerpoint presentation on using both the regular help function and the interactive tutorial.  I've been using the 2010 version personally for a while now and have found it to be somewhat difficult to navigate.  What I found out this morning is that I should have used HELP!  I'm going to be playing with this a lot more to discover all the bells and whistles in the tutorial.  If I had used this before doing some past projects, I would have been a lot less frustrated!  I've sent what I've done so far to Sonny to review.  We'll discuss it next week and make any needed changes or additions.

EDUC 6000 - Week 5

This week's project has been an exercise in frustration.  Sonny has created Excel spreadsheets for each of the agency's eight districts to track safety equipment like pepper spray, armor vests, and batons.  Each of the items on the spreadsheet has columns that include information about the item like issue date and expiration date.  Needless to say, this has turned out to be a huge spreadsheet.  I kind of volunteered to help out with this one because the person responsible for monitoring this equipment (Andrew) is in my office.  When talking with Andrew, I found that he planned to have 2 tracking systems for the equipment, one to be used by field staff and one to be used by someone in Central Office.  This really seemed like a waste of staff since this would require the same information to be entered by different people.  However, the Excel spreadsheet doesn't provide him with the statistical information that he needs to have available, so he thought it would be easier to get that from an Access database.  I tried adding subtotals to the appropriate columns and tying them to a separate worksheet that just listed the totals.  This was doable but very time consuming.  I worked on that for a couple of hours and then determined that the data might be compromised as the spreadsheets were updated.  I then spoke with someone else in Information Systems about the logistics involved.  Of course, his first suggestion was to have I.S. create an application strictly for tracking the equipment.  The problem is that I.S. is so backed up with projects that we knew that wouldn't happen anytime soon.  We then discussed putting it in an Access database but we're not certain that field staff will have Access when their computers are updated.  There's speculation that the new computers will have a cheaper version of Microsoft Office.  We finally settled on importing only the applicable data to Access to create the reports Andrew needs.   We did a test and found that this would work.  Andrew is going to send the spreadsheets to the fiield staff to complete.  Before he can do that, we're going to establish passwords to keep others from making unauthorized changes to the spreadsheets.   I'm keeping my fingers crossed that everything works as we hope it does. 

EDUC 6000 - Week 4

We've had to push back the Microsoft Office Training, because I'm creating an Access Database for one of our directors.  This database will be used to track staff errors.  I've also created a report to send to the district directors that is organized by district, office location, and officer.  I've sent the database to Sonny for review and to get suggestions on making the report more user friendly.  I haven't had a lot of experience with creating databases with Access, but I really like using them.  So far it's not been that difficult, although I've had to ask for help with a few things like creating search commands on the form and setting up the report.   I worked on this for most of the day yesterday and some this morning.  I'm still not quite satisfied with the end product, especially the report, so I'll continue to tweak it.  Hopefully, Sonny will have some suggestions too.

EDUC 6000 - Week 3

I went through the rest of the pages of the manual on the camcorder and finished the power point presentation that I started last week. The rest of the manual was concerned with more technical aspects of operating the camcorder, so I didn't include a lot of that information. As I mentioned before, Sonny wants to keep the presentation to the basic operation of the camera. I ended up with about 42 slides. The equipment will do a lot more than what the presentation covers, so I included the direct link to the manual on the last slide and encouraged viewers to check it out. The presentation has been sent to Sonny for review, and he said he was pleased with it. We've started discussion for the next project, which we will be introducing staff to the tutorials for Microsoft 2010 Office programs. Sonny mentioned that he had used a program called Viewlet Builder many years ago, so we checked online to see if there is still a free version available. There was a newer version available, so I'll be researching how that program works next.

The following is the link for the powerpoint presentation:  http://www.screencast.com/t/uhQEz630Hde

EDUC 6000 - Week 2

This week I've started a project that will take a while to complete.  The agency has obtained a camcorder, and Sonny wants to create a powerpoint that staff can use to learn the basics of using the equipment.  The manual for the camcorder is really pretty good, but it's over 200 pages long and not very well organized.  It's my job to condense this into a powerpoint presentation that includes only the basic operation of the camcorder.  So far, I've went through about 100 pages of the manual, and the powerpoint has 32 slides.  The great thing about this is that I've been using Jing to create the slides so I can include the instructions and illustrations directly from the manual.  I knew the things I've learned in this program would come in handy!  It's time consuming, but I'm really pleased with how it's going.  Sonny says it looks good so far too.  Of course, I'll provide a reference and website address for the manual at the end of the presentation!