Free Materials For Teachers

Image©2008 ABS Ann In Rock Window
If you're between a rock and a hard place, here's where to get help.

You’ll find a complete downloadable guide to getting the Annie’s Resource Attic activities and other resources onto your hard drive and into your applications at the end of this page. The following is a short version of that information.

First Consult Application Help
Keep in mind that the activities from Annie’s Resource Attic were created in various multimedia programs, so look first at the help files and manuals for those applications.

If a problem is caused by a bug or glitch in one of those applications, the excellent technical help people for that application can probably come up with a work-around.

Here are some links for online support :

About Downloads

As soon as you click a download link, the activity or other resource should begin to go to your computer. Where it goes depends on the destination you have set in your browser. You may get a dialog asking if you want to save or open the file. Choose SAVE. Be sure to note the exact file name, so you can search for it after the download if necessary. For a detailed guide to downloading, saving, and importing things from Annie’s Resource Attic, click the link at the bottom of this page.

About ZIP Files

Many activities and other resources are compressed as zip files to save download time. You will need to decompress these to use them. Exception: IntelliTools Classroom Suite® can import zip files. For details, download the guide at the bottom of this page.

About PDF Files

Image©2008 ABS Click Floppy Disk Icon to Save as PDF
Click Floppy Disk Icon to Save as PDF

Many activities and how-to’s are in PDF format. If you have trouble opening them, you may need an updated version of Adobe (Acrobat) Reader®. You can download it free from the Adobe® web site.

There is also a plug-in for Adobe Reader that may be installed in your browser. If so, when you click a link to download a PDF file, it may open in your browser. This does not necessarily mean it’s been saved, however. Look for a way to save as a PDF, usually a floppy disk icon (now there’s an antique!) in the upper left. If there is no plug-in, then you will get a dialog asking if you want to save or open the file. Since you want to keep this file for later use, choose Save.

About Importing Files

Be sure to import activities and other resources into the appropriate application. Double-clicking a file is not a good way to open it. Moving individual files out of folders may break links. For details, download the complete guide from the bottom of this page. For even more specific information on installing linked Clicker 5 activity sets, see Integrated Study Units In Clicker 5.

About Application Version

Check the system requirements for the activities you download. If you have a very old application version, you may need to update. In addition, many of the activities include movies. If you have a very old computer, with an early version video card, it may not be able to play these movies. I’ve tried to have a still picture on the page with movies where possible, so that you won’t see a blank page.

About Clicker 5 and Cloze Pro

Some Text Is Hidden In Text Boxes
This is an effect of the shape of your particular monitor. You can readjust the Clicker 5 activity window’s size and shape so that the complete text in all the text boxes shows without the need for scrollbars. Go to Changing Window Shape In Clicker 5 for details.

Installing Study Units
Many of the clicker 5 activity sets are linked to a menu grid, and some have linked libraries of photos, movies, and sounds in order to keep the file sizes as small as possible. For this reason, it is essential to move the entire study unit into the Clicker 5 Shared Files folder rather than copying and moving individual files. If you edit one of these grid sets, it must be saved into the unit folder. For details see Integrated Study Units For Clicker 5.

Videos
You will notice that I have a Mac and a Windows version of these activities, even though both applications are cross platform. The reason is the videos. Clicker and Cloze Pro Mac can run QuickTime. Clicker and Cloze Pro Windows cannot run QuickTime, but can run most AVI’s and also runs Windows Media Player movies (.wmv). I’ve been advised that the best solution is to use .wmv movies in both Clicker 5 and 6, so that is what I am using in new projects as of 2013.

Previously, I used .avi movies with Indeo compression, but this is no longer supported in Mac. I also sometimes used Cinepac compression .avi, which used to play on both platforms. I am in the process to converting all the movies into QuickTime for Mac, and .wmv for Windows. If I have missed one and you don’t see the movies play, particularly in Clicker 6, alert me and I’ll get that one converted. Thanks for helping me out!

You may need to download an add-on codec in order to see videos in Clicker 5 Win. Clicker 5 relies on whatever codecs happen to be installed in your Windows operating system. I believe that Windows XP usually has the Indeo codec, so you may have no problem. But if you aren’t seeing video, download and install the codec you find when you click this link. This is the solution I received from Crick Software tech help. You can download the codec here.

About SoftTouch Applications

There are players for My Own Bookshelf in several formats (Mac OSX, Win) that run books as slideshows, playing movies and sounds but lacking the interactive functions and chances to edit the books. The players are exported with each finished book, but to keep the file sizes smaller, I’ve removed them and instead posted them here to download. You can download the Mac OSX Bookreader here. For the Classic bookreader, Mac 9.xx, click here. Get the Windows Bookreader here. There isn’t a Reader or trial version for Test Me Score Me.

Known Issues
My Own Bookshelf runs very slowly on Mac, especially loading, and especially with newer MAC OS. SoftTouch is aware of this, but there is no easy solution. I’ve also seen Test Me Score Me intermittently fail to read out the entire answer, once a student chooses it. It seems to be a timing problem, in that the application doesn’t finish the task of reading out before going onward. The results for Test Me Score Me are accurate, even if the answer is not read out.

About PowerPoint

I’m experimenting with PowerPoint, so try at your own risk. Feedback welcome! I’ve posted two versions, one that should work with PowerPoint 2003 on Windows and 2004 on Mac. The movies are in the same folder, and it’s best to leave them there. I’m not certain the links will hold. If not, you may need to re-insert the movies. I think you can tell by inspection where they go. There is a picture on each page, so that the activity will still be usable even if the movies do not work. The second version, a PowerPoint Package, is supposed to export movies and all as one folder, thus keeping the links, but may need PowerPoint 2007 to run. Try it!

If you don’t have PowerPoint, and you have Windows, you can try the free PowerPoint Viewer 2007, which runs PowerPoint presentations made in PowerPoint 97 or later. Download it from the Microsoft® web site right here.

About Special Needs Access

See the Special Needs Access section of the System Reqs page. I’m not an expert on alternative access, but I’ve put a link there to a document with switch and interface setting by people who are experts. If you’re having a problem accessing any of the activities, see the manuals for the application first. Then try the links to Dr. Caroline Musselwhite, Linda Burkhart, or Susan Norwell under the People links. They may have the answer posted, or you can ask them for help.

About Online Activities and Resources

Annie’s Books Online and Annie’s Puzzles Online
These two online publication types have a help section on the same page as the index to these activities. Click here for the online puzzles help and index page. Click here for the online books help and index page.

Annie’s Resource Attic Gallery
The Gallery gives you a chance to browse the photo and clip art collections. It is intended for review purposes only. Look through the collections to see if the images are what you need, then return to the download page. Click here to go to the Gallery, which will open in a separate tab.

Preview Tutorials Online
You can preview the entire text of workshop tutorials by clicking a link that takes you to a digital version on YuDu.com. This self-publishing site is located in Ireland and may load slowly; please give it time if you are in a distant location.

Click here for the online tutorials help and index page.

Once the page opens, choose a tutorial to open its main page. Click the thumbnail or the View button to read the tutorial online. Even if the tutorial takes a long time to load initially, the pages will turn and load normally in use.

Another option is to embed the tutorial for a workshop into your own web page. You might want to do this if you use one of the Annie’s Resource Attic tutorials as part of a larger online workshop or presentation. Use the Embed button on a tutorial’s main page to generate the code you need.

Some browsers may warn that you are being re-directed to another page when you click the View button. That’s okay, allow it. You may be asked to give YuDu permission to store up to 10KB on your computer. You may click Deny about four times, and in a few minutes the dialog will close. If you click Allow, the document may load faster, but this action is not necessary to read the tutorial. Unfortunately, this preview won’t run on iPad® because it uses Flash®.

You may find it easier to use the tutorial online when you do a workshop. Once you open the digital edition, you can add highlights and notes by clicking buttons in the top bar. Your additions will be saved and will be there when you return to the tutorial.


DOWNLOAD GUIDE

DownloadSaveImport.pdf (900 KB) A complete guide to downloading, decompressing, and importing files from Annie’s Resource Attic.

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