User Guide AP3
User Guide AP3
Welcome to Activprimary 3. This guide is designed to familiarise you with Activprimary’s interface and
features to make a successful transition from PX. Activprimary is a lot more feature rich than PX, and
will allow you to engage your pupils in lessons a lot more than PX can, thanks to the redesigned
interface. You can start Activprimary by double clicking the icon on the desktop.
THE DASHBOARD
When you first open Activprimary, you will be presented with the Dashboard. This is a central point
from where you can choose what you wish to do e.g. create a new flipchart, open an existing flipchart.
CLOSE
Quits Activprimary FILE MENU
Gives you the opportunity to
SOUND CONTROL open/save flipcharts
Allows you to record sound for use in your flipcharts.
ACTIVITIES EXPLORER
CLEAN TOOL Gives you a choice of preset group activities.
Clear annotations & objects from your screen.
SPECIAL TOOLS
Interactive tools – explained later.
DESKTOP MODE ACTIVOTE
Switches from AP3 to your Windows desktop. Make use of the interactive voting system
PAGE SELECTOR (currently unavailable).
Produces thumbnails of each page, allowing you to select which to show.
PREVIOUS / NEXT PAGE
Move back and forth between pages in your flipchart.
PEN / HIGHLIGHTER / ERASER
The main tools you will be using in AP3.
OBJECT SELECTOR
Select objects for modification/deletion/movement.
TEXT TOOL
GRIDS & BACKGROUNDS
See Resource Library
RESOURCE LIBRARY
Access Activprimary’s comprehensive resource collection (over 18,000 items!)
UNDO / REDO
Correct mistakes or revert your flipchart back to a previous state.
PLEASE NOTE that Shared Resources is NOT Teachers’s Shared Work so please do not save or delete items from this
folder.
The second constant is the Rubber Stamp button. If you wish to include many of the same shape or clipart
in your flipchart (e.g. five stars), you can click the Rubber Stamp button to “stamp” the shapes onto the
flipchart instead of dragging, dropping and positioning five separate shapes. Click the button again to disable the
Rubber Stamp.
Two important buttons you should become familiar with are the browse buttons. If a collection of resources
is too large to display in the Resource Bar (this is frequently the case), you should use these buttons to move
back and forth through the collection you are browsing.
The recycle bin is a handy tool for removing unwanted objects from your flipchart. Select the object you
wish to remove using the Selector Tool and click the Recycle Bin to remove it. Dragging the object into the
Recycle Bin or simply pressing delete (after selecting the object) will have the same effect.
One last feature of the text tool is a button in the Resource Bar called Floating Keyboard. This was a tool
present in PX, but has been greatly improved for Activprimary as it now comes in child and adult flavours,
both in large and small. Click the button to enable the keyboard. You can right click the keyboard and choose which
keyboard design you want
to use.
The Colour Picker will be an invaluable tool if you want to, for example, exactly match a colour in a
clipart image for use elsewhere in your flipchart.
If you decide you don’t want any background, make sure you have the Backgrounds button selected and click the
Trash Can icon in the Resource Bar and the background will be removed. As with the Resource Library, the browse
buttons are available here to scroll through the backgrounds collection.
It is worth noting that as soon as you apply a different grid to a flipchart, the Mask Grid and Snap to Grid buttons are
reset to OFF.
Seen here is the Teacher’s Menu. This is where you will be performing the majority of open/save
operations. You should concentrate on the first three buttons from the left. They create a new
blank flipchart, open an existing flipchart and save the flipchart you have open, respectively.
NOTE you can only have one flipchart open at once, so please bear this in mind when creating a
new one without saving the one you already have open!
Upon clicking the Open button, you will be presented with this
menu. You will mostly choose the first option – Open from My
Flipcharts. Like PX, these are flipcharts stored in your My
Documents folder, and are only accessible by you. Selecting
this option will present you with a standard Open File window
(below right). As you can see, I only have one flipchart, but as
you build up your collection of flipcharts, they will be stored in
this folder. And before you ask, yes you CAN open your
Activprimary 2 flipcharts in Activprimary 3!
The last option, Open from Another Location is present as a last resort. For example, if your year group has a
collection of flipcharts stored on the network (e.g. Teachers’s Shared Work), then you will be able to access them by
browsing to them from this option.
You can save the flipchart you have open by clicking the Save button in the
Teacher’s menu. The options here are very much the same as those of the
Open button. Most of the time you will want to choose Save to My Flipcharts
(or if you have previously saved the file, and just wish to update the file, just
click Save to skip the window selecting where to save the file). DO NOT SAVE
TO SHARED FLIPCHARTS AS THESE WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE ON THE NETWORK, AND WILL NOT BE BACKED UP!
To modify a flipchart object, make sure the Selector tool is selected then single-left-click on
the object you wish to change. The object can be anything from shapes, text, annotations,
lines or resources. Anything that can be deleted can also be moved and modified – i.e.
everything! When you select an object, you will notice a series of boxes appear around it.
Most modification tasks can be done by using these boxes (now on referred to as handles).
Double clicking an object will present you with one of two menus, depending on which mode you are in. You can
assign actions to objects (e.g. open web browser, move to next page), but this can only be done in Design Mode. The
buttons in Design Mode (from left to right) are: Increase/decrease object size, cut, copy, paste, delete, properties
(set up actions), duplicate, bring object to
front/back. The slider beneath alters the
object’s transparency – very nifty!
We have already visited the Teacher’s Menu at the beginning of this guide, but just to recap, the top
two buttons (left to right) are the Teacher’s Menu Button (File open/save/new etc) and Close. The
next level down are Activities Explorer and Sound Control (Record/play), then Special Tools and
Clear Tool and finally, Desktop Mode and Activote.
We will start with the Teacher’s Menu Button, as this does provide more functionality than just
open and save.
In order to conserve paper, it is a good idea to click Preview before clicking Print,
just in case your flipchart uses unnecessary blank pages.
Clicking Page Reset reverts your page to its saved state. This means any
new annotations/objects you have drawn will be removed, and any
changes will be undone.
You can insert Page Notes onto a page in your flipchart, perhaps
containing instructions on how to use any interactive objects you’ve
inserted. You can recognise Page Notes by one of the two boxes here.
Web Browser - Just a basic tool for browsing websites, if you need one. The Web Browser is actually really
handy for inserting images from the internet into your flipcharts. Below, I have loaded an image from
Google Images. How would you normally get that image from the website into your clipchart? Save as a file,
then import into PX? In Activprimary, it’s a simple drag and drop from the website onto your flipchart!
The Tickertape is a very exciting feature in AP3. Selecting this tool will
allow you to include a scrolling message across each page on your flipchart,
providing an effective way to remind your kids to do their homework, for example!
The dialog box is very simple – just enter the message to be displayed on the tickertape, maybe customise the
font/colour, then click OK. The speed control box will stay open just beneath the ticker itself. Drag the scroller left to
slow down, right to speed up.
Click the Activities Explorer icon in the Teacher’s Menu and click the activity you would like to use. When you have
finished with the activity, close the window by clicking the X at the top right of the window, or click the Quit button
if the activity has one.
In Activprimary, click the Teacher’s Menu Button and select the ... button. This will give you a new menu. Select the
second item in the list, Flipchart Builder. Activprimary will change to Desktop Mode (more on this later) and open
the Flipchart Builder.
Perhaps one small feature worth mentioning, however, is the arrow at the top left
of the toolbox. Just like you could minimise the toolbox in PX to a small circle, you
can do almost the same with Activprimary. Click the arrow to roll the toolbox up into a small
rectangle. Inevitably, the arrow will
change direction from pointing up to
down, so when you click it again, it will
unroll the toolbox to its former state.
The Reveal tool, similar in functionality to the Spotlight tool can be used to obscure the entire screen, and
reveal parts from the edges inwards. Enable the tool by clicking the icon in the Resource Bar. This will blank
the screen, but moving the mouse over the four edges of the screen will change the cursor to an arrow
indicating which way to click and drag the mouse to reveal the flipchart.
In the example below, the first image is what happens when the Reveal button is first pressed. The second image is
revealing the top of the flipchart (i.e. dragging the mouse down) and the third image is revealing the left portion of
the screen (i.e. dragging the mouse to the right). To switch off the Reveal tool, click the button in the Resource Bar
again.
The Protractor tool, along with the Ruler tool are perhaps two of the
most useful tools in Activprimary. Clicking either of these
buttons will drop a protractor or ruler onto your flipchart. These can be used
either to help design your flipchart (e.g. creating accurate angles for neat
presentation) or during lesson time, for example during numeracy. As
with any object, the protractor and ruler can be modified, lengthened or
rotated to suit your needs by double clicking the object. When rotating,
the protractor will rotate around its centre, while the ruler will
rotate around its 0 point at the top left corner.
The Compass tool is in the same league as the previous two tools, although there are one or two noteworthy
aspects to it. Obviously the compass is going to be used in instances where perfect circles are needed on
your flipchart. To operate the compass, click the Compass icon in the Resource Bar. A compass that looks like the
leftmost image will be dropped onto your flipchart. You can click and drag the top of the compass to move to your
desired location.
To set the circle’s radius, click the point where the pencil meets the compass
(arrowed) and drag the mouse to the right. Finally, to draw the circle, click the tip
of the pencil and move the mouse in circular motion.
You may notice some numbers at the top of the compass. The first represents the
angle the compass is current at; by default 0 degrees. The second is the length of
the radius (also by default, 0). These will change as you manipulate the
compass object.
The Camera tool, another PX veteran, will allow you to take a “snapshot” of
anything on your screen. Select the Camera button, either from the Resource
Bar in normal mode, or from the main toolbar in Desktop Mode. In Desktop Mode,
you will be presented with this box, and will need to click and drag a box over the area you would like to take a
picture of, seen below.
Introducing the Screen Recorder tool - a new addition to Activprimary. It will allow you to record your
actions on-screen and save as a video file. Screen recordings are mostly used for tutorial videos, so this is
ideal for making videos for pupils to play during ICT lessons (or even for staff insets!) if they need a reference on how
to use a program, for example. When you select the Screen Recorder tool, you will be asked
to choose between full screen recording, or a selected area recording. If you choose the
latter, you will need to specify the area as
per the camera above. Click the red Record button to start recording
and the square Stop button to stop.
When Activprimary asks you where to save the video, you can go
ahead and click Save, unless you really want to save it somewhere
else. By default it will save it to the Video section of your Personal
Library (accessible via the Resource Library seen earlier) so you can
include your videos on your flipcharts if you wish.
The bottommost two buttons give you a count down and count up clock. Either one of these will be useful
for just displaying to pupils as a time limit to complete a piece of work or for timing tests etc.
If you so wish, you can set up an action to trigger when the time runs
out. This will most likely be a sound, which is why there is already a
drop-down menu there with a pre-loaded list of sounds. Click OK to
start the timer.
REFERENCE WEBSITES
There is a wealth of Promethean / Activprimary resources on the internet, as well as training videos
and discussion forums. Visit the sites below for more information:
http://www.prometheanplanet.com
http://movies.atomiclearning.com/k12/activprimary3
http://www.prometheanlearning.com
http://www.prometheanworld.com