Accessibility
Ruth Kastenmayer

Ruth Kastenmayer

ruthk.net

John Champion

John Champion

commtoolz.com

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Case study: Jackson-Via School Portal
  3. Using Fireworks to produce a PDF portfolio
  4. Sharing files and enhancing collaboration and communication
Created:
6 October 2008
User Level:
Beginner, Intermediate
Products:
Acrobat.com
Fireworks

Publishing and sharing PDF portfolios online using Fireworks CS4 and Acrobat.com

In the United States, current educational reform legislation emphasizes the importance of leveraging the power of technology in all areas of K–12 education—from reading to science to special education. To achieve information literacy, students must learn to access, evaluate, and synthesize information and then have the capability to use that information productively. The Internet offers a powerful worldwide set of digital technologies, making it an ideal environment to ensure that every child reaches this goal. (For more information, see The National Education Technology Plan.)

Sadly, effective use of technology to enhance teaching and learning lags far behind the effort to equip American schools with the latest hardware and software. Today many schools across the globe (and almost every K–12 public school in the United States) have broadband access. However, having an Internet connection in a classroom or school computer lab does not automatically result in an improved learning environment. Fortunately, some promising school projects are using the Internet to share ideas and connect with each other.

Here are some examples:

  • International collaboration projects enable students to communicate directly with other students in classes all over the world. This cross-cultural interaction with new learning opportunities offers amazing opportunities for improving student performance and technology skills. This type of program is very popular with both students and teachers because it encourages participation. One of the key tools available to educators who would like to internationalize their classrooms is the US Department of Education's Teachers' Guide to International Collaboration on the Internet.
  • WebQuests are inquiry-based lessons posted online that are particularly suited for teaching science and social studies. Most of the information comes from the Internet, and links are provided in order to minimize the time spent by students searching for the information that they need to complete the project. For an overview of WebQuests visit WebQuest.org.

Technology-based programs are frequently adopted with a promise of simplifying teachers' work. However, in practice many of these proposed "solutions" often complicate the process and overwhelm everyone involved. In this article, we outline the solution we've implemented using Fireworks CS4 and Acrobat.com to share student portfolios with other students globally, leveraging the functionality available in PDF documents.

Requirements

In order to make the most of this article, you need the following software and files:

Fireworks CS4

Import Files in Multiple Pages extension (by Sarthak Singhal)

Acrobat.com

Acrobat Reader 9

Digital images (optional)

A folder of images on your hard drive to use for the slideshow—either your own or the images provided in the sample files

Sample files:

Prerequisite knowledge:

A basic familiarity of working with digital images.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License

Page 1 of 4
Next Page

About the authors

Ruth Kastenmayer, an active member of the Charlottesville Adobe User Group, is a former college webmaster and instructor of web development courses. She is devoted to promoting Information and Communication Technology (ICT) literacy at both extremes of the lifelong-learning spectrum by volunteering as a tutor at Jackson-Via Elementary School and serving as the webmaster for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Virginia. She and her husband have three grown children and live in Willoughby Townes, Charlottesville, Virginia. You can reach her at ruthk@ruthk.net.

John Champion is a certified elementary school teacher. He began his career teaching kindergarten, first grade, and coaching in Michigan public schools, where he developed an interest in the technology side of teaching and learning. Since leaving the classroom, John has provided technology leadership to enhance teaching, learning, and communication for teachers, administrators, and the students and parents of the communities they serve. You can reach him at john@commtools.com.