Suggested Program Applications

1. This document provides instructions for using an educational program as a supplement to classroom instruction, for refreshing previous training, and for measuring student skill levels. 2. It describes how to access the Windows calculator within the program, how to copy and paste between exercises and the calculator, and how to print screens from the program. 3. The document also explains how to store student scores on disk, how the program reads option settings from a file on startup to determine defaults, and the hardware requirements for the program.

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DAVID FELIPE HERNANDEZ LADINO

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Suggested Program Applications

Uploaded by

DAVID FELIPE HERNANDEZ LADINO

We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.

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SUGGESTED PROGRAM APPLICATIONS

Note: This program is not a self-instructional course. This material is designed to be used as an interactive
supplement to tutorials, classroom instruction and textbook instruction. The program is also frequently used as
refresher for previous training.

1. The interactive activities can be used as learning or laboratory assignments. Each student is
given activities of the same difficulty but with different parameters. Students can practice as
much as required to attain a competency level.

2. The activities can be used to refresh knowledge from previous training. Employees often
forget processes and details.

3. The activities can be used to measure the knowledge and skill levels of students and trainees.
Each activity is scored immediately after completion by the user.

4. The material may be used for classroom demonstrations using LCD video projectors.

WINDOWS CALCULATOR

The Windows calculator can be used with this program. The following procedure can be used to
prepare the calculator for use. Select PROGRAMS, then ACCESSORIES, and then
CALCULATOR before starting this program. The Windows calculator should be displayed on
the screen. Select the block with the "line" in the upper right corner of the calculator. This
reduces the calculator to an icon on the task bar. Start execution of this program. When you want
to use the calculator, press the Windows key or Ctrl/Esc to display the task bar. Click the
calculator button. You can also hold down the Alt key and press Tab until the calculator icon is
highlighted. You may need to review your Windows manual on switching Windows tasks if these
brief instructions are difficult to follow.

COPYING AND PASTING

In some instances, you may want to copy and paste numbers between exercises and the
calculator. The calculator has Copy and Paste options under Edit. This program allows you to use
the right mouse button to evoke a Cut, Copy, and Paste menu. The mouse pointer must be
positioned on a data block for this process to be active. The standard Windows Copy and Paste
keystrokes, Ctrl/C and Ctrl/V, can also be used in most activities.

PRINTING SCREENS

Most screens generated by this program can be printed. Hold down the Alt key while typing the
letter P to send a copy of the current screen to the printer. You must not reposition the window
prior to sending a copy to the printer. This process may not work if prohibited by your network
rules or by special prohibitions that have been added to your operating system.

STORING SCORES ON DISK

Student scores can be stored on a disk file. The drive to be used must be present when this
program starts. Errors and possible loss of the score data will be lost if the drive is not available.
The file generated by the disk storage feature is given a DOS compatible file name, gxxxxxxx,
where the lower case "g" is always the first letter in the file name. The xxx… is a sequence of
two to seven numeric digits. The file is a simple ASCII text file that can be read and examined
with any text editor. Do not examine and resave a student grade file under the original name with
a word processor! This can make the file appear corrupted by the score printout utility. Word
processors inject formatting characters into a file. This program calculates and stores a code with
each record in the student’s score file. This Validity Code is a simple encryption signature
designed to reduce the possibility of file entry alteration and the generation of duplicate records.
The Validity Code provides some low-level security but is certainly not hack proof. The validity
of records can most easily be checked by use of the "Print Grade File" option of this program.
This option produces a formatted printout of a selected student grade file. Never attempt to use
this option to print any other file type. Each grade record in the file is validity checked with "E!"
printed after any record failing the validity test. The routine also checks for duplicate records that
are indicated by "D!" printed after the duplicate record.

OPTION INITIAL SETTINGS

This program reads the file "options.ini" on each startup. The file “options.ini” is located at
C:\Educational Applications\ETCAI Products\<Program Title>\options.ini for standard installs.

The first entry determines the default condition for the certificate printing option. The possible
settings the options are:

CERTIFICATES ON or CERTIFICATES OFF

The second entry sets the default condition of the disk storage feature for grades.
The two possible settings are:

DISK STORAGE ON or DISK STORAGE OFF

The third entry sets the default condition of the Wallpaper option. The possible settings are:

WALL PAPER ON or WALL PAPER OFF

All characters in the above initialization options must be in upper case characters. All characters
are significant including spaces. Any error in spelling, spaces, or case will cause the option to
default to the ON setting.

Line 4 of the “option.ini” file contains the path for student grade file storage. Errors in formatting
this line may cause program execution errors. The initial path is C:\BCCV6 Grades\. The initial
grade file is set to g5643920. This path must be changed before significant use of the program.
The path and all files within will be deleted when this program is uninstalled. A few examples of
paths and explanations are given below. You may create as many grade files as you want.
b:\

The student grades will be stored on drive b:

c:\stuff\

The student grade files will be stored in the "stuff" directory of c: drive. Caution! You must
create the "stuff" directory prior to running the program.

c:\records\student\

Grade files will be stored in the "student" subdirectory of the "records" directory of c: drive.
Again, you must create the directory structure prior to running the program.

VIDEO AND HARDWARE

This program requires 600x800 graphics or higher. A wallpaper image is placed over the unused
portion of the screen on systems with resolution above 600x800. The wallpaper is useful to
beginners because accidental task switches are unlikely. The default bitmap image for the
wallpaper is named chips.bmp. Another bitmap file can be substituted for chips.bmp. The file
will be tiled as wallpaper across the unused portion of super VGA displays. Some institutions
may want to display school or department logos on the wallpaper. The file chips.bmp can be
deleted or renamed to allow normal task switching as no wallpaper will be displayed. This can be
useful to more advanced students who are familiar with task switching.