Technology & Learning - January 2008 - (Page 32)

» How To: By Jeffrey Branzburg Creating an Interactive PDF A project on the 2008 presidential election can teach students about national politics and Acrobat’s many tools. T here are many ways to begin a PDF document using Adobe Acrobat. The easiest and most popular way is to create your document in another application (such as Microsoft Word) and then use the Adobe Acrobat software to convert it to a PDF. For my project—an interactive student-handout PDF about the 2008 presidential election—I started with Word and then converted the document to a PDF so I could add interac- tive elements to it, such as links to candidates’ Web sites, audio and video segments, and a “straw poll,” where students can respond to a survey about the election. To convert my Word document to PDF format I used the Print to PDF functionality built into Adobe Acrobat. (When I had installed Acrobat on my computer, it added a printer driver called Adobe’s Sticky Note feature lets you add comments to your PDF. Adobe PDF to my system. Now, no matter what program I am using, if I want to create a PDF I just choose Print and select Adobe PDF from the drop-down menu of printers. Although obviously not a physical printer, Adobe has made it so that the process is the same. The end result, instead of being a sheet of paper as would come out of a printer, is a PDF computer file.) I wanted students to be able to participate in a straw poll, and thought it would be helpful to define the term. To do so, I used Acrobat’s Sticky Note feature, found on the Tools menu, allowing me to insert a small graphic onto the PDF document. When a reader’s mouse hovers over the small yellow graphic, When a mouse a pop-up box will hovers over appear with the the Sticky Note notes I created. icon, a box Acrobat also with a text lets you record message will an audio compop up. ment (a feature that could be put to good use in early childhood or for English language learners) as well as attach a file as a comment (for example, a map 32 | www.techlearning.com http://www.techlearning.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Technology & Learning - January 2008

Technology & Learning - January 2008 Contents Editor's Desk News & Trends Product Guide Reviews Cover Story: Ten Top Tech Trends ERP Makes a Comeback Tossing Out Textbooks LOY Profile Series Higher Ed How To Bottom Line What's New Emerging Tech

Technology & Learning - January 2008

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