suggestions for next version of ACTIVstudio PE

[dcooley]

I would really appreciate it if in the next version of ACTIVstudio PE, the programmers could not use the word "Shared" when referring to the resources that come loaded with the software. In our district, when a teacher sees the word "shared," they think they are accessing the "Shared" directory on the school's server. They get very frustrated when they think they are navigating to the shared resources on the server and realize "Shared" is not on the server but on their harddrive.

Thank You!

[Westlake]

Can you suggest an alternative term to replace 'shared' - I always explain this very carefully when I am training teachers, for exactly this reason.
Hilary

[Nigel Pearce]

Interesting comments.

Our idea for using the word 'Shared' was to describe the intention, namely that the resource folder structure was located on a shared network drive, ie one that would be available to all Studio users.

When you install Activstudio resources you are invited to install them to a location of your choice. This can obviously be somewhere on your network.

In Activstudio (and Primary) you can point the program at the shared resource location by altering the path in Settings--> Profiles and Resources.

This way you can guarantee that the shared material is always available regardless of which computer you are using on your network.

In this correctly configured network environment (and you really need to talk to your network administrators to make it so), we like to think that the word 'shared' is actually correct and therefore not misleading.

[Westlake]

Interesting comments.

Our idea for using the word 'Shared' was to describe the intention, namely that the resource folder structure was located on a shared network drive, ie one that would be available to all Studio users.

This way you can guarantee that the shared material is always available regardless of which computer you are using on your network.
Thanks Nigel.
In New Zealand most teachers have a laptop for school use, and it would be rare to have a dedicated machine set up with the Activboard. They need to have the Resources on the Hard Drive for lesson preparation at home (tragic, I know...)
I encourage people NOT to Save into the "Universal" Resources ("Planetal" doesn't have the same ring to it…) that come with AS or AP but to keep those in their original installed form.
The Flipcharts etc. that have been created or collected for use in that school would be saved to the shared Network Drive (Teachers Drive…) accessible by all staff.
Hilary +wave+

[bpeskin]

This is an issue in our school, too. It's confusing for teachers at first primarily because the way mac sets up user accounts as shared is generally transparent to users -- they just use their account -- where as me as a tech person is familiar.

Even though the Promehean Resources go into the Shared mac folders the button or term for those resources coudl be "provided". That's how I explain it to my teachers.

[djmiles]

I have a suggestion with regard to the Export to HTML option. It only works with activreader.x32 installed. Is there any way around this?

I'd like to be able to post to the web without requiring people to install a program.

[markrobinson]

In the version 3 Export Wizard there is a "save as SWF" option which generates a web readable file with in-built navigation for anyone with FLASH plugin installed.

Also most of the other export options, Word, PPT and PDF are well supported with most standard browser / office installations.