If you can’t wait, then you can jump right in and download the preview software right now from:

http://www.prometheanplanet.com/activsoftware

Activsoftware is major update to Promethean’s multi-award winning Activprimary and Activstudio software.

With pens, highlighters, real working maths tools like protractors, rulers and compasses and vast libraries of images and multimedia resources, we aim for it to be a really useful tool for all teachers.

To be ready for the millions of more teachers and learners who will use the software in the future, Promethean have spent the last couple of years completely rewriting the Activsoftware from scratch to address years of feedback and observations and to provide a new platform for radical innovations in the coming months and years.

Anybody, Any Operating System, Any Whiteboard

Activsoftware Inspire Edition is cross platform for MAC and PC (with a host of Linux flavours coming shortly) and will be available as a FREE “personal edition” version for users of ANY make of interactive whiteboard or projector system and their pupils.  Upgrade options will be provided to the full “Pro” version for anyone.

It aims to provide a no cost, no hassle way of providing anyone with an interest in transformed teaching and learning with an easy route to a complete standardisation on the next level of presentation software. Teachers, learners and parents can now share a single software that goes beyond static presentations and makes dynamic delivery of learning a reality.

You do not even need a Promethean Activboard to use it! A free Promethean Planet membership is the only requirement - so you can get all those free Promethean Planet resources and join the amazing teacher conversation in the Promethean Planet forum.  The software is full of shortcuts to the user community.

If you are familar with previous Promethean software then there is a host of conversion training materials and support to help you get up to speed with the new software. Activsoftware Inspire Edition Preview will open all your old flipcharts and will not overwrite or disturb your original Promethean software installation.

We want and need your feedback

The purpose of the preview is to engage our extensive user community in a process of feedback and refinement and the Preview software will run until March, when a final version will be released.

The preview feedback form is online at: http://www.prometheanplanet.com/server.php?show=nav.16814 so please do let us know what you like or would like changed.

You can find our much more about the features on the download pages and experimenting with it, but I thought I would reflect on some of the ideas behind the new software.

Interoperability:

There is a lot of great content out there shared by teachers but it can be in a lot of different formats.  There are also schools with a mixed platform of Interactive Whiteboards and legacy products.  Previous versions of Activsoftware could import a number of files, but in Inspire it has been greatly extended. As well as Powerpoint and files from other IWB software, Activsoftware Inspire adds support for Examview ™ XML files and IMS Questions and Test items.

For those who have grown up with Powerpoint and traditional presentation packages - “Death By Powerpoint” is probably something you are very aware of and keen to avoid. With the new software you can bring old presentations to life by converting them to Promethean’s powerful flipchart format which then allows for extensive drawing, annotation, and the integration of a whole host of question and response types that turn ’slideshows’ into dynamic, interactive group experiences.

NOTE: Promethean is also planning support for an emerging IWB content standard that Promethean has helped develop with BECTA in the UK and that will provide another way to access content from other IWBs.

Customisation

Our users have shown us that their classroom teaching needs were as diverse and personal as the needs of the children they teach.

The ability to extensively customise the Activstudio software was what made it ‘work’ for so many teachers, it was able to grow with them and the teacher was not limited to a lowest common denominator.

With the new software, customisation is taken to the next level. You can dynamically chose “profiles” on the fly. A fully featured interface for preparing and a slick interface for presenting for example are just two options. You can also choose from interfaces optimised for Math and Language teaching and all of them are customisable and can be shared online with colleagues.

The terms WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) has been used to describe user interfaces in the past. We have tried for WYSIWYN (what you see is what you NEED).

Other subtle customisation changes include a “recently used tools” feature. Where icons and features you use regularly appear in a list in the right hand column of the toolbar.  This way the applications ‘morphs’ itself to the way you teach and if you are carrying out repetitive actions such as playing a learning game over and over - the tools will always be one click away.

All the toolbars and panels can be moved and docked in different places too. Want the main toolbar at the bottom for little ones?- Just drag it down.

The major customisation though is being able to switch the whole “look and feel.” So you can can choose if you want the traditonal Activstudio Style or a revamped Activprimary style from within the same application.

Fully Integrated Learner Response Range

Users of the Promethean Expression Software will be aware that their software did not have all the features of Activstudio. With Inspire Edition that is all changed!

The Expression “Wonderwheel” is now even more efficient and fully integrated and you can use it with both Activote and Expression devices for ad-hoc polling anytime and with any application or CD-ROM and even Powerpoint or Video.

You can even have a mixture of both devices in class!

A new question wizard (below) makes editing pre-prepared question easy.

New teaching and learning tools

We know from pedagogical research we conduct with the likes of Dr. Robert Marzano & Associates and others that concept mapping and grouping/organisation of information is a technique that has a hugely significant impact on learning gains and understanding of complex ideas.

Activsoftware Inspire Edition now features a poweful “connector tool” that you can use to quickly connect thoughts and ideas together. Combine this with student “contributions” from their Expression devices - and we believe we have provided teachers with the most powerful and easy to use collaborative concept exploration tool for whole class teaching.

Drag and Drop Programming

Promethean was amazed by the community’s adoption of the Actions and Properties features of Activstudio 3. Originally developed or advanced developers, teachers quickly realised that the programmable abilities of Activstudio was a great way of creating even more interesting and intriguing activities.

We wanted to make it easier and quicker though, so a new Drag and Drop option is provides where all you need to do to make something interactive is drag the function you want the software to do onto the flipchart. If you drop it on an object that object will then carry out that function. Drop it on the page and an icon will appear with that action ready to click. We do not think we could make it easier - or faster!

This new programming feature makes creation of dynamic lessons effortless and we hope it will encourage teachers and learners to expore the interactive options much more and perhaps use it to teach the basic of computer science.

If you want to go further, then there is wealth of options you can apply to selections in the advanced editor.

Multi-User Ready

One thing that we believe will fundamentally change the way teachers can choose to teach with Promethean Interactive Whiteboards is to make the boards multi-user. Something the current and future Activboards are capable of.

The new software has a “dual mode” where a second set of tools appear for a student or partner to use.  This is NOT multi-touch. This is MUCH MORE. The system knows who is writing and different users can use different tools to complete different tasks and roles in an Activity.

Multi-user upgrades to Activboards appearing soon will maximise the function. So will not work in the Preview.

Note: Multi-user is only available on Promethean Activboards.

And much, much more….

• New shape options - a new “vector” graphics engine lets you manipulate the points of shape to create almost any shape imaginable
• Graduated fills - want to create a sky that shades from light to dark blue or suggest a chemical change though a colour change then the new fill options help out.
• Camera tool integrated with video Player - Just click the camera tool in the video player to snapshot the current frame to the flipchart. Use it to capture highights or “reverse storyboard” a narrarative

It is hard to list all the changes, there are so many.

So download it, try the online courses, provide feedback and connect with other teachers.

We are really looking forward to the conversation.