G-Rated Tips for OS X

Sharing Ideas

Technology teachers (TTs) can benefit from reviewing their class project results in the same way that coaches learn from watching game films. But what if you want to share your great ideas with other TTs?

PowerPoint and Word files can be saved as Web pages and either posted on a server or burned onto a CD. With your presentation open, choose “Save as Web Page” under the File menu. Click on the “Web Options” button, where you can select navigation, appearance, picture and browser support options.

This action creates a folder with the linked files and a file ending with “.htm.” To place several Web pages on a CD, create folders to organize the content, then drag both files (which are necessary to display the Web page) into another folder and burn the CD. Your presentations can now be opened with any Internet browser and without the help of PowerPoint.

Another way to share ideas is to create portable document files, or PDFs. These files can be opened and printed using the free Adobe Acrobat Reader information about PDF files that can be found at www.bc.edu/offices/ats/rits/instruction/elearning/support/documentprep/pdf.

Mac OS X users can save any printable file as a PDF by selecting “Save as PDF.” These PDF files are fine on a CD; however, the file sizes are too large for a Web site download. PC users can have a PDF toolbar added to their Office products by upgrading to the latest version of Adobe Acrobat (www.adobe.com).

An added benefit of this process is that you have created backup copies of your classroom files in the unfortunate event of hard drive problems.