Our External Verifier calls

It all began on 1st. July with the visit of our SQA External Verifier. Things change between one visit of the EV and another, and then some don't. I had seemingly misunderstood what he had said on his last visit regarding Independent Assessment, so this is the first thing we have to put right before he visits again on 18th. August. There were also other issues too regarding the rigour of our assessments which we shall need to watch.

In practice this has meant re-jigging our A1 Assessment Workbook A1.pdf. If you click the link you will be able to see some of the changes we have recently incorporated.

Publishing this Workbook as a PDF (Portable Document Format) has required the use of some sophisticated software, all of which forms part of the Adobe Creative Suite There is a hefty price tag for this software (CS2), but you may be able to buy it more cheaply if you look for OEM sellers. If you go to Dot.Mania and request to be placed on their e-mailing list, their newsletter will tell you how to obtain CS2 on 30 day free trial

The original Workbook was written in Microsoft Word and transferred to PDF using Adobe Acrobat. Better desktop publishing is possible using Adobe Indesign from the Adobe Creative Suite. The Indesign version of this workbook could then take up several megabytes of my website, causing it to take a long time to download unless you have Broadband. (It is of course true what they say: Broadband can be UP TO 40 times faster than dialup; but it's the UP TO which is important. Even with Broadband, you cannot open a site or download faster than the slowest link in the chain, and sometimes that slowest link is about as fast as a clapped out Morris Minor!).

Speeding up the download means making the A1.pdf file smaller. This is possible again using the "Package for GoLive" which is another component of the Adobe Creative Suite, accessible from the Indesign File Menu. Suffice it to give the following figures:

Old A1.doc(Microsoft Word) = 228 Kb

New A1.indd.(Indesign) = 2.9 Mb

PDF made from above A1.indd = 6.2 Mb !!!!

PDF made using Go Live = 528 Kb

So we're back near enough where we started.

Don't forget to download the A1.pdf file from this website and see the improvements for yourself!

Chris McAllister

 

I√A...Why not Have Fun at the same time?

One of the requirements of most competence based awards at Level 3 and above, is that the candidates must commit themselves to some Action Plan for Continuing Professional Development (See Heron News 4 and 5). This is built into the A1 qualification and more explicitly into all the Learning and Development Awards. I recommended, for one thing, becoming a member of some suitable network of Assessors, Trainers, etc. such as The Learning Network or the Institute of Verifiers and Assessors (IVA). Go to Heron News 4 in order to read the article again.

However, to my mind, Lawrence Miles' Institute of Verifiers and Assessors seems to be the least expensive to belong to. Annual subscriptions are only £28 per year and attendance at their nationwide roadshow of updating events is FREE.

But why not enjoy yourself at the same time? I√A gatherings are attended by pleasant and sociable folk and their Annual Conference is usally held in some easy-to-reach cultural centre such as Nice (last year) and on 19 December this year it will be Barcelona. That date is a Monday; the plan being to arrive sometime during the weekend in order to get together, network and socialise.

This of course explains why I featured the two pretty lassies alongside you this month. the plan next time will be a complete counterblast - a photograph of Lawrence Miles!

More Hardware and Software fixes

It was, of course Lawrence who put me onto two rather useful hardware/software fixes at his recent I√A gathering in Edinburgh. One of these is IBM Via Voice "U-Talk, It Types", which in the words of the famous saying; "It does exactly as it says on the packet'. To find out more, .Click here

The second fix I feel I should tell you about is a gadget which enables you to make digital recordings of telephone conversations on your PC. This is the CTI Telesto pack which you use to connect your PC to the phone socket, click "record" and continue talking to your caller in the normal way. I find this very useful when I need to conduct assessment interviews over the phone.

Expect to find full reviews of both fixes in the next issue of Heron News, once I have had a chance to explore their capabilities fully.

Chris McAllister