Week Three

WEEK THREE

This week (and for the next few weeks) I shall be working on the interactive eBooks, assignments for eBusiness and my Special Topic (this is a research paper on Interactive Software for eBooks).

OBJECTIVES

Start creating pages for the Be Fire Safe interactive activity book using Adobe InDesign CC.

PROJECT 

Producing two interactive eBooks for New Zealand Fire Service. These books are aimed at different aged children and are called Be Fire Safe activity book and Wise Up, the choice is yours. At present these are in printed form and are taken into schools by the Fire Awareness Intervention Practitioner to help show the children the dangers of fire and their consequences and the difference between good and bad fires.

TASKS

Create a 16 page document using Adobe InDesign
Add graphics, text and colours for the cover page
Insert New Zealand Fire Service Logo

DAILY LOG

Monday

Today I watched several videos on YouTube about how to make an interactive eBook using Adobe InDeisgn. I also watched some videos on the same subject within Adobe (on their website are tutorials). I wrote notes as I watched to allow me to refer back to them, when and if required, whilst I am making the interactive eBook.

Tuesday

eBusiness lecture today - discussed assignment and worked on that. This week it was in regards to Logistics for e-Commerce companies and what was offered by these companies. I went into the multimedia room up in the computer block (3rd floor) and went online and looked up several different large companies (which we have previously looked at) and had a look at their logistics. What they do, from where and how they do it (themselves or outsourcing). This also included how many different distribution centres the company has, if they delivered all the products, how many products and how many shops the company has.

I later worked on page two of the first interactive eBook. The first page only had colour, shapes, graphic and a logo, this page has has all of those (except for the logo) and it has additional text boxes which have to be included and named (something I forgot to do for the first two text boxes). This is where the child adds their name and address and telephone number. It also has the objectives of what the book hopes to achieve.

To add a text box you have to:

• Open InDesgn
• Select file
• Select the file you are working on
• Select the rectangle tool (not the frame tool) 
• Move the cursor to the position you wish (see it is now a cross) hold the right side of the mouse down and drag the  frame to make the size you wish. If you want the frame to be a certain size then go view, show rulers. To make a text box a certain size you right click anywhere on the ruler and choose the measurement you require

Name each box as you go. To do this I inserted the text box then I went to Window and selected interactive then buttons and forms. Once selected there is a box that will appear. This is what it looked like when I was working on it.

Once I did this another box appeared which is this one which I then used to name the text field and select the options I required.

As you can see I have already selected the box that I am going to name. I did this with all the text boxes I have made. It is time consuming but well worth doing.

Wednesday

Today I started working on page three of the interactive eBook. This page has good or bad tick boxes, I had a problem trying to get the tick to disappear if it was placed in the wrong box. Also on this page are text boxes in which the child has to add text by answering the questions and a number box where they have to add the fire service phone number. If this is entered incorrectly then a box will show on the screen for a few seconds asking them to try again.

Thursday
eBusiness class today (2 hours). I went home and worked on page three of the Be Fire Safe interactive eBook. I managed to add all the graphics, text and text boxes. I had a few issues on how to do the tick boxes and make them disappear if they were incorrectly placed. I am leaving this part to do at a later date.

Friday
Worked at home today on page four of the Be Safe interactive eBook. Page four has several graphics, two tick boxes and text. I will have to discuss with Mark, my contact at NZFS, as to the drop down boxes with possible answers for one section (what answers do he want added).

Presentation to Taradale Fire Service Monday evening next week so started to make a PowerPoint presentation - this was to do with interactive eBooks and what I hope achieve for the Fire Service.

PROBLEMS
Trying to remember how to do things within Adobe InDesign Software and finding a simple solution on how to insert pages correctly.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
Watch the videos again on YouTube.

LEARNING EXPERIENCE

My learning experience this week had been learning how to use new software and how to insert different things and naming them.

STATUS OF PROJECT
The objectives for this week were to install Adobe InDesign and to start to make an Interactive eBook. This has been achieved.

REFLECTION ON ISSUES
I am feeling quite isolated doing this project, I do talk to others who are doing an internship but it does not help as they are doing several different things within their companies and can not understand working alone on a project. However, I do feel a bit more positive about this project as I have been able to complete several pages and that has given me an incentive to progress and learn more about the software and find out what I can create with it. My issues were trying to get the pages set correctly and naming text boxes. I forgot to name the first two and found that I couldn't go back and name these as I needed to have them in the correct order so I had to delete them all and start adding and naming them all over again. It also took me a little bit of time to find out (after doing a screenshot) was how to save the shot as a PNG file to enable me to put it into the blog - I know it is easy but it was so long since I had to do this that I forgot so it was good to revisit something that I will use again.