Stuart_C Posted October 15, 2008 Posted October 15, 2008 We have a VERY old piece of software we use for a year group activity called "NEWSTREAM" (Apparently it's Copywrited Actis ltd 1997). For the activity we devide the whole year group into teams and they have to produce a broadsheet and tabloid newspaper. Newstream software has a number of different packages, the basic one just churn's out random news that the kids use for the paper. Other packages are specific major news scenarios that one group of pupils interact with this group then give press conferences to the rest of the year group which change as the day goes on simulating the flow of news. My problem is the software is old and rubbish and for reasons ebyond me only seems to work with parallel deskjet printers and network printers. The former I am running out of the latter are hard to arrange to go in classrooms. Has anyone HEARD of this software or knows of an update as so far I have been unsuccessfull in finding one.
Domino Posted October 15, 2008 Posted October 15, 2008 You could install doPDF PDF Converter - Convert to PDF free with doPDF which shows up as a networked printer that way the print from the program to dopdf, then print the pdf as normal. Its a workaround, but a fairly easy one (plus they get a nice PDF of their work - maybe don't print at all!) What problems do you have with networked printers?
Stuart_C Posted October 15, 2008 Author Posted October 15, 2008 Sorry, I don't think I explained it very well. the software mearly generates a news article e.g. "Earthe quake in Chillie, 200 dead" and spews these out of the printer at random intervals. These storys the pupils take and use to put together their news paper using word/publisher in the computer suites. The interactive bits of the software work on sililar lines however the story changes slightly depending on the responses. I need a physical printer in each room used creating a physical output as there might be three groups in a room and they each need a copy of the news article to take away, read and use to crate their article. With network printers the problem is physically finding them and setting them up. With USB printers and parallel lasers when the software prints nothing appears in the print queue which is odd, the printer is there and works fine in other programs but nothing comes out.
wesleyw Posted October 15, 2008 Posted October 15, 2008 Newstream is the site but it looks like they haven't updated the software from the version you have. I've asked them about any updates but haven't heard back yet. Wes
wesleyw Posted October 15, 2008 Posted October 15, 2008 The email just bounced back so they may have departed into the ether. Wes
contink Posted October 15, 2008 Posted October 15, 2008 The email just bounced back so they may have departed into the ether. Just tried phoning them and the phone number now belongs to a new company (totally different) so yeah, it's DOA for sure.
wesleyw Posted October 15, 2008 Posted October 15, 2008 Shame sounded like quite an interesting product. Haven't had much luck finding something similar though sorry. Wes
contink Posted October 15, 2008 Posted October 15, 2008 With network printers the problem is physically finding them and setting them up. With USB printers and parallel lasers when the software prints nothing appears in the print queue which is odd, the printer is there and works fine in other programs but nothing comes out. It's probably because the print processor is using a format that isn't being used by the newer printers. You might want to check what's set in the "working printers" by going to one and right clicking properties > Advanced Tab > Print Processor ... and looking at the default data type and processor being used... You may be able to recreate the necessary settings from that.
wesleyw Posted October 15, 2008 Posted October 15, 2008 How does this software work? Does it have a text file or database of random news stories and whilst running randomly generates one then prints? Or have I got the wrong end of the stick if you let me know send a few screenshots I wonder how difficult it would be to recreate something like that? Wes
OutToLunch Posted October 15, 2008 Posted October 15, 2008 I remember this being used once, haven't seen it in years though. Have you tried a USB printer with a parallel convertor?
Stuart_C Posted October 15, 2008 Author Posted October 15, 2008 How does this software work? Does it have a text file or database of random news stories and whilst running randomly generates one then prints? Or have I got the wrong end of the stick if you let me know send a few screenshots I wonder how difficult it would be to recreate something like that? Wes Well it' output's the same news stories in the same sequence every time so it's nt that advanced! As the program plus addins is 4Mb I could probably zip it up and send it to you. Having said that perhaps distributing it illigally is the way forward. Whilst no one will respond to legitimate requests I'm sure if we did something wrong the lawers would be on us ASAP which would allow me to start a dialogue. Actually I did try a DNS lookup of newstrea.co.uk and found that the wedbsite is owned by Pearson Education and was renewed last year! When I phoned them I got some random woman who so didn'thave a clue what I was on about and didn't know anyone who whould. Great help. I'll sort out some screen shots tomorrow if you are interested.
wesleyw Posted October 15, 2008 Posted October 15, 2008 Yeah if it's that basic I could probably knock up something similar pretty quickly in VB Wes
contink Posted October 15, 2008 Posted October 15, 2008 Yeah if it's that basic I could probably knock up something similar pretty quickly in VB I have no time so I don't know why I'm even entertaining this but it strikes me that there's some potential here for a web based system that might be able to service schools in a sort of network. I might just be buzzword crazy though but does anyone think there'd be some potential here for tieing different schools together? Hmm.. the creative juices are flowing now...
dhicks Posted October 15, 2008 Posted October 15, 2008 I have no time so I don't know why I'm even entertaining this but it strikes me that there's some potential here for a web based system that might be able to service schools in a sort of network. I might just be buzzword crazy though but does anyone think there'd be some potential here for tieing different schools together? Yes, it sounds like an excellent idea - a website that produces random news stories of some kind for pupils working in a group... Assign reporters, editors, copywriters, etc, in the groups... Limits the number of computers actually needed for an ICT-based lesson - one PC per group should be doable... Could also be designed to work with a projector - have a main projected screen showing news, content, tickers or whatever, let the students work on their individual workstations... Hmm.. the creative juices are flowing now... Eew. I'll get you a tissue :-) -- David Hicks
Jackd Posted October 15, 2008 Posted October 15, 2008 Their shoutbox/comments need taming abit i think
contink Posted October 15, 2008 Posted October 15, 2008 Their shoutbox/comments need taming abit i think Good grief, you're not kidding.. I missed that at school because of the filter. Ruddy 'eck... someone at Pearson needs to do some serious remedial work and fast!
wesleyw Posted October 16, 2008 Posted October 16, 2008 (edited) Sounds like I've opened a can of worms up okay a web-based system creating random news stories? I'll see what I can knock up over the half term break? Or would you like this sooner? What would you prefer for news stories anything you'd like to add to the idea? I can host it on the schools system if you wish until either another site can be found or we can leave it indefinitely? Wes Edited October 16, 2008 by wesleyw
contink Posted October 16, 2008 Posted October 16, 2008 I can host it on the schools system if you wish until either another site can be found or we can leave it indefinitely? Happy to host this on the dedi server I've got... Not like it hasn't got the space and resources spare Even got a spare domain for it which would be perfect tiktext.co.uk .. PM me if that'd work... and yes I'll not claim ownership or anything... t'is a nix based system with Cpanel, etc...
Stuart_C Posted October 16, 2008 Author Posted October 16, 2008 OK as I seem to have created a monster I thought I'd give you a run down of how we use the software. This project of for our year 10's. The whols year (about 100 pupils) is taken out of lessons for a morning for this project. Setup: We use 4 classrooms, the main computer suite and our two computer clusters (37 computers in all + 5 in the rooms). Pupils are free to use their laptops if they wish. I setup 1 computer in three of the rooms with the "random news" generation software. The 4th room has two computers running the interactive story simulations. The availiable suite computers are divide up and given a group number. Thus each group is allocated a specific number of comptuers (normall less that the group size, which is deliberate). The year is then split into groups. A small core of the brighter students are assigned to the two major stories (8 students total, 4 each story). The rest are broken down into groups of about 10 to form news teams (the staff decide who is in which groups, in the real world you can't choos your workmates! ). Students have to decide amongst them selve who are the editors, reporters etc etc. The exercise. The brighter students then have to interact with the major stories. They make descisions in a "choose your own adventure" style to determine how the story plays out (for better of for worse!). Their most important job is to produce press statements based on the news they are given and then conduct press statements including fielding questiuons form the "reporters", i.e. the other students. The rest of the students task is to produce the the two newspapers (broad sheet and tabloid). They must pick up the random news from the computer in their classroom, attend press conferences and generally produce a newspaper. The challanges lie in that 1: They need to be organised, get to press conferences on time (conferences don't wait for late reporters) and make sure they get all the information they need. 2: The flow of news is gradual and often contradictory, the software tries to simulate news stories in the real world, i.e. "there is a report of an earthquate in x" then "Early reports say 500 people are dead" then "Earthequake actually in y and 1000 people are dead" and so on. Also some stories are not appropiate for a boradsheet but they are for a tabloid. Pupils must decide what it relevant. 3: There are deliberately less computers allocated to a group than there are members meaning that they can't all sit down and work together. 4: There is always some (teacher introduced) late breaking news update that throws everyone's nicely prepared paper's into chaos with about 5 minutes to go. 5: The deadline is the deadline if you paper isn't submitted at the end of the exercise then it's tough luck, the real world is a harsh place. Timescale The day starts at 9, there is approximately 30 minutes briefing (timescale, putting people into groups, where you are working, expectations, working out who does what role.). The day then runs through with a deadline around 3 hours later (with 10 minutes or so afterwards for cleanup!!!). Each major story has 5 press conferences scheduled throughout the day. Each paper must have a minimum of 5 stories. I'm just running the random news software now to give me an idea how long it lasts and the stories it produces. I'll also try and give you an idea of the main story simulations. I'll update you later.News.pdf
wesleyw Posted October 16, 2008 Posted October 16, 2008 I don't mind really. I think I'd need to look at creating on the fly news items for the website then have some sort of clear utility to remove them all? Very easy in VB rather more difficult in PHP and MySQL. Wes
wesleyw Posted October 16, 2008 Posted October 16, 2008 Having read the PDF I'd say the hijack, murder and space would be easy but the random news story would be more challenging to code. Is the random story based on the other three categories or is it completely different? Wes
Stuart_C Posted October 16, 2008 Author Posted October 16, 2008 The news that is outputted is always the same articles in the same order, this technically stops you having to generate "random" news. Some of the stories are single articles. There also seem to me a number of stories that are drip fed to the students and everything in intermingled. A couple of the stories are cut down versions of the major stories (hijack/Space) It outputs a news items about every 2-3 minutes for the 2 hr period (yes I know that's a lot of articles).
Stuart_C Posted October 16, 2008 Author Posted October 16, 2008 Thought I'd add the day generally goes quite well and the pupils enjoy it. I just wish it wasn't such a pain to set up evey year.
wesleyw Posted October 16, 2008 Posted October 16, 2008 Well I can easily write up a new version via VB for you to be getting on with then I'll convert it to PHP and MySQL over the next few weeks and we'll see where we get to. I can then get feedback from yourselves and others on the design and layout. Tickertape news feeds in the website should work well I'd have thought. Wes
contink Posted October 16, 2008 Posted October 16, 2008 Well I can easily write up a new version via VB for you to be getting on with then I'll convert it to PHP and MySQL over the next few weeks and we'll see where we get to. I can then get feedback from yourselves and others on the design and layout. Tickertape news feeds in the website should work well I'd have thought. The trick is going to be the content... If you can get the content, decide how you want it displayed, when.. how other bits (teacher input headlines) should be handled, etc... then you can go from there. It's always the actual structure that's the initial push and then unfortunately the User interface and sanity/data checks to protect the input and code that take the longest. In terms of how to output the whole thing... tickertape, RSS... Might be worth considering how a newsroom might get it's news now too in terms of technology. It would be quite amusing if you could get key staff members to act as news anchors with key stories as if on TV too.. Quite a bit of scope for the future.
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