Interactive Mega-Math Notebook & Technology

Whew!  I finally finished combining all my 4th grade Common Core interactive notebooks into one large mega-bundle...503 pages!  I have combined products  before but never with two types of documents.  I completed my first of five interactive notebooks in Microsoft Word before I found the ease and joy of creating documents in PowerPoint. So, I completed my last 4 notebooks in PowerPoint.  That was all fine and dandy until I decided to combine the individual notebooks into a mega-bundle.  Oops!  

That's when the trouble began!  Why didn't I think about the fact that a Word document and a PowerPoint document were not compatible?  Just in case there is someone else out there that doesn't know this little tidbit, trying to combine the two is like trying to combine oil and water.  It just doesn't work.      

Over the last few weeks, I have been frustrated and near tears every time I tried to put the documents together.  Then a good friend of mine suggested I try Adobe Acrobat Pro XI.  WoW!  It was a game changer.  Acrobat Pro lets you combine different types of PDF's.  Not only that, but it allows you to edit PDFs.  That's right...EDIT!  It even has a security feature so that the PDFs you create and upload are actually secure.  

The only thing this program did not let me do was compress my PDF.  I am not sure why.  It said an error had occurred on my images. Now, I am a researcher by heart.  I am always searching and looking up things.  So, I started searching for an answer to why I kept getting the error message.  I still have no clue, however, I found out it happens a lot.  There were many forums on the internet where people were having trouble with the same error message.

The good news for me is that I didn't actually need to compress the large file.  I uploaded it on Google Chrome instead of Safari, which I usually use.  It took only a couple of minutes for my mega-bundle to upload on Chrome whereas it would have taken forever with Safari. If you do not use Google Chrome, you can download it for free.  Just do a Google search for Chrome.  Chrome seems to work better for me on Pinterest too.  Sometimes Safari will not let me scroll to individual boards but, I have no trouble scrolling when using Chrome.

If you are interested in buying Adobe Acrobat Pro XI, (I strongly suggest you do, if only for the security factor), purchase the one that is for Students and Teachers.  (Of course, only purchase this version if you are actually a student or a teacher.) :) I wouldn't recommend buying it from Amazon.  If you read the comments about the headaches and hassles many people had by purchasing it from Amazon, you will head on over to Adobe and buy it directly from that website:  Adobe Acrobat Pro XI (Student and Teacher Version)  Once on the Adobe page, look over to the right column and you will see the Student and Teacher version for $119.00 as one of the choices.  You can't beat that price!  It is definitely worth the money.

Short-story-long, I finally succeeded in getting everything together and uploaded my mega-bundle to my TPT shop this evening!  It looks great, even if I say so myself! :)

I hope my trials and errors can make life easier on someone else.  Have a great week and if you are feeling like me, continue the summer break countdown!  (8 days left for me!)

Here are some pictures from my new Interactive Math Notebook Mega-Bundle.  It is Common Core aligned and complete with all the 4th grade Mathematics Common Core standards for the year!

All 5 of my individual math interactive notebooks are included in the mega-bundle.

Click on any of the pictures to go to my TPT store, Mrs. C's Classroom.