Dispatches from the Intertubes

As part of the Tech Fellows program, I’ll be running day-long workshop sessions on Dreamweaver and Photoshop. As part of these workshops, I’ll be posting supplementary tutorial screencasts.

The tutorials are in progress.

An interesting tidbit from the Chronicle about the demise of the static PWP at the hands of content management systems.

We’re still looking for more Writing Program teachers to sit in on the technology committee. Our mandate is to investigate the various tools we have available to us here at UMass and how we can use them to better meet the pedagogical goals of the program. Our first item on this agenda will be to see how we can make SPARK work for Writing Program teachers.

If you’re interested in sitting on this committee, please email me — bhoule@english.umass.edu. No computer experience necessary. In fact, if you are unfamiliar with computers, but would like to gain some low-stakes exposure to the kinds of issues they raise and discuss them, please think about sitting on the committee.

The teachers of Basic Writing were treated to an hour-long training session (mostly informal Q&A) by Laura Yahn from OIT last Friday. Not only is Laura a resident expert on SPARK, but she is also an excellent presenter and skilled trainer. She works for the Instructional Media Lab over in Lederle and is happy to come back to give more training sessions in the future. If this is something you would be interested in, please let me know. If I get enough people interested, we’ll have Laura or someone from the IML come back.

In the meantime, if you would like to brush up on your new media skills, give the Instructional Media Lab a call to schedule an appointment. They provide hands-on training as well as independent work time in the lab with support nearby.

We’ve noticed that the computers in the labs here in Bartlett Hall (101 & 105) have the latest version of Microsoft Word (version 2007) installed. Earlier versions of Word featured a file format that was mostly compatible from version 97 to 2003. This latest version of Word, however, features a new file format, which means that files created with this newest version of Word are incompatible with earlier version of the program. This may cause a problem if you or your students have a version of Word on your personal computer that is between versions 97 and 2003. These earlier versions will be unable to open the files they create and save in the lab with Word 2007.

Here are three different methods for making Word 2007 play nice with earlier versions of Word.

1. Download and Install the File Converter

OIT computer mensch and my friend Michael Friedman pointed out that there is a handy file converter available from Microsoft, which, according to that company, allows one to “Open, edit, and save documents, workbooks, and presentations in the file formats new to Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007.”

Thanks for the tip, Mike!

2. Save Documents in Word 97-2003 Format

These instructions assume you have MS Word 97, 2000, XP, or 2003 on your personal computer.

1. Click the MS Office icon in the upper left corner of the Word 2007 window:
2. Hover the mouse pointer over the “Save As” option and select “Word 97-2003 Document:”
3. Continue saving your file as your normally would by naming your file, navigating to the folder in which you would like to save your file, and clicking “Save.” Note: the file extension should be “.doc” and not “.ocx” when you save in the 97-2003 version of Word.

3. Save Documents in Rich Text Format

What if you or your student doesn’t have MS Word 97-2003 on your personal computer? Most contemporary word processing programs can do some form of conversion to or from MS Word, but your best bet is to save files in Rich Text format. This file format preserves most of your text formatting, but is more universally recognized by non-Microsoft programs than native Word formats.

To save files in Rich Text format (RTF) from MS Word 2007, do the following:

1. Click the MS Office icon in the upper left corner of the Word 2007 window:
2. Hover the mouse pointer over the “Save As” option and select “Other Formats:”
3. Navigate to the folder in which you want to save your file. Change the option in the combobox labelled “Save as type” to “Rich Text Format (*.rtf)” and then name your file and click “Save.”

Welcome! This blog is specifically meant to be a tool for writing teachers in the Writing Program at UMass Amherst stay informed about computer resources and training available to them on campus. Please check back often!