Zoom Text Goes to Grad School

ZoomNews

Tracy is currently enrolled in the Biochemistry PhD program at Arizona State University (ASU), but it’s been a long road to get there. Although she was born with the rare disease plars planitis, Tracy’s vision didn’t really begin to deteriorate until junior high school. Plars planitis is an inflammation of the middle layer of the eye which causes floaters. By itself it doesn’t cause tremendous vision loss, but after multiple surgeries and medication attempting to correct it, Tracy developed glaucoma. This led to a sizable decrease in her vision - she lost all her peripheral vision and now can only see out of a small part of her eyes.

Growing up and going to school in a small town in Nebraska led to challenges with finding and using transportation and completing her school work. Always interested in the sciences, Tracy signed up for chemistry as a junior in high school. She was told to just find herself a lab partner who could help her complete the lab work. But when she went to college and majored in chemistry, the labs became much more intensive than they were in high school. She knew that she couldn’t rely on the other students to do the lab work for her anymore - nor did she want them to.

“In my freshman year, I had a professor who told me I had to find a way to do everything myself,” says Tracy. “I pushed myself to measure all the chemicals, and if I couldn’t see things properly, I came up with techniques that worked for me and thus became more independent.”

For her coursework, Tracy used a large CCTV that came with detachable glasses. They helped in certain arenas, but they were too bulky to use in the lab. Not long after, the Commission of the Blind in Nebraska introduced her to ZoomText, and she has been a user now for over five years.

“Before I got ZoomText, I would get extremely tired after only an hour of looking at the computer screen,” says Tracy. “Using a computer is critical for me - I have to read journals, develop laboratory protocols, and analyze data on a daily basis, and ZoomText makes everything large enough so that I can be effective in my research.”

For more on Tracy and Zoom visit www.aisquared.com/News/index.php

Webmath

www.webmath.com

Whether you are in primary school and stuck on a basic computation, or in high school and at the end of yourself as you try to complete an assignment in calculus, this site offers amazing help. All you have to do is type in your problem. Webmath will work it out for you and provide you with a helpful explanation. The Webmath programmers have developed special engineers that do the calculations almost instantly in real time.

Tips for Effective Note Taking

Note Taking Tips

* Put the date, class topic, and your name on the first page of your notes.
* Start each day with a new sheet of paper. Write on one side of the paper only. Leave space for ideas that you miss. ( You can also add them to the blank facing page.)
*Don't skimp on paper. Write big, and leave plenty of space between ideas, topics and subtopics.
*Don't try to write down every sentence in order. A good rule of thumb is every third sentence.
*Identify questions or things they you do not understand by using colors or symbols.
*Get cheap pens and lots of them, and don't worry about losing them.
*Sit in the front row or in the middle. Make eye contact with your prof.
*If your class period is long, take reasonable breaks. It's okay to leave if you come back. however, when you do leave, mark the place in your notes where you left off, and when you return, mark the spot where you picked up again. You may even want to note that there is missing information between those tow spots.
*Play around with materials like colored pencils, highters, sticky notes, flags and so on.

Reference: Learning Outside the Lines by Jonathan Mooney and David Cole

Open Office

OpenOffice.org is an office suite application available for a number of different computer operating systems. It supports the OpenDocument standard for data interchange as its default file formats, as well as Microsoft Office '97-2003 formats, among many others.Compatible with all other major office suites, the product is FREE to download, use, and distribute.

Components

OpenOffice.org is a collection of applications that work together closely to provide the features expected from a modern office suite. Many of the components are designed to mirror those available in Microsoft Office. The components available include:

Writer

A word processor similar in look and feel to Microsoft Word and offering a comparable range of functions and tools. It also includes the ability to export Portable Document Format (PDF) files with no additional software, and can also function as a WYSIWYG editor for creating and editing web pages. One important difference between Writer and Microsoft Word is that in Writer, many functions and number formats from Calc (below) are available in Writer’s tables.

Calc

A spreadsheet similar to Microsoft Excel with a roughly equivalent range of features. Calc provides a number of features not present in Excel, including a system which automatically defines series for graphing, based on the layout of the user’s data. Calc is also capable of writing spreadsheets directly as a PDF file.

Impress

A presentation program similar to Microsoft PowerPoint. It can export presentations to Adobe Flash (SWF) files allowing them to be played on any computer with the Flash player installed. It also includes the ability to create PDF files, and the ability to read Microsoft PowerPoint's .ppt format. Impress suffers from a lack of ready-made presentation designs. However, templates are readily available on the Internet.^[7][8][9]

Base

A database program similar to Microsoft Access. Base allows the creation and manipulation of databases, and the building of forms and reports to provide easy access to data for end-users. As with Access, Base may be used as a front-end to a number of different database systems, including Access databases (JET), ODBC data sources and MySQL/PostgreSQL. Base became part of the suite starting with version 2.0. Native to the OpenOffice.org suite is an adaptation of HSQL. While ooBase can be a front-end for any of the databases listed, there is no need for any of them to be installed.

Draw

A vector graphics editor comparable in features to early versions of CorelDRAW. It features versatile "connectors" between shapes, which are available in a range of line styles and facilitate building drawings such as flowcharts. It has similar features to Desktop publishing software such as Scribus and Microsoft Publisher.

Math

A tool for creating and editing mathematical formulae, similar to Microsoft Equation Editor. Formulae can be embedded inside other OpenOffice.org documents, such as those created by Writer. It supports multiple fonts and can export to PDF.

For more information and to download visit www.openoffice.org