ICT TEACHERS Discuss Web Design, Databases, Spreadsheets and form Regional Subcommittees for steering their association

This year’s Refresher workshop for ICT Teachers facilitated by MT-Infotech Ltd and Sharebility Uganda was successfully held on Saturday 9^th June 2018. Over 200 teachers from all regions of the country attended the workshop. Every year, a survey is conducted and specific areas where the teachers find challenges are identified to be discussed. During the initial survey, lots of topics were identified as listed on the workshop invitation letter, but since the workshop was to last only one day and members had to travel back in time, focus was drawn to Web design, Databases, Spreadsheets and the rest of the time was given to members to share ideas concerning establishing a national Association for ICT Teachers in Uganda.

Highlights from the sessions

Web Design Session

A presentation about the current status of the topic at O Level was made and members were encouraged to try out a number of web authoring software as per the recommendations in the 2016 UNEB examiners report. The members identified a number of suitable web authoring software for UCE. Since most of the members were familiar to Ms. Publisher 2007 and it was readily available in all schools, it was used to practically design a website during the workshop emphasising the technique of designing only one home page and duplicating it and modifying the content of the rest of the pages. Here is a simple step by step tutorial of the procedures followed during the workshop: Publisher 2007 Web Design Tutorial - Lab Activities Extract (937 downloads )

Members were also shown how to activate web authoring features in Publisher 2010 – 2016 where they are hidden by default but are still supported. This can be done by opening a pre-existing Publisher Website File (You can save some of the Publisher 2007 templates and save them into Publisher 2010, 2013 or 2016 as Publisher Templates. One was included on the workshop CD – see below) and / or by activating the Web Ribbon under Publisher options as shown below.

Here’s another tutorial by Kentucky University on using Publisher 2013 for basic Website Design.

Database Session

The facilitator put much emphasis on the need for creating database objects from first principles instead of relying on templates and wizards. A considerate amount of time was spent on  form design and selecting data sources, creating joins and relationships. One of the highlights that members found new was the concept of formatting currencies in database tables to for example adding a currency symbol such as “UGX” before the values. Members were discouraged from making global changes via the control panel – since these would affect all databases on the computer – and are not very portable to other computers. Instead, it was recommended to use Custom Formats under Field Properties in design view of a table or form. For example, typing “UGX “# in the format box of a number of currency field as shown below would add UGX before the values in the table datasheet view.:

Read these tutorials One. Two. and Three  for more details on how you can set the Format property to predefined number formats or custom number formats for the Number and Currency data types. You can also hit F1 and search the Access Help for the article on ‘Format Property – Number and Currency Data Types’.

Spreadsheets Session

This session focused on features highlighted in the discussion question. These included sorting data ensuring related data is not mixed up and performing calculations like percentage increase, RANK, COUNTIF and VLOOKUP. Members were shown how to grade marks using VLOOKUP and told that HLOOKUP works in the same way but for data laid out horizontally as in contrast to  VLOOKUP which works for horizontal data. The spreadsheet screenshot below illustrates the difference.

UITA Session

This session started with a presentation on the background of how the idea of the Uganda ICT Teachers Association (UITA) came about: Here is a PDF of the presentation with Background information about UITA. Presentation on UITA Background information (1103 downloads )

Due to limited time left, we couldn’t conduct elections for a national steering committee basing on the names of members who had applied for the various posts. Some of the members had just known about UITA and had not even applied yet they were interested. Members debated about the way forward and finally it was decided to first come up with regional sub committees for each of the four regions. The committees were to

• Continue mobilisation of ICT teachers country wide in order to ensure that our association is fully, validly and legally registered, recognised and embraced nationally. (Especially during the times ICT Teachers meet like in workshops and marking centres).
• Immediately take on the roles in acting capacity for a period of not more than one year – to debate and finalise with the draft constitution, organise the first UITA Annual General Meeting (AGM) in which the Fully Constituted UITA executive will be elected basing on an officially adopted constitution and officially register association with Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB).

List of Regional Committees

The following members were voted in the following positions per region:

Western Region

Northern Region

Eastern Region

Central Region

Download Full list in PDF format here: Regional UITA Sub committees (1326 downloads )

In case you are not sure of where your district falls, please refer to this Wikipedia page showing the map of Uganda with districts per region.

The Programming Session

Due to time constraints, we were unable to have this session. However, the facilitators had prepared content just in case time would allow.

One key highlight is how to use InputBox and MsgBox for input and output in Visual Basic.

Using the Visual Basic Editor in Microsoft Excel

• In case your school’s computers are not strong enough and have no internet access, necessary to install the fully-fledged Visual Studio IDE, you can activate and use the Visual Basic Editor which installs with Microsoft Office.

• First, make sure that the Developer tab is visible in the toolbar in Excel. To display the Developer tab in Excel 2010-2016, click on File in the menu bar and select Options from the drop down menu.
• When the Excel Options window appears, click on the Customize Ribbon option on the left. Click on the Developer checkbox under the list of Main Tabs on the right.
• Excel 2007: To display the Developer tab, click on the Microsoft Office button in the top left of the Excel window and then click on the Excel Options button.
• When the Excel Options window appears, click on the Popular option on the left. Select the option called “Show Developer tab in the Ribbon”. Then click on the OK button.
• Select the Developer tab from the toolbar at the top of the screen. Then click on the Visual Basic option in the Code group. Now the Microsoft Visual Basic editor should appear and you can view your VBA code. Click on the New UserForm Button on the tool bar to start a new project.
• Add controls to the form and double click on them to add the code between the Private Sub and End Sub Statements, then click the green run button to test the programs. Save your Excel file as a macro-enabled workbook and remember to enable macros under Excel’s trust center settings.

Here’s a sample ‘VB PROGRAM TO SUM AND AVERAGE TWO INPUT NUMBERS

Private Sub CommandButton1_Click()
Dim X, Y, Sum, Average As Integer 'Declaring  variables
X = Val(InputBox("Enter value for X"))  'Prompting user to input value X
Y = Val(InputBox("Enter value for Y"))  'Prompting user to input value Y
Sum = X + Y                     'Add X and Y and store in Sum variable
Average = Sum / 2 'Divide Sum by 2 and store in Average variable
MsgBox ("Sum is:" & Sum & " Average is: " & Average) 'Display Sum and Average with other text

End Sub 'End Program

‘NB: an Apostrophe (‘) is used to start inline comments in Visual Basic as compared to two slashes in C (//)

PROCEDURES:

1. Open your Visual Basic Editor.
2. Click on the New UserForm Button on the tool bar to start a new project.
3. Change the text of the form to Hello World Program in the properties window, it will appear as the title of the program.
4. Insert a command button (drag it from the toolbox – you can also modify its properties) and
5.  Double Click on it to bring up the code window.
6. Enter the code program code between Private Sub and End Sub procedure.
7. When you run this program and click on the command button, you should get a popup message box with the message, Hello World!
8.  In case of any syntax or runtime error, the debugger will show you its location in the visual basic editor. Debug and run again.

NB: Find the Equivalent Flowchart, Pseudo Code and C code for this and other programs in the programing session handout which was also included on the workshop CD. Download HERE: Programming Session Handout (361 downloads )

Other MTINFOTECH 2018 ICT Teachers Workshop CD Content

CDs with workshop files and software were prepared for members to buy. The CD compilation included the support files for the questions worked through, the facilitator presentations and handouts, some past papers and practical notes, software like Microsoft Expression Web, Bluegriffon and Dev Cpp, NCDC ICT and Computer Studies Syllabi.

Linked below is a compressed folder with some of the CD content (NB: Use the above hyperlinks to download the software directly from the source websites). Only Registered and logged members of this website can download the content using button below: