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Then vs Now: Classroom Technology & Gadgets

Educational Technology Gadgets

In past decades, the rapid development of technology led to technological breakthroughs that shaped the world we live in.  Now, it is safe to say that technology has a major influence on our daily life and the way we use technology has completely transformed the way we live our lives.

Education is no exception. Some of the technological innovations forever altered our process of learning and education. Modern educators realize that in order for education to be purposeful and effective they need to embrace the trends and push the classroom doors wide open to new tech trends.

The use of technology in the classroom is no longer a matter of choice, but a necessity. Traditional ways of learning, in which the lecturer is the center of attention that transfers the knowledge are getting repulsive and uninteresting to students all around the world. Cutting edge learning gadgets and software brought an altogether new way of learning which enables scholars to be active participants in the educational process.

In our last post we explained how one productivity tool can make the difference between boredom and curiosity in the classroom. Now we take a look at some of the gadgets that are used to make time spent in the classroom more dynamic and fun.

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The One Productivity Tool Challenge

productivity

Sometimes there are way too many tools needed to complete a single document management task. This is especially true if you’re limited to using free tools instead of a professional software solution that would enable you to handle multiple tasks at once.

As advantageous as it is to be able to complete a task for free, having access to a powerful professional software solution like Able2Extract Professional has its benefits too. Here at Investintech, we aim to make things as simple as possible when it comes to working with your PDFs and digital documents in general.

So today we’re taking on a challenge of demonstrating how versatile Able2Extract Professional is. We’ll show you on the example of managing educational presentations.

We dedicate this post to teachers since they know best how a good presentation can make the difference between boredom and curiosity in the classroom.

Without further ado, let’s just dive right into it!

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How To Clean Up Large PDF Datasets

Analyzing Data For Investigative Reporting

For big data analysts, working with clean data is a must. The major hurdle, though, is actually cleaning that data. Right now, analysts are spending more than half of their time cleaning up unstructured datasets. And if you aren’t an advanced expert with cleaning datasets, just knowing some basic data cleaning tasks becomes even more crucial.

Datasets can represent a large variety of information. From government and healthcare data to demographic and financial numbers, datasets come from all different areas. They also come in all different forms, like the PDF format. Getting it into a form you can manipulate is your first goal– and your biggest challenge.

The PDF format isn’t easily editable. In addition, it may contain hundreds of pages, consist of tables that span the entire file, be scanned in from a hard copy document, be created from an Excel spreadsheet, or be protected against copying and pasting.

You need to be able to analyze that locked down data. But how do you get started?

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Spreadsheet Risk Management: Are Excel Errors Avoidable?

excel errors

Spreadsheets are known for being able to perform heavy-duty number crunching tasks. And because of this, it’s only natural to think that along with calculations comes precision and accuracy. The program is set to do all the complex analysis for you.

Yet from time to time, errors do shockingly happen.  This is scary especially when big data analysis in Excel is gaining traction.

It can be hard to believe that a program like Excel could be at the heart of major financial debacles, but it has happened and it has happened in the past more times than you’d think.

Spreadsheet Flaws Throughout The Years

1 Reinhart-Rogoff Paper (2010)

In 2010, Harvard economists, Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, published “Growth in a Time of Debt,” a paper that claimed to have identified a tipping point for government debt and its relationship to economic growth. This paper gave the government a reason to cut spending even if it meant mass unemployment. Yet,  researchers couldn’t replicate the results and it was later found that there was a coding error in Excel which, even when corrected, didn’t prove the claim.

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How To Select And Convert Tables Among Text

PDF to Excel Conversion

For the most part, converting PDF tables to Excel can be very simple. Your table is isolated, on a single page and nicely centered.

However, PDFs being what they are and content being as diverse as it is, your tables won’t always be ideally formatted as such in the PDF you’re dealing with.  It may be nested within paragraphs and surrounded by extra content and text that you may not need at all.

You’ve no doubt seen this in annual reports, brochures or statistical data compiled into a study. The formatting and layout may be easy on the eyes, but it isn’t on the conversion process.

So how do you extract only the table you want?  

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