ActivOffice

Promethean has released a new application called Promethean ActivOffice, a new tool that adds a range of interactive features to Microsoft Office PowerPoint.

The program embeds a new toolbar within the Microsoft PowerPoint ribbon giving users access to new tools, including additional presentation tools as well as the ability to annotate directly on presentations or conduct simple polls or assessments using Promethean Learner Response Systems (ActivExpression, ActiVote and ActivEngage). Using these Promethean ActivOffice features, presenters can reinforce key content, make presentations more memorable, and engage audiences transforming their experience from being passive listeners to engaged participants.

Currently Promethean ActivOffice is available for Windows® Operating Systems. The program is currently not compatible with MS Office 64x or on Apple® computers. Sorry Mac fans…

ACTIVExpression

These ideas about how to use ActivExpression devices from the Ron Clark Academy in the States seem like great fun and could be 'pinched' for use on your Open Evening.

They show what can be done when you add the flexibility of the device to some ideas to engage the 'kinaesthetic'-focused learners.

So the Pen aspect of your board is finally working...

Now that the interactive pen feature is working across the Promethean boards in the Academy, staff may want to refresh their training on Board features. Promethean offer their own free basic online training - certificates available! - via Promethean Planet. Remember that free membership of Promethean Planet also enables you to download resources created by other teachers.

There are four courses available (see below): one which focuses on the board, another that introduces ActivInspire, a course on ActivExpression and also one that explores the potential of the ActivOffice feature available in Powerpoint.

ActivOffice is a way of getting some features of ActivInspire working with Powerpoint without needing to have ActivInspire running on your computer. Apart from including the voting elements of ActivExpression, it also provides the facility to use some of the ActivTool set.

Support: 22nd September 2011

Drop-In Sessions: Break / Lunch / After-School.... any Promethean or Office 2010 issues / questions. Remember no question too big or small.

Disregarding the annoying music, some useful Office 2010 tips presented in the Youtube vid below

interactive...or not interactive... that is the question...

By Friday last week we were able to test a 'work-around' for the problem with the Interactive Whiteboards in D, F & G corridors. The work-around was tested in 4 G corridor rooms, and involved reducing the sensitivity of the boards to interaction. This measn that pen-based interaction does work, but touch-based interaction doesn't.

This is not a solution to the initial problem which caused the 'mouse frenzy' of the cursor bouncing around randomly opening programs. It has been rolled out to more rooms on G floor this morning with no reported problems at present (Monday 11.27am), and will be applied in more rooms in D, F & G corridors when the electricians can gain access.

Staff Meeting... Thank You

We appreciated the chance to answer some questions tonight at the Staff Meeting. Particular thanks to those colleagues who shared ongoing issues with us at the end of the meeting. We were able to rectify a couple of problems that people have been dealing with since last week, and also tell others when their hardware will be commissioned.

Have had my first booking for support via the  steve@releasingsuccess.co.uk email. The more the merrier...

www.releasingsuccess.co.uk is the name of my website where I try and blog occasionally on issues at the ICT/Education/Leadership interface... read 'classics' like 'Technology meets its Waterloo (Road)' and 'Always Look on the Bright Side'...

Booking Individual Support

Email Steve Warburton on Steve@releasingsuccess.co.uk to book a personal support session on Tuesday 13th, Friday 16th or Monday 19th September

Installation Update

Interactive Whiteboards:
On Floors D, F and G there is a problem with the electricity supply which is causing 'mouse frenzy' when the IWB is connected to the Teacher PC by the USB cable. To enable staff to work we have taken out the USB cable in these rooms, but it means the Board is not connected and pen/finger-based interactivity will not work. MAA are aware of the issue and electricians will be trying to rectify the problem as soon as possible. Otherwise installations are working well.

Email
We have been individually transferring your legacy emails into your new email folder that is being accessed via MySchool. If you haven't been supported by one of our 'purple shirts' for this process, then please come and see us in Room F18 to arrange a time for us to work through this with you.

Please continue to report issues to us. There will always be someone in F18 who can arrange some support for you.

ActivExpression Training Handouts

Remember to visit Wendy's website for ActivExpression handouts & flipcharts. There are 8 sets of handsets in MAA... coming soon... information about where they are and how you can get hold of them!

A Fix... ActivInspire & Powerpoint

Sometimes ActivInspire will not launch if you already have Powerpoint active on your machine. This is becasue Powerpoint now includes the ActivOffice plug-in that features a cut-down version of Active tools, so refuses to open ActivInspire.

THE FIX: always open ActivInspire before opening Powerpoint. 

Free Multimedia Resources

There is an increasing sensitivity to mis-use of copyright material in Education. The following sites offer free or Creative Commons access to images, clips and music.

 

 

Free Picture Sites for use with Education

There are many places to find pictures for use with an educational project. Some of them include the following sites.

• http://www.Pics4Learning.com– Free photos to use for multimedia projects. 
• http://commons.wikimedia.org – Wikipedia’s image files are stored here and most of the pictures are copyright friendly.
• http://www.flikr.com – Use the advance search feature to find pictures which have been granted permission to use copyright free.
• http://www.freedigitalphotos.net – Free Digital Photos.net allows you to have free low-res photos which are perfect for multimedia projects.
• http://www.freefoto.com/ - Free Foto allows you to use their pictures for free provided you credit the site

Free Picture and Video Sites for use with Education

• http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com – Discovery Education will allow you to use their pictures and videos provided you adhere to their terms of use found at this link:
   http://www.discoveryeducation.com/aboutus/terms-of-use/streaming.cfm
• http://www.freestockfootage.com – Free Stock Footage allows free use of their low resolution video stock and images.
• http://kitzu.org/ - Digital kits with photos and videos

Free Music Tracks

There are many sites which allow Creative Commons use of music. Since the music is not always appropriate, you should preview the music before using it in your video.

• Jamendo - http://www.jamendo.com/en/
• Dmusic - http://dmusic.com/
• Opsound - http://www.opsound.org/
• Sound Click - http://www.soundclick.com/
• Royalty Free Music - http://www.royaltyfreemusic.com/
• Incompetech - http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/
• Free Play Music - http://www.freeplaymusic.com/
• Flash Kit - http://www.flashkit.com/loops/
• Royalty Free Sounds - http://soundbible.com/royalty-free-sounds-1.html

I recommend...some Activtips

Promethean Planet hosts many short videos that show facets of Promethean software... they're called Activtips and it's worth a root around if you're looking for ideas on how to make the most of having a Board.

So here come Five of the Best

Search for Developing Collaboration , Adding Pace in a Lesson, Compare & Contrast, Introduce a Topic or Powerpoint in the Secondary section

A word from our sponsors ... not

Thought this might interest everyone - a 15% back-to-school pass for your next visit to STAPLES Office Supplies (Northampton's is on the St James Retail Park (?))

Tomorrow's post will feature links to my Top 5 ActivTips videos on the Promethean Planet website - remember Promethean Planet is free to join and gives access to not only other teachers' flipcharts, but also Professional Development resources.

Windows 7 and Office 2010

By the time staff return on September 1st, the Academy will be using Windows 7 and Office 2010, a new Operating System and Productivity suite, replacing Windows XP and Office 2003. For many of you this software will be familiar from your home PCs, but for some they will be completely new. The challenges and opportunities thrown up by each one are very different.

Windows 7 simplifies Windows for the user, (see video) but also adds some easy-to-use tools that improve the experience for expert and light users alike. The look of Windows 7 will be familiar to previous users of Windows, whilst pinning, snapping, jumping and snipping (see video below) will quickly become the quick ways of doing things that used to take you ages.

Office 2010 is more of a challenge. Much better software than previous versions, it is designed to present all the most frequently used commands quickly and simply. The problem is that at first look, it appears that what they've done is hidden everything! This can confound even expert users on first view but some dedicated furtling around will help. Our training session on September 1st will help this process - I promise. If you want to pursue another path to enlightenment then try downloading Microsoft's own learning game to help you navigate Office
 - Ribbon Hero 2 .

Progress... and Access?

The ICT implementation has been proceeding apace during the Summer. There follow some pictures which are indicative of the installations in classrooms. Some final finishing work has not yet been done - so please excuse the coverings over vulnerable bits of the installations and coils of wires which have yet to be hidden in trunking.

66% of the new Promethean Boards have been installed, usually taking the place of whatever IWB was previously positioned. The vari-height boards are fixed tot he floor and anchored to the wall, reducing their vulnerability to losing their calibration.

To supplement the Board's on-board speakers, Soundfield systems have been fitted which can amplify both the voice of the teaccher via a neck-worn microphone and any multimedia sounds. 

Some of the peripheral devices are also in place - such as the new Gladstone money-loaders for the Cashless system, whilst others are in storage (like the visualisers below) awaiting deployment.

Plans for the training are in place for September 1st with staff having received a letter from Joan Mackness about arrangements for the day. That day - and the support provided at the start of term is designed to ensure staff are able to use the new resources from the beginning of term.If you want access to enable you to have some practice on the Promethean boards before terms starts, please email alex.constant@northgate-is.com for confirmation about when that will be possible. August 23rd is likely to be the earliest that Teacher PCs in classrooms will be ready to be used.

Remember that the Promethean software can be downloaded from Promethean World for free. (see earlier blog post)

All Action On Site

Visited the site today. Northgate's IT team had more than 15 bodies on-site today - Project managers, solutions experts, network engineers, cable pullers, Whiteboard installers.. and it seemed like one guy just taking rubbish to the skips! With Wireless Network, Access Control and CCTV teams to come, it'll probalby get busier before it relents!
The install is going very well, but with redecorating also taking place, it will only be tomorrow (5th) when the first whiteboard install is fully completed... though another 20 are 85% there!

The Training Day on 1st September is programmed to start at 0845.

End of Week One: Progress

This week has focused on removing the equipment from the Server Room, establishing the 'interim' network in the Conference Room and uninstalling AV and equipment in classrooms around the Academy.

September 1st has been confirmed as a Training Day focused on new technology induction... programme to be published later on in August.

IMPORTANT: Accessing ActivInspire Download!

Dear All

To save confusion - caused my me referring to Promethean Planet (the Community Site) rather than Promethean World (Corporate site), this is the link to the page for  Download Link for ActivInspire .

Regards

Steve

What's Happening with the ICT Project w/b 25/07

The starter's pistol has fired... the AV team will start uninstalling Tech from classrooms on 25th July. The Infrastructure team will move all the kit out of the old Server Room, install a temporary network int he conference room near the Principal's Office and then proceed to put all the new infrastructure into the Server Room...

Day 2 of Promethean Training

Thanks for your commitment to training today. Remember you can download the software from www.prometheanplanet.com, along with lots of teacher-created resources. Might look through them - though not all 34,000 - and try and pick out some excellent examples.

Windows 7: feature introduction

SNAP
One of the new features in Windows 7: video SNAP

Promethean 101 Training - initial feedback and HOMEWORK task!

Three groups have been through already - all good - but different - sessions. Direction of the sessions - whilst covering some core material - tends to respond to questions and also the current skills of staff. Might start with a 'difficult' task tomorrow!

For 'homework' ... once you've downloaded your own version of activinspire for home... try working through this flipchart

Special iMAC session : 20th July 3.30pm

Rob Williams from Jigsaw24 will be leading an introductory session to the iMACs on Wednesday 20th in the Conference Room at 3.30pm. Relevant for all Music, Design, Art and Media staff.

Promethean 101 Training: 19th - 21st July

Dear All

Was good last week to meet up with colleagues who are joining the school in September, we went through the same info as we did in the Friday 24th June sessions.

This week we'll be in smaller groups and and working together for a double lesson - Joan Mackness is organising this and we'll be based in the Conference Room again. Hands-On is what you wanted, so that's what we'll be aiming for! 

Promethean promo video

Independent Review of Promethean ActivBoard 500

All MAA classrooms will be fitted with new Promethean ActivBoard 500s

--------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Promethean pioneers whiteboard gestures and apps

Monday, 14 March 2011

Chris Drage reviews a new-generation whiteboard, the multi-touch Promethean Activboard 500 Pro

Collaborative class work is a strong point of the Promethean ActivBoard 500 Pro

The ActivBoard 500 Pro system, demonstrated at BETT 2011, is the latest interactive whiteboard (IWB) to join Promethean’s ActivClassroom and it raises the bar for this technology with its pen-plus-touch capability for collaborative board work.

Students today are so at home with their touch-screen mobile phones that they expect to engage interactively with information technology, and the ActivBoard 500 Pro’s new pen-and-touch technology, combined with Windows 7's gesture capability, provides a natural way of interacting with technology modelled on real-world behaviour and gestures.

The ActivBoard 500 Pro comes in two sizes – 87-inch and 95-inch – and includes ActivInspire Professional Edition software. An 87-inch board is large by anyone's standards but the reason for this size is that you can have up to four learners or adults standing side by side working at the IWB. Combined with its extreme short-throw projector (stated bulb life 6,000 hours) mounted just above it, there are no issues with glare or shadows, and it's a very pleasant environment for a group to work in. The projector is also 3D-capable, another feature to add life to lessons.

'All in all it’s a pretty sexy beast!'

The 500 Pro can be fixed to a wall or mounted on an optional mobile stand. Both options allow for the height to be adjusted (or fixed if you prefer for the wall mounting). It is ergonomic, with no sharp edges or corners, and has a built-in amplifier with capable stereo speakers that can add considerably to the impact of presentations. All in all it’s a pretty sexy beast!

By developing a board which uses both stylus-touch (passive electromagnetic technology) and finger-touch (capacitive) technologies, whatever you select with the stylus becomes the 'tool' of the stylus and whatever you touch with your finger becomes the 'tool' of the finger. What this means in practice is that a teacher can be writing with the pen on the board whilst 'holding' the eraser tool with a finger on the other hand – a nice, natural way to work. Isn't that how we worked all those years ago with the chalk in one hand and blackboard duster in the other? Of course that's an over-simplification as the range of digital tools available for the spare hand to use is enormous: selector, highlighter, spotlight, blinds etc.

The advantage of combining the two touch technologies is that the ActivBoard 500 Pro does not rely on corner cameras or other optical systems with their implicit problems of dividing the board up into specific areas. So there is no conflict which limits multi-touch over the whole surface or if, like me, you are left-handed and you tend to obscure the camera from seeing the ‘active’ point you quickly lose the ability to use some boards altogether.

Most pleasingly, by developing its own multi-gesture touch technology Promethean ensures that it will function regardless of the computer operating system being used: Apple's OSX, Windows XP or Linux. Within these operating systems Promethean's multi-touch software allows for a stylus plus two touches. However, with Windows 7, full, four-touch capability is available. The decision to go with four touches is very sensible as the problem with interactive whiteboards that offer only two touches is that as soon as you have two people starting to collaborate you quickly exceed two touches.

Promethean's revamped ActivInspire software – which integrates ActivStudio and ActivPrimary into one program – provides teachers with easy access to a wealth of teaching resources such as appropriate maths tools, sounds and templates. So when you start ActivInspire you have the option to use either Primary or Studio from the outset.

You only begin to appreciate the functionality that has been built into the new software when you begin to use tools like the ruler or the protractor – absolutely marvellous for teaching mathematics. Images can be easily moved, scaled and rotated with finger-touch in conjunction with real-life “pen” tasks such as writing and drawing across the whole surface (this is the default setting but can be tailored to suit the users).

It all adds up to better functionality and less complication for the teacher. I particularly like the ability to turn off the touch functionality when required. If I am making or emphasising a point I frequently point or touch items displayed on the board and the last thing I want at that point is for a 'tool' to inadvertently appear!

There is a dual-user mode where you can have two styli working simultaneously with two toolbars invoked. So you can have two pupils working independently at the board or collaboratively where, for example, one child is copying another child when learning letter formation or symmetry. Again, the emphasis is on users working naturally with the technology assisting, not undermining, what they are doing. It's this flexibility of use which permeates Promethean's new multi-touch software.

The ActivBoard 500 also comes with Promethean ActivOffice software which allows you to annotate MS Office materials and save (and share) those annotations. This is an extremely useful extra for schools that are heavy users of Microsoft Office.

Welcome to the world of interactive whiteboard 'apps'

Promethean is also introducing 'apps'. Its concept mapping (brainstorming) application, Noteboard, shows the benefits of dual-mode multi-touch very well. For example, with most concept mapping software you use a plethora of icons to create a mind map or web of ideas; with Noteboard it is all done on screen with no recourse to using a toolbar at all. Links can be simply made or broken items can be added, shuffled, reordered, resized and deleted on the fly.

When creating a word bank for example, if you have the ActivExpression handsets you can even instantly 'word seed', getting all the participants' suggested words rapidly on to the Noteboard screen. Then you can have up to four pupils working at the board together, using the multiple-touch to order, link and discard the submitted entries. With multiple-touch they can enlarge, move, turn and join the objects or break links or create sub-concept maps using the screen 'gestures' that have become so familiar to today’s youngsters.

The final mind map (topic web) can be saved as a PDF file and emailed to students or placed on the school's VLE (virtual learning environment). Noteboard really brings home that this is a new way of working with an interactive whiteboard and that the traditional software interface is rapidly changing and evolving. Expect more apps as these boards are more widely adopted.

Another notable feature is the handwriting recognition which has improved immeasurably. Recognition is very fast, including for cursive (joined-up) writing. We have all had that moment when a student has written something on the board and it has been mis-recognised as an inappropriate word that, as a teacher, you don't want to see in your class. Fortunately, that sort of disruption should be a thing of the past with the improvements made. I particularly like the ability to be able to highlight a whole block of writing and convert it to text (after any 'unsolicited' words have been changed).

Promethean intends to provide a software development kit (SDK) for third-party software developers in order to make the most of the board. However, with Promethean Planet now the biggest online education community across the world (more than 850,000 registered members, with 12 million downloads in 2010) you can bet that opportunities for international collaboration and shared resources are not going to be thin on the ground!

So your school has Smart Boards but you would like to include Promethean's 500 Pro boards as well? No problem. From my experience with the ActivBoard 500 Pro and Promethean’s refreshing attitude to schools with a mixed provision, this should be easy enough. Once staff are familiar with the different menus and toolbars they can continue to use the 500 Pro like a Smart Board and should naturally progress to using a stylus and finger touch. The advantage of having the four-touch system available cannot be over emphasised, especially for collaborative work. Promethean will provide support for making the transition.

The nature of modern computer operating systems today is that they are no longer operated by a single mouse but understand gestures made with our hands as well as understand what we do with a stylus or a mouse. Gesture-touch applications offer an interactive and engaging experience for today’s learners. This next generation of interactive whiteboards should offer a true collaborative learning experience. Promethean has ensured that its technology reflects that.

One thing is certain – the ActivBoard 500 Pro raises the benchmark for all interactive whiteboards and could have a profound effect on how whiteboards are used within the classroom in the future, especially with groups of learners. Will we see a whole generation of totally ambidextrous students emerge? Who knows, but the ActivBoard 500 Pro is thoroughly recommended.

Ratings (out of 5)
Fitness for purpose 5
Ease of use 5
Features 5
Quality 5
Value for money 5

ICT Development Project 2011 - 2012

This project is aimed at re-establishing Malcolm Arnold Academy with an ICT system that is fit for purpose - equipping teachers and engaging learners. Much work needs to be done on the infrastructure as well as re-equipping classrooms throughout the Academy. The work is being done by Northgate Managed Services who won the contract in a competitive bidding process from 4 other companies. Kevin & Howard are managing the project for MAA.