Adobe’s New Interface

January 31, 2009 — dougpete

In Ontario, we are extremely fortunate to have a process where the Ministry of Education licenses software for use in all publically funded secondary schools.  The software that is licensed comes after recommendation from the Ontario Software Acquisition Program Advisory Committee.  I’m one of the representatives from Southwestern Ontario, for full disclosure.

One of the software titles that is licensed for Ontario Schools is the Adobe Creative Suite.  In the past week, the software was upgraded to CS4 from the previously licensed CS3.

Previously licensed titles looked live every other.  Under Windows, for example, there was a title bar with room for the pull-down menus.  It was a standard look and every product looked like every other Windows product.

Here, for example, is a snap of the menus from Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Recently, though, Adobe has been changing their interface.

Here’s the menu bar from Dreamweaver CS4.

Here’s the menu bar from Adobe’s Media Player.
There are a number of things to notice.  First, the title bar that appears in every other Windows program is missing.  Instead, there’s the application icon in the top corner and then the menus.  The menus themselves sit on a softly coloured interface.

While it undoubtedly is, you really don’t feel like you’re working with a top end application.  It just looks and feels friendlier.  It just comes across more inviting to the end user.

Kudos to Adobe and their Graphic User Interface designers.  They’ve made a great suite of products even better.

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Posted in Computers, Education, learning, software. 1 Comment »

links for 2009-01-30

January 31, 2009 — dougpete
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links for 2009-01-29

January 30, 2009 — dougpete
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Are you in there?

January 29, 2009 — dougpete

TA Twitter Mosaic of all of the folks who are following me…

Thanks to Twitter Follower Mosaic

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Posted in Just Rambling, Read/Write Web. 1 Comment »

Reality

January 29, 2009 — dougpete

Now that the US election is over, President Obama is in office, life goes on.  The whole process was a lesson in media at so many levels.

Through the online media, it has been a really educational process in US politics and the impact that such media has.  Over the course, the two presidential candidates were presented in both positive and negative lights depending upon the source.  They were demons and they were the ultimate answer to all of the world’s problems.

One of the things that may be lost is that they are people.  Yes, they have agreed to putting themselve online and become very public.  But, there is also another side.

In the case of the outgoing president, the news clip below should serve as a reminder that there is another side.  There is also a human element that is often overlooked or misrepresented in times like this.

 

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links for 2009-01-28

January 29, 2009 — dougpete
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Should PLNs really be personal?

January 28, 2009 — dougpete

I received an email from TheCleverSheep yesterday about mid-morning.  He was preparing for his presentation at the Ontario Educators’ Meetup online.  He had run into a problem.

Problem was that his district, like mine, has an internet content filter in place.  His presentation, on Creative Commons use by educators, required that he have a number of links demonstrating what the Creative Commons is all about.

In this case, he wanted to use a resource that I had blogged about earlier with respect to finding images on Flickr.  Turns out, his district had blocked resources that queried Flickr.  I’m guessing that Flickr itself may have been blocked too.

So, what’s he to do?  He turns to me, as part of his PLN, to see if I could help and fortunately I could.

But, this takes us to the heart of the matter.  With blocks in place, how can a learning network be personal?   Or, does Personal Learning Network imply that you must partake at home, on your own terms?  Should we start a campaign to take the “P” out of PLN?  Or, should we change it to “Professional”?  Or, should we just resign ourselves to the fact that there are some learnings that we just can’t do?

In this case, I was glad that I was able to help him out and I hope the fact that, in times of trouble, that he feels that he can turn to this keyboard in his own PLN.

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links for 2009-01-27

January 28, 2009 — dougpete
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Ontario Meetup #2

January 27, 2009 — dougpete

Originally posted by TheMobileLearner , this second meetup of Ontario educators happens tonight.  The first meetup attracted a good crowd of Ontario educators and, unexpectedly, a number of folks world-wide.  So, if you have an hour to learn with some Ontario folks, join in.

Thanks to Rob DeLorenzo from the Toronto Catholic District School Board for the concept and for hosting this event.

“How Learners Can Leverage the Creative Commons in their Creative Work”

After a successful first session, I would like to announce the date and time of the second session of the Ontario Educator Meetup.

Date: Tuesday January 27th 2009 @ 6:00 p.m. EST. Click here for time zone information

Theme: “How Learners Can Leverage the Creative Commons in their Creative Work“. Rodd Lucier, aka @thecleversheep, will be providing a 5-10 minute talk which will be followed by a 20-25 minute general conversation on the subject.

Place: Adobe Connect: http://connect.tcdsb.org/ontmeetup

Currently, there is space for 40 participants in this online meeting room. Please keep in mind that while this is for Ontario educators, everyone from anywhere in the world is invited to attend. Come by and share your thoughts – we will all benefit.

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links for 2009-01-26

January 27, 2009 — dougpete
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