Resource Folders

[tmcq]

Is there any way to get rid of the "my ..." folders and have them stay gone? I use "my flipcharts" and "my videos" and would love to permanently delete the rest but they keep coming back. I'd like to get rid of a bunch of the shared ones as well...but one step at a time.

[jurczak]

Just curious - is there a reason why you want to get rid of these? As you become a more advanced user, you might want to use the "My" folders in the future to help organize resources that you create and use on a regular basis. It's easier to keep them in this section than in the Shared Resources because then you can navigate to them more easily.

I am not sure if you can permanently delete the My or Shared folders, as they link to your Resource Library - someone feel free to correct me if I am wrong! You can delete what is inside of the folders if you are concerned about unwanted resources taking up space on your computer, but once the folder is empty, you wouldn't have that problem any longer.

If you didn't know that you can save sounds, images, etc. into the My Resources section of the Resource Library, check out Topic 4, Tutorial 6 on the Foundations Level course on Promethean Learning (it's free!).

[BenPosner]

I agree with Kim on this one! Is there a specific reason you can think of why you want to delete things out of your Resource Library?

~Ben

[tmcq]

I am a secondary math teacher (precalculus, calculus), and I know I am never going to use many of the "categories" of resources. Also, the differentiation into "my" and "shared" is an additional level of categorization that I don't need. I want to make my interface as simple and efficient as I can. Right now, 90% of the stuff in the resources collection is stuff I will never use (and 90% of my "resource time" is paging through all this stuff)...I just want it out of the way.

If you teach 6th grade Social Studies, would you want a bunch of math, English, science, etc textbooks from a variety of grade levels in your room?

[BenPosner]

I see your point, and I can understand what you are saying.

But I think you have just proven that you are the perfect candidate for both "Shared Resources" and "My Resources." Things you use everyday or all the time can be moved into the "MR" section of your Resource Library so that you can easily find them, and you won't have to comb through or search all of the varied resources out there. However, having all those resources available to you won't hurt your teaching or your lessons...Rather, I feel it will enhance and help them. For example, you are teaching a lesson coordinate planes, and kids aren't getting it... Pull out a map and show them how we have divided the earth into one big coordinate grid. Or you are teaching trajectory, and now you have pictures of rockets and spaceships, things the children can relate to, to show more in depth examples about what you are teaching. I hope this helps, and if not, sorry for wasting your time.

[jepatton]

I am also a secondary math teacher, so I understand what you're talking about. That said, I've sometimes surprised myself by using some of the images from other subject areas in my flipcharts. So, I wouldn't be too quick to get rid of everything.

You don't have to use both resource libraries. You could use either the Activresource Manager (found on the Dashboard) or Windows Explorer to copy the reources you use most frequently from the Shared Resource Library to My Resources. I would recommend the Activresource Manager, because it shows you thumbnails of each of the resources. You can also tell Activstudio to use My Resources by default whenever you open the Resource Library. I don't remember exactly where in Studio Settings to do this, because I do most of my work on a Mac, and my PC version is not behaving well at at the moment (old computer ... :().

That way, you can keep the Shared Resources intact, just in case you want them someday. That said, I would probably delete the Shared Flipcharts from some of the other subject areas. I have to admit, I have never used any of those. I would keep all of the Shared Images though. Like I said before, you never know when you're going to need something ...

I hope this helps.

[jepatton]

Ben, we have to stop meeting like this .....:D:)+wave+

[tmcq]

I appreciate that everyone is interested in helping me...I really am...but I don't want reasons why I should not get rid of the stuff, I want the method how to get rid of the stuff (if possible). I am sorry if I offend some of the Promethean zealots out there, but ActivStudio has way too much superfluous fluff for me.

If there is a way to streamline my interface please share.

[BenPosner]

Well, I guess if you are trying to simplify your interface, I would recommend going to the Tool Store and adding the icons for the Resources you use most often to your Tool Bar or your Tool Strip. Also, June's recommendation about going into your Resource Manager and moving (and yes, deleting) the things you don't feel are useful might also be helpful.

Hope these tips help, and looking forward to seeing some of your flipcharts uploaded onto Planet!

~Ben

[Louise Chew]

Sorry, I'm afraid I'm here to disappoint you.
If you delete the my folders then they will just be re-created when the app restarts.
If you delete any shared folders then they will stay gone but everytime you open your resource library it will throw up an error message saying it can't find the folders which I imagine would become very annoying.

[htemske]

Can't you just remove any of the sub folders and extra images that you don't want as mentioned earlier? Empty folders won't give you more to weed through. You can keep your resource library set on shared and you just won't click on the categories that you don't use. For the search feature you can just uncheck any categories that you aren't using.

[tmcq]

I would recommend going to the Tool Store and adding the icons for the Resources you use most often to your Tool Bar or your Tool Strip.

That is a great idea!

Thanks!

[Jon' Allen]

If you want to declutter the folders you can use ActivResource Manager (in main menu - activextras) which is a viewer that allows you to select (or group select - hold down Shift key) and then delete resources (right click menu)
Resource manager is also useful for wrapping up resources onto a pen stick (maybe if you leave a school and want to take stuff with you) and then drop it into your next ActivStudio setup.
Also handy for distributing resources to groups of people - see the resource packs on PrometheanPlanet which use resource manager to drop into the appropriate folders.
As you say we do rather pack a lot of resource into the distributed software trying to cater for a wide range of teachers/subjects, but longterm we hope to see people turning to Planet to download just the stuff they need.
Jon'