Study V4 now allows you to MIX the NOKIA Internet Tablets with your existing PC and laptops to form a seamless learning environment for students and teachers. The previous version of Study (V3) allowed you to focus and guide either N810 devices or Windows XP PRO/VISTA devices - but not a mix of the two.
Study V4 also provides a close integration with the Microsoft OneNote application for all the Windows Client devices. For full details of the new version of Study please refer to www.sanako.co.uk.
This latest version of the proven Study 500 Classroom Management solution (Version 4.0) builds upon the existing capabilities of Study 500 V2.6 via the following key feature developments and benefits;
· New screen transfer options
The normal screen transfer is for the senders screen to fill the receiver screen and stop the receiver from being able to do anything else other than watch and listen. You can now un-tick the “Full screen view on student screen” and this will result in the Tutor screen being displayed as just another window on the student screen that can be moved and re-sized. This can be useful if a student wants to take notes on a word processor whilst watching a tutor demonstration.
If a tutor sends a student screen to rest of the class then the student screen and voice can also be displayed on the tutor screen in a separate window or full screen.
The default will be that the student screen is NOT sent to the teacher.
· Dynamic student naming options
When the teacher launches the Tutor software the names under each student icon can now be selected in the preferences.
One option is to ‘Ask from student’. This will result in the following screen being displayed to the students each time the Tutor starts their application.
This tool is very useful for sites where the user name can not be easily picked up from their login name e.g. the login name is y11cvfr45 and the student name is say Tom Thorpe.
· File copy and launch improved
The previous method for presenting files to students was to add that file to the session file area and then allow the student to double click that file. This is still possible but the teacher can alternatively copy and launch the file to the students and it will automatically play or present itself to the students.
This can prove very useful in situation where the teacher wants to ensure that the delivery of the audio or video is smooth and fast. By copying the file to a local drive the delivery is assured.
When the teacher ends the session they are asked if they want to close and/or remove these copied files.
The result of this change is that it does not matter from where or to where the teacher selects files to hand out to – it no longer has to be a shared network location. This may seem like a minor change but it will make things so much easier for the teachers and avoid frustration.
· Improved web browser FOLLOW mode
It has been found that when using the web browser in FOLLOW mode it was possible for the teacher to go to a web link that resulted in the opening of a new browser instance – the result being that the students no longer followed the teacher actions.
If the teacher browses to a page that would open in a new browser then they will be prompted and the default would be for our software to force the data to be displayed in the same browser instance and hence keep the students following.
· Improved sound card control
Students can also MUTE all audio playback via one click of the loudspeaker icon.
It is also of note that when monitoring a student the sound heard by the teacher is independent of the local sound card mixer settings which means that even if students mess with the levels it does not matter to the teacher – it only affects the student side.
· Improved robustness
The client process can not be killed or temporarily interrupted due to students pressing either CTRL+ALT+DEL or SHIFT+ALT+F4
· Disabling Internet access for students
The software can now block all student Internet access. This can be for the whole class, a group or individuals.
Any of the programs listed will be blocked and/or any of the stated port traffic.
When operating the Web Browsing activity in OPEN mode you can add web domains to the list such as www.msn.com and this will restrict access to that domain. The first generation of web domains used to follow a naming convention such that subsequent areas followed this naming. For example, the news on the BBC web pages used to be www.bbc.co.uk/news but this has now become http://news.bbc.co.uk
Other common web domains have followed this approach such as msn and yahoo. Some examples are; http://groups.yahoo.com and http://health.msn.com
This would mean that to block access to all parts of the MSN domain you would need to add an individual entry for all parts of the domain such as http://green.msn.com and http://health.msn.com
If you add _msn to the list of denied web pages then the result will be that students cannot access any of the MSN domains.
· Wake-on-LAN Support
You can now wake all student PCs that have Wake-on-LAN ability. All new PCs will have this ability and so the teacher can switch the whole class on and the student PCs can boot up to the login screen before the students enter the room. There is no more need to walk around the room switching devices on or waiting until the students enter the room. The other advantage to this facility is that the student PCs can be stored away and switched on and off remotely.
· Program Shortcuts now saved
You can now store shortcuts to launch certain programs. These are saved into each of the Tutor setting (TCF) files, which means that different teachers can have different shortcuts saved.
· Common folder paths
As the solution can be deployed to any room then it is vital that when teachers use the solution (no matter what room they are in at that time) they are presented with the same material from shared network areas. This makes using Study 500 easier for the teacher and also allows us to match the system to the file structure in place at that site.
The folders that can be defined are;
1. Tutor’s class directory defines what class layouts are available to be selected when the Tutor application is launched.
2. Media files folder defines the first directory that is opened when the teacher searches for any digitized material
3. Web policy files folder defines where the RUL files are saved and opened from to focus student web browsing activity
4. Exam test files folder and collection folder is where the source exam files and the resulting student answers are respectively opened from and saved to.
This may seem like quite a minor change but in practice this will have a huge effect on how easy the solution is to use.
· Simple creation of fault log files
Go to the Tools – Preferences part of the Tutor program and then select the System tab.
Under normal usage the “Use standard logging” will be selected and the LOG files will be created with the standard data information contained within them.
For fault finding purposes it is recommended that the “Use extended logging” option be selected. This increases the amount of data logged and the depth of information contained within the log files.
You can then use the lab as normal and try to replicate any fault conditions that may occur. After this click the “Compress system log files to a ZIP file” option and then choose where to save the ZIP file.
This ZIP file can then be used by SANAKO for faultfinding purposes.
· New versions of optional modules available
To coincide with this release there are new versions of the Admin Module, Voting and Examination modules.
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