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User Guide AP3

This document provides an overview of the Activprimary 3 interface and features. It introduces the dashboard, toolbar, program modes, drawing tools, and text tool. The dashboard allows accessing existing flipcharts or starting new ones. The toolbar contains tools for navigation, activities, and drawing/editing objects. There are two program modes - Design for setup and Presentation for display. Drawing tools include pens, shapes, lines, and text for creating and annotating flipcharts.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
719 views18 pages

User Guide AP3

This document provides an overview of the Activprimary 3 interface and features. It introduces the dashboard, toolbar, program modes, drawing tools, and text tool. The dashboard allows accessing existing flipcharts or starting new ones. The toolbar contains tools for navigation, activities, and drawing/editing objects. There are two program modes - Design for setup and Presentation for display. Drawing tools include pens, shapes, lines, and text for creating and annotating flipcharts.

Uploaded by

duck_star
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 18

Activprimary 3 User Guide

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.

Click here to start with a BLANK


flipchart

Click any of these buttons to


open existing flipcharts (you will
most often choose “My
Flipcharts”)

Click here to open the


FLIPCHART BUILDER – more on
this later!

AC / SPPS / Nov 2007 Page 1 / 18


THE ACTIVPRIMARY TOOLBAR
Here is the Activprimary toolbar. It roughly corresponds with the toolbox in PX (see Quick Reference
sheet), although this is slightly simplified and split into two sections – the Pupil’s Menu (bottom half)
and the Teacher’s Menu (top half). When you select a tool, it is highlighted red to stand out from the
rest of the toolbar.

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.

LINE & SHAPES TOOLS


Draw a large variety of lines and shapes on your flipchart.

“PAINT BUCKET” / FILL TOOL

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.

AC / SPPS / Nov 2007 Page 2 / 18


PROGRAM MODES
Activprimary has two modes – Design Mode and Presentation Mode. The differences between the two
modes are quite subtle so most of the time you can both create and display flipcharts in Presentation
Mode. However, in order to set up some of the interactive features of Activprimary (such as Actions and the Page
Organiser), you will need to change to Design Mode. It is very easy to change modes, however – simply click the
Teacher’s Menu button and select the icon of a man holding a flame.

You can tell which mode you are currently in by the


colour of the Teacher’s Menu button.
When the button is red, you are in Design Mode.
When the button is yellow, you are in
Presentation Mode.

THE RESOURCE BAR


The bar at the bottom of the page will change depending on the tool you have selecte.
There are however, a few constants that will apply to most
tools. The first is the Categories button. While this is most useful
when browsing the Resource Library, it will also allow you to vary some
of the other tools, including the line, shapes, grids and backgrounds
tools. Clicking this button will pop up a window allowing you to browse
the available categories in both Shared (pre-loaded) and Personal
(resources you have added yourself) folders, as well as providing a
search facility, although this feature is mostly used with the Resource
Library.

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.

AC / SPPS / Nov 2007 Page 3 / 18


DRAWING TOOLS – PEN/HIGHLIGHTER/ERASER
As seen already, you have a wealth of drawing tools and resources at your disposal. The first of these
tools is the standard issue pen. In PX, this button would just have provided you with a
pen tool, but in AP3 you can access the pens, highlighters and erasers, found in the Resource Bar at the
bottom of the screen. To select another thickness, simply click it. Notice the currently selected pen
stands out further than the rest. As in PX, the eraser doesn’t really erase any objects – it only masks
what is already there, so you can select your “erase” object and move it to obscure other parts of your
flipchart if you wish.

To change the colour of the pen, choose one of the


colours beneath the pen selection, or right click one of
the yellow boxes (far right) to pick your own colour.

DRAWING TOOLS – LINE TOOL


One of the more basic tools available to
you, the line tool will allow you to drag
and drop simple lines, arrows or groups of lines onto
your flipchart. Both the Categories and Rubber
Stamp buttons are available for the line tool.

DRAWING TOOLS – SHAPE TOOL


Draw a wide variety of shapes onto your
flipchart. The Categories and Rubber
Stamp buttons are available for this tool. There is an
additional button here as well – the Outline tool. Click
the button to switch it on or off. It simply places an
outline around any shape you drag onto your flipchart.

AC / SPPS / Nov 2007 Page 4 / 18


DRAWING TOOLS – TEXT TOOL
Possibly one of the most valuable tools in AP3, the text tool will allow you to create text
objects, and thankfully, no functionality has been lost from PX. There are, however, a
few features worth noting in the Resource Bar when the text tool is selected.

The Current Font button not only displays


the font used for any text objects you
create, but will also allow you to select a
new one by clicking it. If the font you would
like to use isn’t in this list, you can choose
from the full list of fonts on your computer
by pressing the Windows button below the
Current Font button.

Next to the Current Font button you will find the


standard B, I and U (Style) buttons found in other
programs to enable bold, italics and underlined
text respectively. The also familiar Alignment buttons and Font
Size selector are found next to the Style buttons. These work in
exactly the same way as they do in PX and Microsoft Word etc.

One feature to take note of is the T+ and T- buttons.


Pressing these will increase and decrease the
font size. Finally, the colour selection buttons at
the bottom will allow you to change the colour
of your text. As with the pen colour selection,
you have four boxes available to pick your own
colours (right click and select from the available
colours).

Double clicking a text object with


the Selector tool will give you
this menu. Press the T button to
edit text, as per PX.

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.

AC / SPPS / Nov 2007 Page 5 / 18


DRAWING TOOLS – FILL TOOL / COLOUR PICKER
Very useful for activities such as painting-by-numbers, the fill tool will “colour in” any enclosed space
(e.g. a square), or when clicked in an open space, will colour the desktop.

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.

To enable the colour picker, press


the colour picker button in the
Resource Bar. You need to select
which of the four custom colour
boxes you wish to assign your
chosen colour to. Click anywhere on
your flipchart to “copy” the colour in
that location into one of the four
boxes. You can then use this colour
for any of the other tools.

DRAWING TOOLS – CLEAR TOOL


If you wish to “clean” the page, you can choose to clear all
annotations or objects from the page (or to clear both, choose
“Clear Page”). From left to right, these buttons clear the whole screen, clear
objects (shapes, text etc) and clear annotations, although you can hover the
mouse over these buttons to find what they do.

AC / SPPS / Nov 2007 Page 6 / 18


DRAWING TOOLS – ACTIVPRIMARY RESOURCE LIBRARY
The resource base included with Activprimary far surpasses that of PX, sporting a resource count of
over 18,000 clipart, backgrounds, grids and example flipcharts! Accessing this plethora of resources is
only a click away, but does require an element of know-how to successfully find what you are looking for.

Click the Resource Library button to the right


to start browsing in the Resource Bar. Click
the Categories button to open the categories
browser, as seen here. Categories that have a
+ symbol to the left of them can be clicked
and expanded into sub-categories.

By default, the Library button is selected from


the four available buttons on the right. You
can browse the Sound library by clicking the
button of the speaker (right). The same
applies to the Video and Flipcharts buttons.

To drop resources onto your flipchart, simply


left click the item you want and it’ll appear at
the bottom of the flipchart, ready for you to
resize and/or move into position.

As the Resource Library is so comprehensive,


finding one particular image is akin to finding
a needle in a haystack, so Activprimary has a
Search facility. You can open it by clicking the
button of the magnifying glass, to the far left.

As seen here, I have entered a search for ‘pyramid’. This is


generally all you will need to do, but if you like, you can refine
your search results by limiting where Activprimary searches by
selecting/deselecting the types of resources below. Do not
change the Look in the following location box unless you wish to
search your own personal folders, instead of the pre-loaded
resources.

The image below shows the results of my pyramid search,


displaying how easy it is to access resources in Activprimary.

AC / SPPS / Nov 2007 Page 7 / 18


DRAWING TOOLS – GRIDS AND BACKGROUNDS
Similar to the Resource Library, the Grids and Backgrounds buttons will change the Resource Bar to
display the grids or backgrounds collection respectively. Also like the Resource Library, you will greatly
benefit from clicking the Categories to access the volume of resources available. There are one or two additional
options in Grids and Backgrounds not available in the Resource Library, however. These will be covered here.

When loading backgrounds into


the Resource Bar, when you
have found a background you
would like to use, simply click it
once and it will be added to
your flipchart. If you decide you
want a different background,
just click it and it will replace
the old background.

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.

If you would like a grid on your flipchart, simply


select the Grids button to load the grids collection
into the Resource Bar, and click the grid you wish
to apply. Note that once you have applied a grid,
some extra buttons become available to you
(below right).

The buttons with the + and - symbols will increase


or decrease the spacing between the grid lines
and the Trash Can will remove the grid
completely (as per backgrounds).

The two most interesting buttons here,


however, are Mask Grid and Snap to Grid.
When Snap to Grid is enabled, any objects you
drop onto the flipchart will “snap” to the
nearest gridline. This is of great use if you want
to perfectly align multiple objects on a flipchart
page. However, grids can be hard on the eye
and may not be suitable for many of your
flipcharts. This is where the Mask Grid button
comes into play. When you click this button,
the current grid will be hidden but the Snap to
Grid option will stay in effect.

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.

AC / SPPS / Nov 2007 Page 8 / 18


ACTIVPRIMARY OPERATION – OPENING AND SAVING FLIPCHARTS
Opening/saving is quite straightforward in AP3. However, there are a few more options available to
you. Without the interactive voting system, these are actually mostly superfluous as you can do most
day-to-day things by opening from just two of the available open/save locations.

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 second option here is Open from Shared


Flipcharts. As already mentioned regarding
resources, this is NOT the same as Teachers’s
Shared Work, but is actually a folder of pre-loaded
files on your computer’s hard drive. It is therefore
advised that you do not modify/delete these files so
they remain intact for others to use.

Open from Shared Assessments is the next option,


and is really only applicable if the interactive voting
system is switched on. Again, this is NOT the same
as Teachers’s Shared Work, but without voting, you can glance over this option and the next.

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!

AC / SPPS / Nov 2007 Page 9 / 18


ACTIVPRIMARY OPERATION – MODIFYING FLIPCHART OBJECTS
As you progress in creating Activprimary flipcharts, the chances are high that you will want to refine
some flipcharts for future use. Objects you previously positioned may no longer be applicable or
suitable for the flipchart’s purpose, or you may just want to simply resize an image. Again, with most things in
Activprimary, modifying objects is a very straightforward process.

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).

Here are four separate instances of the same


object, each modified in a different way. The
handles containing just a single dot (seven
handles at regular intervals around the
object) are freeform shape modifiers and can
be used to resize or extend objects.
However, using these tools will not retain
the object’s proportion / aspect ratio (see
top right). In other words, if you resize an
image using these handles, you will likely
end up with an out-of-shape image.

If you wish to retain the object’s proportion, you


should use the handle that is always at the bottom
right of the image, with a \ (backslash) going through
the handle (see bottom right).

To rotate an object (bottom left), use the handle


featuring a curved line. Move the mouse around the
shape until the object is rotated to your desired
angle. The remaining handle featuring four arrows
will simply let you move the selected object to
another location in the flipchart.

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!

AC / SPPS / Nov 2007 Page 10 / 18


ACTIVPRIMARY OPERATION – EXPLORING THE TEACHERS’ MENU
Now we have covered the tools available in the Pupil’s Menu, it is now time to take a look at the
Teacher’s Menu. This is where some of the more interactive and engaging tools are kept.

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.

We have already touched on the first three buttons here, so let’s


concentrate on the fourth button– Print. There isn’t a lot to say
about printing flipcharts as it is rarely needed, but nevertheless it
is included as a feature in Activprimary.

If you do need to print, you will be presented with this screen.


You may want to change the layout from Portrait to Landscape (as your screen is
wider than it is tall), and perhaps specify which printer to use but other than that,
not much needs to be changed on this screen.

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!

AC / SPPS / Nov 2007 Page 11 / 18


Similar in functionality to Page Notes, Notes &
Pointers allows you to add mini-“Post It” notes
to your session (NOT saved on 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.

ACTIVPRIMARY OPERATION – ACTIVITIES EXPLORER


The Activities Explorer will present you with a library of pre-loaded class activities, set apart
from your flipchart (usually opened as a separate program). The range of activities is fairly
broad, covering many curriculum subjects (including the ITPs you already use), although there is nothing stopping
you from downloading and adding your own activities (see list of websites at the end of the guide).

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.

AC / SPPS / Nov 2007 Page 12 / 18


ACTIVPRIMARY OPERATION – FLIPCHART BUILDER
This is a huge advantage in Activprimary 3 over both PX and Activprimary 2. It will certainly cut down
the amount of time it takes to build flipcharts thanks to its large library of templates – with the added
ability to create your own templates.

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.

The default view is of Flipchart Pages in the Shared Resources


folder. As before, this is NOT Teachers’s Shared Work so
please do not modify these flipcharts. Using the buttons at the
top left, you can select between (from left to right) Shared
Flipcharts, My Flipcharts, Shared Pages and My Pages.

As you can see, there is a wide range of pre-loaded flipcharts


to choose from – but it gets better!

Here I have changed from Shared Flipchart Pages to My


Flipcharts. As I only have one flipchart in my folder, I have
clicked it in the list to the left. This has loaded a preview into
the bottom left, and thumbnails of all the pages in the flipchart
into the bottom right.

Question: What is the difference between Flipcharts and


Flipchart Pages? Well, not a great deal. Flipcharts are just
collections of single Flipchart Pages, but for all intents and
purposes, you only really need to use the My Flipcharts,
Shared Flipchart Pages and Shared Flipcharts screens to
generate new flipcharts.

Notice the top right window. It is now populated with pages.


This is where I have dragged pages from my previously saved
flipchart and from some of the templates provided in the
shared resources. Click the button labelled Save and Show in
Activprimary, choose a folder to save the new flipchart into,
and it will load into Activprimary, ready for editing (be careful
though – if you already have a flipchart open and do not save
it, you will lose it).

AC / SPPS / Nov 2007 Page 13 / 18


ACTIVPRIMARY OPERATION – DESKTOP MODE
Clicking the Desktop Mode icon will hide your flipchart from view and
display your Windows Desktop. You can annotate the desktop if you wish,
or just load another program. When you change to Desktop Mode you will be shown a slightly
different toolbox than you are for “normal” mode. All the icons are in fact ones you’ve seen before,
so it won’t be necessary to cover them again.

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.

Unlike PX, when you annotate on the


desktop, you can still use the desktop as normal, reducing
confusion over why your icons or start menu aren’t
working (see below)!

To return to “normal” mode, click the Activprimary icon in


the Desktop Mode toolbox.

AC / SPPS / Nov 2007 Page 14 / 18


ACTIVPRIMARY OPERATION – SPECIAL TOOLS
The Special Tools button really brings out the interactivity features in Activprimary. There
are tools that will help you use your flipcharts better in class, but there are also some good
drawing tools in there as well. We will briefly take a look at these tools and hopefully encourage you to try them out
in your lessons. Clicking the Special Tools button in the Teacher’s Menu will give you a series of additional buttons in
the Resource Bar, see below.

The Spotlight tool is a great way to obscure all or part of your


flipchart, for example, the answers to a question or a “missing
number” puzzle. There are two modes the Spotlight can
operate in; display a selected area, or
obscure a selected area (Reverse
Spotlight). Both these modes have circular
and rectangular flavours. You can increase
or decrease the size of the selected area
but clicking and dragging the mouse away
or towards the selected area. To switch off the Spotlight, just click the Spotlight icon in
the Resource Bar.

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.

AC / SPPS / Nov 2007 Page 15 / 18


The Dice tool will present you with a small window
where you can roll a number of virtual dice. Select the
number of dice you wish to roll using the drop-down list to the
left and click the Roll the Dice button. If you want to insert the
sum of the rolled dice onto your flipchart, you can press the =
button. As with all the other tools, click the Dice tool button
again to close the window.

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.

AC / SPPS / Nov 2007 Page 16 / 18


The Fraction Creator and Handwriting Recognition tools are only available when the Activote system
is in place. As we do not have this, these options will not do anything if you click them.

The Calculator, a vintage tool from PX remains in


Activprimary. Except now it has been given a new look,
and by default loads itself in “child” mode. You can right click
anywhere on the calculator to change back to the one found in
PX if you so wish. Other than that, nothing much has changed!
Again, to switch off the calculator, either click the icon in the
Resource bar or click the X at the top right of the calculator.

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.

To finish taking the picture, you will most likely want to


click the first button in the Photograph box – To
Current Flipchart Page. This takes the photo and drops
it onto the currently open page. Clicking the second
box will create a new page in the flipchart and drop the
photo there. Clicking the third and fourth buttons will
copy the photo to your Personal and Shared libraries,
respectively, and clicking the last button with just copy
the photo to the clipboard – nothing more.

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.

AC / SPPS / Nov 2007 Page 17 / 18


The Clock tool does exactly what it says – displays an on-screen clock. Clicking the Clock button will present
this menu to you, giving you five clock formats to choose from. They are all fairly explanatory, but for
completeness, the topmost button gives you a traditional analogue clock, the second a purely digital clock and the
third a hybrid analogue and digital.

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.

Using the count down and count up clocks is relatively


straightforward – simply set the time limit either by typing
the number of hours, minutes and seconds in the boxes, or
by using the up and down buttons beside each box to
increase or decrease the number within.

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

AC / SPPS / Nov 2007 Page 18 / 18

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