Activote #'s mixed up

[johnhyde]

After registering a set of Activotes I have found a weird situation. I used 10 in my test. I successfully registered them in order, renamed them, synchronized them and tested them all in order. I have done this dozens of times. Once done I close the Mac OS X System Preferences pane and then launch into again and check the order of my Activotes. They mysteriously change their order at this point. Instead of A1, A2, A3...down the row to A10 in numerical order they are jumbled in a random order. When I launch into Activstudio the voting session is fine across the top of the screen. They are A1 through A10 sequentially. When I get my results from the voting session I can click on the radio button "Who answered what." The order that is displayed is the same humbled order that shows in my System Preferences pane. If they displayed in order A1-A10 it would be easier for a teacher to identify which students were getting the incorrect answer without having to use the database and use actual named Activotes. Is there a way to place these in order correctly? Do we have to delve into some preference file deep within Mac OS X? Please advise.

Oh, and be sure to look at the fancy graphic I made to illustrate this.

John Hyde
Minneapolis

[pckj]

If I understood your post correctly, we have run into a similar problem with the Activotes on our PCs this past week. After registering the activotes sequentially, they seem to change their order so the student using Activote number 4 on the registration now shows a response on A-19. We cleared the registrations and reregistered the devices, but the problem persists. Two sets of Activotes are new and one was new last year. The older set worked just fine last year, but we ran into this problem when the teacher changed her students' names this year. There's obviously something we're not understanding in how to set up our Activotes properly Help will be greatly appreciated.
Pat

[johnhyde]

I am fairly convinced it is not how we set them up. I think we are setting them up correctly. I think that this will require a firmware update or a change to the software or driver.

[invinoveritas]

I can report a similar problem that I’ve had since re-registering our pods at the start of the school year in September. I registered pods A1-A20, and allocated them to pupils with a UDB file, and the names were displayed in alphabetical order in the title bar on a voting page, as before.

After pupils’ complaints (eg pupil A was voting but his name remained grey, or pupil C hadn’t yet voted but his name was yellow)), it became clear that some the of pupils’ names (alphabetical by default) did not correspond to the numerical order of the pods. I established that this was happening by pressing option F and getting black names on the bar - some pods didn't correspond to the allocated pupil's name.

I assumed that the number labels on the pods had got mixed up. Then another teacher reported the same problem, even after the pods were re-numbered and re-registered in sequence.

What is going on?

[htemske]

It is my understanding that the new (2.4) votes with the hub need to be manually named. Just registering them in order as we used to do with the pre-hub votes is not adequate. Once they are named they need to be verified by clicking it on the list and pushing a key on the vote. I attached an image of the page. Forgive me if you did all of that I know the tech in our school didn't so we were having the same trouble. Good luck!

[Lee Nelson]

Please look at the following thread where I gave info about this.
http://www.Prometheanplanet.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6873

[johnhyde]

Lee,

Thanks for chiming in! I appreciate it. But the premise presumes that the Activotes have not been marked. In this case they have been marked with markers. We registered them in order, synchronized them in order and tested them in order and then they are jumbled by the driver software, the system preferences or the Activhub. Since it seams to be happening in Windows as well, I think it has something to do with the Activhub and how the data is stored on the flash memory. It seems to me that users should be able to click and drag the order while in the System Preferences in the order that they want. I have tried control-click, right-click, option-click etc. I assume there is no way to change the order without renaming the Activotes and remarking the as well. If that is the case, please verify that for me please and I will put the idea that we can go any further down this path of changing it within the software now that we have marked the Activotes.

Thanks!

John????

[Lee Nelson]

I'm assuming these are the new 2.4GHz votes.

I don't fully understand your problem because I'm not sure why you feel you need to rename the votes. However, do remember that you can name the votes manually and specify the name you want to give them, so you can specify the name they have been marked with.

The order in which you register them has no bearing on the order in which they are saved. The point of the new system is that all the votes can be registered at the same time - there is no concept of registering them in order. I think the software actually uses aphabetical or alphanumerical order.

If you want to label the votes you should do this AFTER they are registered and named. If you labelled them first them you will need to name them individually to give them the correct names.

I hope I have understood correctly.

[pckj]

Hi Lee,
Thanks for the explanations. Let's see if my understanding is correct:
With the newer, 2.4GHz, hub votes, we register the devices first.
Then we test them one at a time to see which number lights up on the Activote bar.
We then can mark each device with a number corresponding to the order shown in the test.

For Activotes which are already registered and marked with a classroom number, we need to test them to see which number they are assigned and change the marked number on the device to match. That way student #1 is using device #1 and so on.

Is it correct to assume that the numbers to which the Activotes correspond stay with the devices even if they are reregistered because this is like a default setting?

If we use an Activote in another classroom to replace a broken one, for example, we would need to rename the device to call it the number it is replacing. Is that correct?
Thanks for the help,
Pat

[rboyts]

Hello, I work with John Hyde and have been putting some time into this.

The goal is to have the teacher able to show the results of a vote in the "who answered what" in the A1-A32 order.

When you register the 2.4GHz votes with the Activhub, there is unique Device ID that is assigned to each vote as it is registered. Ultimately, the last 3 digits of the 12 digit Device ID determines the order in which they will show up in the "who answered what" category.

So.. when you register, rename, and synchronize.. this process makes the numbers show up correctly on the horizontal voting bar (ie A1-A32 are correct when pressed), but do nothing to arrange the order for the "who answered what" in the summary.

The only way I was able to get the vote to act correctly in both the horizontal voting line and the "who answered what" was to:
- Register, rename, and synchronize
- Close the Activboard preference panel
- Open back up the Activboard preference panel (to Activote tab), see that the votes are not in numeric sequential order. They are sorted by the last 3 digits of the Device ID (including letters: numbers first, then letters). This is the order that currently shows up in the "who answered what" summary.
- Put the votes in the correct physical order on the desk. I did this by doing a "test" vote from the Activote preference panel. While in test mode, press a letter on the Activote and place that Activote in the correct sort order that the system generated on the desk. Then renaming the entire group and re-synchronizing in order. ( I did this with 4 Activotes. tested several times with consistent results. Activboard Preference Pane v. 2.3. Build 147 on Mac)

What I believe needs to happen (by Promethean's developer group) is when the votes are registered, the Device ID that is assigned needs to be in sequential order in which the votes are registered. That would make the "who answered what" summary display in the correct order.

Rob Boyts

[Lee Nelson]

Pat,
All you say is correct, provided that when you say "the numbers to which the Activotes correspond" the votes have been NAMED to these numbers.

Rob,
the Device ID that is assigned needs to be in sequential order in which the votes are registered
The idea of the new voting system is that they are registered all together, not one at a time (imagine doing this with 500!) so there is no concept of the order in which votes are registered. Once devices are named they should be listed in order of their names, so votes NAMED A1-A32 should be listed in that order. If they are not there could be an error in the software - I'm sure Emma will look into it.

[invinoveritas]

Lee, thank you for the link to your previous advice on this. I don't think our devices are 'new': they were supplied mid-2007, and we register them via the Activboard, not a hub. We've had to re-register them at the start of the academic year because of new computer hardware in classrooms. I'm going to have another go, bearing in mind the advice here.

[Lee Nelson]

invinoveritas,
You are right but be careful about following the device here which is for the new devices. The old ones, as you are aware, work in a different way.

[ELJ]

This thread is quite long and a few things being discussed...
The ¨Name¨ button in device registration is somewhat misleading. The best neam to get the names you want and in the sequence you want is through the proper naming section. Go to the menu, Activote, Session and choose named and neame from there. You will need to put the names in the User Database. Device registraion is for registering really rather thna naming, apologies that it implies otherwise.
Emma

[franco3b]

Problem re-naming activotes
We are using activotes 2.4 ghz with Activhub and with an online testing system ATI. (PC machine, XP system) We have tried to rename the activotes 1,2,3, etc. gettting rid of the A prefix.
When we go through the process of "name" the numbers appears, we click Ok, the message comes up about some of the names being lost, and then it reverts back to the same naming convention we are trying to get rid of.
We need to name them just 1, 2, 3 in order for the votes to work with ATI and the student numbers in that system.
How do you rename the actitotes so that the names stick?????

[JanP]

Name all will ask you to provide a prefix. If you don't want a prefix then once you have registered all the devices in the device registration pane just remain the devices by clicking on the device names next to the device number. Now select NAME and then on each device, starting from device one click any of the letters. This will physically name each device.

It is important that if you want device one to have the name 1 that you remember the order in which you registered your devices.

Does that make sense? :confused:

Janice

[franco3b]

Your message does make sense, we have selected NAME and then on each device,entered the desired number, (starting with#1) We have them in the order they were registered. After doing this, do we then have to click on one of the letters on the activote? We do not want the activotes to have any letter before the number. Sorry I am so confused, we are very frustrated with this naming process. Can you please send screen shots?
Cristina

[JanP]

Hi Cristina,

I have included a word document with pictures of what I mean. Step 3 is using the letters on the individual handsets.

If you are still stuck send me a PM and I will try to explain it better! I have tested it all with my devices so I know that it works!

Janice

[Lee Nelson]

I don't have a set to hand to try this but I think I'm right in saying that if you 'name all' but leave the prefix blank the devices will be named with just the number and no prefix.

Please remember too that for the 2.4GHz devices the order of registration has no bearing on the order in which they will finally be listed as it is completely random. There is no concept of registering the devices in order. The device number listed as you register devices just tells you how many you have registered and is not connected with that device in any way. You have to name the devices to give them a permanent number.

[JanP]

Thanks for correcting me on that point Lee. It makes sense now that I think about it!

Janice