Peace Corps, Congo, and Polio

The Elmira College Rotaract Club has contributed significantly to Rotary International's mission to eradicate polio and asked that I present my experiences as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Congo and how polio has affected that country as part of the Global Eradication Initiative. Below are the Slideshare slides followed by related links that I used for general research, reading, and preparation for the presentation.

Peace Corps

• Peace Corps Web site
• Once in Afghanistan (film)

Congo

• Reuter’s Finbarr O'Reilly Slideshow on Kinshasa Polio Kids
• Staff Benda Bilili home page
• King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild
• BBC DR Congo Profile
• CIA World Fact Book

Polio Resources

• Polio Global Eradication Initiative
• Rotary International - Polio Home Page
• Mia Farrow launches polio vaccination campaign
• Benda Bilili & Rotary International video campaign

Other Resources

• United Nations Cartographic Web site
• GapMinder World
• The Enough Project
• Google Maps
• WHO Media Center Fact Sheets
• Human Development Reports

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Refer to the post Peace Corps Experiences in the Congo and scroll to the section RESOURCES: About the Peace Corps, About the Congo, Books on the Congo, and Documentaries and Web sites.

Presenting PowerPoint slide shows with your iPad or iPhone

Presenting PowerPoint slide shows with your iPad or iPhone

Keynote for Macintosh is well-known for its elegance, ease-of-use, and graphical display tools but PowerPoint is still the presentation tool of choice for most users. Even though Keynote for iOS devices is the de facto presentation app, you can creative an efficient workflow using the desktop version of PowerPoint to efficiently display your slides on your iPad or iPhone (4 or 4S). Additionally, you can use your iOS device to project your presentation to a HD flat screen TV or large projection screen with a data projector.

What you will need

• PowerPoint for Windows or Macintosh
• Free Dropbox account and iOS app
• Keynote for iPhone (4 or 4S) or iPad ($9.99 for one or the other or both)
• iOS version 5
• VGA or HDMI adapter (optional)
• HD TV or data projector with projection screen (optional)

Save to Drop Box

You will need to have a Dropbox account that is set up for synchronization with a Dropbox folder on your PC or Mac.   

• If you have not already done so go to http://dropbox.com and set up a Drop Box account on your PC or Mac. 
• Create a folder named PowerPoint in your computer's Dropbox folder.
• Save your PowerPoint presentations to this folder (e.g. technology_tools_teacher.pptx), which will automatically be synchronized to your Drop Box server share. 

Open in Keynote

• Install the Dropbox app on your iPhone or iPad and then start the app.
• Locate and open your PowerPoint into Dropbox, which displays the slides in one page but does not index nor display them separately. 
• Click the curved Open In icon in the upper right corner of the Dropbox screen and choose Keynote.

• Wait until Keynote loads - ignore any font substitution warnings.

If you plan to make changes to your PowerPoint, then you will need to re-import the file into Keynote.

Sychronize with iCloud and other iOS devices

You can also synchronize your Keynote presentations with other iOS devices. For example, you could import all your PowerPoints into Keynote for iPad and then sync them with your iPhone. 

• For your iPac choose Settings > iCloud and add your Apple ID (typical iTunes account) and password.
• Choose Documents & Data and turn the setting to ON.
• Choose Settings > Keynote and turn the setting Use iCloud to ON.

Present from your iPad or iPhone

With an iPad, iPad 2, iPhone 4 or 4S you can project your Keynote presentation to an HD TV using an Apple Digital AV adapter or to a data projector with an Apple VGA adapter. Only the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S support mirroring whatever is on the screen. However, when you press the Keynote Play button, the slides will also display on a HD TV or projection screen for an iPhone 4 or iPad 1.

Annotating iPad Screenshots

Annotating iPad Screenshots

There are a number of desktop screen capturing and annotation tools such as Jing (Mac and Windows) and Skitch (Mac with Windows version coming out soon). However, there does not appear to be a dedicated iOS app to take annotated iPad screenshots, which are becoming increasingly important for illustrations in blogs and tutorials. As an alternative I have developed an efficient workflow using the iPad's built-in screenshot and the apps Photogene and Dropbox.

iPad Screenshot

• Go to the screen you want to save as a picture on your iPad.
• Press the On / off switch and Home button at the same time, which saves the image to the iPad's Photos Library. (As confirmation the screen will blank to white for a quick moment to simulate a camera flash effect.)

Press On / off switch and Home button at the same time

Use Photogene to crop and annotate the screenshot

Photogene for iPad ($2.99) is arguably one of the best photo editors on the iPad and includes tools to rotate, adjust color, retouch, add text, and enhance with gradients, framing, and effects. During the export process you can change the resolution and then export-send the final photo to resources such as Twitter, e-mail, Facebook, Flickr, and Dropbox.

• Start Photogene and press Edit New in the top menu bar (to the right)
• Browse through the iPad's Camera Roll and choose your screenshot
• Press the Crop scissors tool in the bottom menu bar and drag the round handles to choose the area you want to keep.
• Press the Crop button in the right menu to finalize the area.
• Next choose the Text tool in the bottom menu bar. 
• From the right menu drag a text balloon style to your edit area. Add a text description and drag the pointer to the section you want to describe. 

Export the annotated screenshot to your Dropbox share

You will need to have a Dropbox website that is set up for synchronization with a Dropbox folder on your PC or Mac.   

• Choose Export in the top menu bar (to the right). You can choose the resolution but it's best to keep the highest.
• Press Folder and when prompted link to your Dropbox account.
• Choose Dropbox and enter a filename. 
• Press Folder again. If you wish, you can create subfolders within your Dropbox's Photo folder to organize exported images by category.
• Press the Share button to save the file as a JPEG image. You can immediately insert the image from your Dropbox Photos folder to a document such as a blog post. 

final version of a cropped iPad screenshot annotated with Photogene