General Tips for Newcomers

Tips 1 to 4

1. Have an Open Mind

• In a new country things are going to be very different. You must be ready to try new things. It is useful to try to understand why people do things differently and what different values they have.
  

2. Look for Familiar Items

• Sometimes its nice to eat familiar food or read a book in your own language. Look for places that sell products similar to your home country and meet people that speak your language. This will help you get over the culture shock.

3. Get Outside

• It might be difficult to leave your home but try to get out once a week to meet people, exercise and learn about the language and culture. Maybe try joining a sports team or just go to the mall.

4. Have Emergency Money

• You don't know when something unexpected will happen. Try to have a small emergency fund in case you run into expenses you didn't plan for.

Article Info

Information from: McMillan, Kathleen and Johnathan Weyers, Study Skills for international Students, Harlow, England: Pearson Education Limited, 2011.

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About

This blog is an offshoot of the parent company factsnet.org. It aims to be a testing site for FACTSnet's technical and data management coordinators to the improve aesthetic quality and usability of FACTSnet's main site and those of its offshoots. Most of the content on this blog has been borrowed from another FACTSnet offshoot blog, the Alberta International Friendship Network in order to help the coordinators develop a system that will work with the typical FACTSnet blog.


Tous les parties de cet emploi me couroussent, avec pour exception mes co-travailleurs. Je voulais mourir à chaque moment où je travaille sur ce maudit projet.

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Installing a horizontal drop-down menu

The code, instructions and most of the images in this post are taken from helplogger: this post is intended to be a backup in case the above link ever gets broken.

Second note: I am hopelessly technologically impaired, so parts of this tutorial may seem blindingly obvious to anyone with any knowledge of HTML or Blogger. I put in all the issues I had in adding this menu, on the off chance that whoever comes after me is as new to this as I am. 


Step 1: Prepping the template

I'm not entirely sure why, but in order to add this gadget and have it work properly, you have to prepare the template. Templates that have already been customized to some degree will be more confusing to work with, but here are helplogger's steps for preparing one of the standard Blogger templates for this menu.

You will need to go into your template's HTML code for this: from your blog's dashboard, go to Template, then select "Edit HTML". If you are editing a template on one of FACTSnet's blogs, you will need to ensure you have administrator access to the blog you are editing, or you won't be able to do anything.

Now you can start changing the code. First off, there are a few lines you will need to delete. Click anywhere on the code and press Ctrl + F to open the code's search function (if you don't click on the code first, you'll be using your Internet browser's search function, which won't work). In the search box, enter <b:section class='tabs' id='crosscol' maxwidgets='1' showaddelement='yes'>. Every time class='tabs' appears in the code, delete it.

Note: Your text may not be the same as this screenshot. That's fine.

Next, find this section in your code:

/* Tabs 

----------------------------------------------- */

Delete everything in this section. If the section that follows it is called Columns, you can delete that section too. Stop deleting when you get to the section called Headings.

In your newly empty Tabs section, paste this code: 

#crosscol ul {z-index: 200; padding:0 !important;}
#crosscol li:hover {position:relative;}
#crosscol ul li {padding:0 !important;}
.tabs-outer {z-index:1;}
.tabs .widget ul, .tabs .widget ul {overflow: visible;}

Now you can insert the code for your menu. Enter ]]></b:skin> in your search box. Just above that, paste this code: 

 /* Horizontal drop down menu
----------------------------------------------- */
#menuWrapper {
width:100%; /* Menu width */
height:35px;
padding-left:14px;
background:#333; /* Background color */
border-radius: 10px;  
}
.menu {
padding:0;
margin:0;
list-style:none;
height:35px;
position:relative;
z-index:5;
font-family:arial, verdana, sans-serif;
}
.menu li:hover li a {
background:none;
}
.menu li.top {display:block; float:left;}
.menu li a.top_link {
display:block;
float:left;
height:35px;
line-height:34px;
color:#ccc;
text-decoration:none;
font-family:"Verdana", sans-serif;
font-size:12px; /* Font size */
font-weight:bold;
padding:0 0 0 12px;
cursor:pointer;
}
.menu li a.top_link span {
float:left;
display:block;
padding:0 24px 0 12px;
height:35px;
}
.menu li a.top_link span.down {
float:left;
display:block;
padding:0 24px 0 12px;
height:35px;
}
.menu li a.top_link:hover, .menu li:hover > a.top_link {color:#fff; }
.menu li:hover {position:relative; z-index:2;}
.menu ul, 
.menu li:hover ul ul,
.menu li:hover ul li:hover ul ul,
.menu li:hover ul li:hover ul li:hover ul ul,
.menu li:hover ul li:hover ul li:hover ul li:hover ul ul
{position:absolute; left:-9999px; top:-9999px; width:0; height:0; margin:0; padding:0; list-style:none;}

.menu li:hover ul.sub {
left:0;
top:35px;
background:#333; /* Submenu background color */
padding:3px;
white-space:nowrap;
width:200px;
height:auto;
z-index:3;
}
.menu li:hover ul.sub li {
display:block;
height:30px;
position:relative;
float:left;
width:200px;
font-weight:normal;
}
.menu li:hover ul.sub li a{
display:block;
height:30px;
width:200px;
line-height:30px;
text-indent:5px;
color:#ccc;
text-decoration:none;
}
.menu li ul.sub li a.fly {
/* Submenu Background Color */
background:#333 url(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLr_OX5EBFs4tI0RfiqltuJKxp6FZ8wy1b7CYLMqNqd290zUK79CX0i8GvsynEpzh1VUXvpSzW-eL06ItvW6T-MPwoJ8ATG02Er4Xyt_xYPeu6Hn-PxX0cGxbTXmMWfIyP7zKtkPEGIN8/s1600/arrow_over.gif) 185px 10px no-repeat;}
.menu li:hover ul.sub li a:hover {
background:#515151; /* Background Color on mouseover */
color:#fff;
}
.menu li:hover ul.sub li a.fly:hover, .menu li:hover ul li:hover > a.fly {
/* Background on Mouseover */
background:#646464 url(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLr_OX5EBFs4tI0RfiqltuJKxp6FZ8wy1b7CYLMqNqd290zUK79CX0i8GvsynEpzh1VUXvpSzW-eL06ItvW6T-MPwoJ8ATG02Er4Xyt_xYPeu6Hn-PxX0cGxbTXmMWfIyP7zKtkPEGIN8/s1600/arrow_over.gif) 185px 10px no-repeat; color:#fff;}

.menu li:hover ul li:hover ul,
.menu li:hover ul li:hover ul li:hover ul,
.menu li:hover ul li:hover ul li:hover ul li:hover ul,
.menu li:hover ul li:hover ul li:hover ul li:hover ul li:hover ul {
left:200px;
top:-4px;
background: #333; /* Background Color of the Submenu */
padding:3px;
white-space:nowrap;
width:200px;
z-index:4;
height:auto;
}
#search { 
width: 228px; /* Width of the Search Box */
height: 50px;
float: right;
z-index: 2;
text-align: center;
margin-top: 5px;
margin-right: 6px;
/* Background of the Search Box */
background: url(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYAln6HoFQI7Cfy_CsZGcnOnAPi04j2NCd39IDsebbfVwqxbmY0sQppSJP62r4mqa4_xAlGqknWOY-N_rFC5IQwSZrwuz2i6ZwrkXe3yrA7Uo9ifk1K5PsargqkztHLoWd0cHsZo6I8h0/s1600/searchBar1.png) no-repeat;
}
#search-box {
margin-top: 3px;
border:0px;
background: transparent;
text-align:center;
}

Save your template.

This concludes your changes to the Template part of your blog.

Step 2: Adding the Widget

From your sidebar, go to Layout. From there, choose Add a Gadget.

This will take you to a popup menu with a number of gadget options on it. Choose HTML/Javascript (it will be about halfway down the list). This will take you to another popup that will have two empty fields. Unless you want to add a viewable title to your menu, leave the first blank. In the second, larger field, paste this code:

 <div id='menuWrapper'>
<ul class='menu'>
<li class='top'><a class='top_link' href='Link URL'><span>Title 1</span></a></li>

<li class='top'><a class='top_link' href='Link URL'><span class='down'>Title 2</span></a><ul class='sub'><li><a class='fly' href='Link URL'>Submenu 2.1</a><ul>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 2.1.1</a></li>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 2.1.2</a></li>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 2.1.3</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class='mid'><a class='fly' href='Link URL'>Submenu 2.2</a>
<ul>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 2.2.1</a></li>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 2.2.2</a></li>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 2.2.3</a></li>
<li><a class='fly' href='Link URL'>Submenu 2.2.4</a>
<ul>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 2.2.4.1</a></li>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 2.2.4.2</a></li>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 2.2.4.3</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 2.2.5</a></li>
<li><a class='fly' href='Link URL'>Submenu 2.2.6</a>
<ul>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 2.2.6.1</a></li>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 2.2.6.2</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 2.3</a></li>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 2.4</a></li>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 2.5</a></li>
</ul>
</li>

<li class='top'><a class='top_link' href='Link URL'><span class='down'>Title 3</span></a>
<ul class='sub'>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 3.1</a></li>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 3.2</a></li>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 3.3</a></li>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 3.4</a></li>
</ul>
</li>

<li class='top'><a class='top_link' href='Link URL'><span class='down'>Title 4</span></a>
<ul class='sub'>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 4.1</a></li>
<li><a class='fly' href='Link URL'>Submenu 4.2</a>
<ul>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 4.2.1</a></li>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 4.2.2</a></li>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 4.2.3</a></li>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 4.2.4</a></li>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 4.2.5</a></li>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 4.2.6</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 4.3</a></li>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 4.4</a></li>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 4.5</a></li>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 4.6</a></li>
</ul>
</li>

<li class='top'><a class='top_link' href='Link URL'><span class='down'>Title 5</span></a>
<ul class='sub'>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 5.1</a></li>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 5.2</a></li>
<li><a href='Link URL'>Submenu 5.3</a></li>
</ul>
</li>


<!-- Search Bar -->
<li>
<form action='/search' id='search' method='get' name='searchForm' style='display:inline;'> 
<input id='search-box' name='q' onblur='if (this.value == &quot;&quot;) this.value = &quot;Search here...&quot;;' onfocus='if (this.value == &quot;Search here...&quot;) this.value = &quot;&quot;;' size='28' type='text' value='Search here...'/></form>
</li>

</ul>
</div>

Congratulations! You now have a dropdown menu on your blog! You can learn how to edit it [here].

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Menu

New site menu how-to: link

Since we'll be creating an entirely new template for this, we'll probably want to write up a clear tutorial so future employees can figure out what we did and how to change it if they need to - we don't want to end up with a second unchangeable template.

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Newcomer Blog Project Information

ESL Information for Newcomers Blog

Homestay Edmonton

http://www.edmontonhomestayagency.com/

Visitors to Edmonton

http://www.infoedmonton.com/

http://www.edmontonevents.com/

Ethnic societies in Edmonton

http://www.edmontonmulticultural-ems.org/resource-directory/ethnic-group.html

Edmonton Public Library

http://www.epl.ca/interests/multicultural

ESL contacts:

NAIT

Kimberly Payne 471-8360 kpayne@nait.ca

Lorraine 780-378-5030 lorrnord@nait.ca  W111PB

Interview with Kimberly - Summary:

NAIT has 5 levels of English. The placement test is divided into listening and speaking, reading and vocabulary, and writing and grammar components. Each level is one semester long. Level 5 = EAP, or ready to enter a university program. NAIT uses recruitment in students home countries. Ask for Jackie Su or Tina Zhao for information in Chinese. NAIT uses an academic buddy system for newcomers. NAIT also has some evening classes which educate beyond level 5.

Recently NAIT has partnered with the Chinese government. Chinese teachers are here for 6 months.

WECA

Joan Solbrekkein

ESL program 489-2579 ext. 245

Check out West Meadows Baptist Church

Check out Beulah Alliance Church

Ask for Lighthouse ph # info on Spanish ESL classes

489 – 4010 

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Informations pour les francophones en Edmonton

Edmonton a une communauté francophone vive, avec une grande variété de ressources qui vous sont disponibles. La plupart d’entre eux se situent près du centre-ville dans les environs de Campus St-Jean, la campus francophone de l’Université de l’Alberta

Edmonton has a great francophone community with a wide variety of resources available. Most of these are located downtown around Campus St-Jean, the french campus of the University of Alberta. 

La Cité Francophone est la centre culturelle francophone de la ville où se situent la majorité des organisations et entreprises francophones à Edmonton. Ses services sont de nature culturelle, sociale, pédagogique, professionnelle et commerciale. Elle offre aussi des chambres disponibles à louer.

La Cité Francophone is Edmonton's french cultural center and houses the majority of the francophone organizations and businesses in the city. It houses cultural, social, pedagogical, professional and commercial services. It also has rooms to hold meetings and can be booked. 

http://www.lacitefranco.ca/

8627 rue Marie-Anne-Gaboury (91e rue) Edmonton, Alberta T6C3N1 780-463-1144 Map Data - Terms of Use Map

Une autre ressource importante pour les nouveaux arrivés à Edmonton est Accès Emploi. C’est un centre d’emploi visant à faciliter les emplois francophones. Ses employés, tous bilingues, offrent aussi la direction d’emploi et peuvent vous aider avec la rédaction des CVs et les lettres d’accompagnement. À noter: Accès Emploi a déménagé! Elle se situe maintenant sur la deuxième étage de la Cité Francophone.

Another very important resource for people new to Edmonton is Access Emploi. This is an employment center geared towards providing people with french employment opportunities. Their bilingual professionals also offer employment counselling and can help you with things such as resume building and cover letters as well as workshops. Important note: Access Emploi has moved! It is now located on the second floor of Cité Francophone.

http://www.accesemploi.net/en/contact/index.html

202-8627 Marie-Anne-Gaboury ST (91 ST)
Edmonton AB  T6C 3N1
Phone: 780.490.6975
Toll free: 1.866.490.6999
Fax: 780.490.6905 

Email: ae@accesemploi.net

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General Tips for Students

Tips 1 to 5

1. Get Organized

• When you are a student in a post secondary institution you will have a lot of papers and books to keep track of. Make sure you have lots of binders, shelves or file folders to keep the papers in order.
  
• A large calendar will also help you remember your assignments.
• *In some institutions, you can get a student planer to help you things organize.   
• Do not forget your deadlines for exams, fees, etc.

2. Watch Your Money

• When you first arrive at a post secondary institution there will likely be lots of clubs to join and books to buy. Think about the clubs you would like to join, and if you will have enough time or money for them.
• For books you may want to read the library copy or to purchase second hand books rather than buying your own.

3. Prioritize

• Once you know what assignments are coming up put them in order of importance. This way you know that you are getting the right things done first.

4. Study Habits

• Try to do your work when you are most alert. Some people study best in the morning while others study better before bed.
• Use all your time well. Don't waste small amounts of time doing nothing. If you are distracted by Facebook, TV, or friends study in a more quiet place.
• Set a finish date for your assignments before the due date. Then you will have time to edit and correct any errors.

5. Branch Out

• Get to know people who are different. Expect to be homesick and talk to people about it. Remember that this is a normal part of traveling to a new country.

Article Info

Information from: McMillan, Kathleen and Johnathan Weyers, Study Skills for international Students, Harlow, England: Pearson Education Limited, 2011.

Read More