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Author Wins Award for His New OpenOffice.org Book, Instructional Materials Specially for Students and Educators

Author Wins Award for His New OpenOffice.org Book, Instructional Materials Specially for Students and Educators

SYRACUSE, NY – October 30, 2008 / -- Gabriel Gurley (www.gabrielgurley.com), an educator and author specializing in computer and educational instructional guides, announces the release of an award-winning new book and instructional materials specially for OpenOffice.org 3, the open source office productivity suite for Windows, Linux, Solaris and Mac OS X operating systems.

A Conceptual Guide to OpenOffice.org 3 is an indepth guide to assist individuals, students and educators with learning the four core applications bundled in the office productivity suite. Unique to this guide is its ten hands-on lessons that walk users step-by-step through the creation of various documents. Readers will find lessons that have a unique style in the delivery of the information being presented. The book's lessons include using the OpenOffice.org database application to produce queries and reports to examine the most intense and costly hurricanes to strike the North Atlantic within the past 100 years, how to create a bi-fold brochure with quality images that describes various landmarks found along the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Appalachian Mountains and how to create a personal balance sheet with the OpenOffice.org spreadsheet application while explaining how an individual with significant property holdings and income could have financial difficulties. Users who wish to find specific instructions quickly and easily will find the four quick reference guides to provide the answers they are looking for.

In addition to the release of A Conceptual Guide to OpenOffice.org 3, Gurley's work recently was a winner of the 2008 OpenOffice.org Community Innovation Program award. Approximately two dozen individuals and teams, including Gurley, were given the award for work they had done that has provided a significant contribution to the OpenOffice.org Community in fostering its development and growth. For nearly four years, he has developed educational guides and learning materials to help students and educators learn to use the OpenOffice.org office productivity suite through hands-on lessons that provide valuable lifelong skills. All of Gurley's OpenOffice.org learning materials have been released under open licenses, including the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike, GNU Free Documentation and Sun's Public Documentation licenses, so educators, students and educational institutions have the freedom to utilize the materials as they see fit to meet their curriculum objectives.

Gabriel Gurley's books, including A Conceptual Guide to OpenOffice.org 3, have received positive reviews from educators and has been adopted by schools and colleges throughout the world for instructional use. “This Guide demonstrates OpenOffice.org features using relevant, day-to-day problem solving situations”, says Myra Clayton of Myra's Mobile Education and Training in Greenville, South Carolina. “For months I had been searching for a course ware training tool and model through which to teach users coming from the various software platforms. This Conceptional Guide is ideal for my small business model. I can use this product for students coming from all levels of proficiency. I like the fact that Gurley answers nearly all of my “why” questions and even offers a very large set of Appendices which serve as a resource and guide for advanced study.”

The book has also received the attention of educators and users outside of the United States as well. Ian Lynch, founder of The Learning Machine, Ltd. in the United Kingdom and former Education Lead for the OpenOffice.org Community, read the book and recommends it as a resource for users pursuing the International Grades in Office Technologies (INGOTs) certification. “The Conceptual Guide book is a clear and well-laid out resource for anyone who wants to learn the effective use of the software application,” says Lynch. “I recommend it without reservation to schools, training organizations and individuals.”
For more information regarding A Conceptual Guide to OpenOffice.org 3 and its supporting materials, visit Gabriel Gurley's website at www.gabrielgurley.com or the OpenOffice.org Documentation Site at http://documentation.openoffice.org/conceptualguide/.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Gabriel Gurley is an educator with a passion for learning. As an instructor, students recommended the use of his handouts over the course adopted textbooks due to his concise, easy-to-understand explanations of the material being taught. Gabriel has provided instruction for StarOffice and OpenOffice.org to adult learners for nearly 5 years. He is also a Gold Level assessor for the skills-based INGOTs office productivity certification in the United States and a certified instructor for the Rural Entrepreneurship Through Action Learning (REAL) program. Gabriel is currently a Computer Technical Specialist for a liberal arts program at SUNY-Onondaga Community College in Syracuse, New York.

BOOK SUMMARY:
Title: A Conceptual Guide to OpenOffice.org 3
Author: R. Gabriel Gurley
ISBN: 978-0-9778991-6-6
8.50x11.0 paperback, 284 pp., $39.50

Paperback copies of the book are available at Gabriel Gurley's website (www.gabrielgurley.com) and at many online and independent booksellers. An eBook version of his guide, along with a Moodle Course Package and other supporting materials for educational use, is available for download at the OpenOffice.org Documentation Site at http://documentation.openoffice.org/conceptualguide/.

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