jasondilling.co.uk

It’s amazing how many requests I *still* get, to help with basic printing problems.

Some steps to enable staff to solve printing problems themselves:
Have you got any print credits? … No? Wait for the replenishment on Monday.
Have you selected the correct printer? … No? Select the correct printer.
Is the printer switched on? … No? Switch it on.
Is the printer showing an error? … Yes? What does it tell you?
Is there paper in the printer? … No? Put paper in the printer.
Is the printer online? … No? Put the printer online.
Is there a paper jam? … Yes? Remove paper jam.
Is the drawer / door closed? … No? Close the drawer / door.
Are there other failed jobs ahead of yours in the print queue? … Yes? Clear them.
Is the printer out of ink or toner? … Yes? Put in new ink / toner.
Have you entered a report in the technician’s job list? … No? Enter a report in the technician’s job list.
Sorted. It’s not magic.

We are currently costing up a major house makeover for a new property that we are in the process of buying. I have set up each of the rooms as separate spreadsheets in a Google Docs spreadsheet.

I needed to bring together the totals of each sheet to combine them in a grand total.

The following is the explanation from Google Docs Help (Which helped!):

Referencing other sheets and making data from one sheet show in another

Within a single spreadsheet, you can replicate data and copy it from one sheet to another by entering the sheet name and an exclamation mark before the cell being copied. Here are some examples:

* =Sheet1!A1
* =’Sheet number two’!B4

Please note: If a sheet name contains spaces or other non-alphanumeric symbols, you’ll need to include single quotes around it (as in the second example above)

Simple!

I had seen ZU3D before at a conference at the Ashford International Hotel. I had a closer look at BETT and was impressed with what I saw.

I have been more than happy with the quality and ease of capture with the existing iStopMotion and iMovie combination on the Macs both in school and in the cluster. There is always the issue though, after a morning of capturing still frames in iStopMotion, that you need to move to iMovie to add sound and top and tail the video with titles, transitions and minor edits.

ZU3D is a one stop solution for stop-motion animation. The frame capture and the addition of sound tracks, titles and transitions are handled within the single program. This is useful to teachers and pupils that do not have the time or the skills to learn more than one package to create a project.

ZU3D looks an exciting product. Despite personally favoring the Apple based solution for all round flexibility, I would happily install ZU3D across every computer on our network to allow the pupils greater exposure to the tools that they need to be creative.

The developer was open to discussion about licencing arrangements and costs, so hopefully this will be an affordable solution. Our preferred licence would be one that allowed for a set number of concurrent users. This would almost certainly be limited by the number of webcams available in a school.  I’ll be in touch!

£25.52+ VAT single

£350+VAT site

www.zu3d.com

One of the things that I was on the look out for at BETT this year was a replacement for our aging Roamers. We have a small pile of Roamers in varying states of repair. Other than a few totally unserviceable units, the biggest issue we have is the huge outdated batteries that the roamers use. To replace with dry cells each time they run out is costly. The rechargeable alternatives are very pricey and very unreliable.

What is needed is a roamer that can run on a set of four rechargeable AA batteries. Simple!

The Valiant  stand at BETT was non-existant. There was instead, a small poster refering visitors to the TAG Learning stand – who had the new Roamer Too on display.

The Roamer Too does run on rechargeable AA batteries. Not four but six. The new unit has lost the likable look of the classic Roamer, and now looks a little utilitarian in design. The interchangeable top modules look slightly unfinished compared with the curved plastic control panel of the original. The example model that I saw had a paper insert with printed button designs. When pressed to enter the programming instructions, they had to have quite some pressure exerted for the press to be registered. It would be interesting to know if this was the same for all of the new units. I think it would be difficult for younger children to program the Roamer Too as the pressure needed for each button press would be too much.

According to the Valiant website, the Roamer Too range will be available in early 2010.

I rather feel that Valiant has missed the opportunity to update the Roamer for a new generation. The new product almost looks more dated than the original. If it had to be a smaller design, then a reduced size version of the original design,with the original keypad, would have done well.

Thanks to Anthony Evans for responding to my question:

Q: How do I stop ideas auto connecting when they are dragged too close to each other?

A: To modify the auto link variables, go into the teacher options (Ctrl + Shift + the letter “o”) and choose the IDEAS tab. To limit the effect of auto linking, choose minimum values for “link new ideas to other ideas within X pixels”, “swap links when dragged within X pixels of another idea”, and “stop auto links after X ideas”.

This will not however turn auto linking off completely – to do that, close the program down and open the 2connect.ini settings file which is found in the same folder as the program is installed (by default C:\Program Files\2Simple Software\2Connect\) . Change the line which starts “stopAutoConnectingAfter” to be equal to 1. Save and exit the file.

His original posting is on the 2Simple Blog http://2simpleblog.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/teacher-options-in-2connect/