Report Assist

[ComputingData]

Looks like this is a good start:

Education ICT Quango Becta To Close | eWEEK Europe UK

 

Becta were a real PITA when there used to be ELCs - acting like they were gods, good riddence.

[Hiyawatha]

A few days into compiling reports with ReportPlus now and 'Er Indoors (Minehaha, if you will) has been coming across one or two problems. Have asked her to explain :

 

1)Group Writer pasted my Maths statement into Science – even though I had ensured the cursor was in the Numeracy box. Ah, simple, I thought – simply copy and paste into the relevant box. BUT NO…- When trying to copy and paste statements from one subject to another or one pupil to another, we are stopped by message that says " You cannot add text to that position as it is the middle of a control word!

I have a feeling that the Control words may be gender based – esp pronouns, and so knocked that particular word off the start of the text I was copying, hoping to beat the system – but to no avail.

2) On completing my Group writer statement, I have been disappointed to see that when arriving in a child’s individual report the pronouns have not changed to the appropriate male /female version. Indeed , this has also been the case when copying and pasting statements when in Group, the pronouns either do not change from, say, "his" to "hers", him to her, himself to herself etc; or they do a half-change from "his" to "hiers" or "heis". This is taking me ages to rectify, - it’s a slow and painful process which looms ahead in ten subject areas, and for the full 30 childrens’ reports. Not a nice prospect.

If you can help save my sanity I would be very grateful!

[ComputingData]

1) I'll do some tests on this today. This obviously shouldn;t happen and I've never seen it happen before. The pronouns are control words, before pasting the program checks to see if the cursor is on a control word, it should only report this if you are actually about to insert in the middle of a control word (pronoun). I'll do some checking to see if I can also get that message to happen here when it shouldn't, I could possibly also change it so in this case it copies to the immediate right of the control word? (so this message would not appear)

 

2) The text should be written from the perspective of the currently selected pupil in the goup writer list. What may have happened was that you were typing for one pupil, but had actually selected another. I admit that it isn't obvious and I'll find a way today of making this much clearer - I could put the current pupil name at the top of the group writer along with the sex of the pupil?

[Hiyawatha]

Minnehaha here - first time |I'm aware of the new nickname - not sure it's promotion or demotion

But here am I slaving away on Reports during the rain of Half Term-oh joy - and the last issue I raised is the real bugbear - the pronouns not changing when Group Writer sends the statement into the other children of the group. I.m wondering if in fact I will have to do two versions, and select all girls into my group, then repeat with boys - so hopefully the pronouns would be correct form the outset... but I thought the programme would be kind enough to do that for me?

Also I have already tried something along those lines, and, - as we said yesterday- the programme seems to want to INSIST on changing it - and we get a hybrid of pronouns in the SAME statement - 'his commendable effort' shortly followed 'she should therefore.....' - all jolly frustrating as it's all taking so long to bachtrack and correct.

 

Any solutions more than gratefully received..All best wishes - we do appreciate the great job you are doing

Sarah

[ComputingData]

Hi Sarah, I think the problem is that it is too confusing to know which perspective you ae writing from in GroupWriter - are you writing for a boy or a girl, if so, which girl, etc..

 

So...

 

I've just uploaded a new version that make's it much clearer whos perspective you are editing with in the GroupWriter. The Version you want is V2010 r8.3.45 (if update isn't flashing - the new default is not to flash if you have updated less than a week ago, click 'help > Check for new update').

 

It now displays the currently selected gender perspective above the GroupWriter editor, followed by the selected pupil's name and the current subject.

 

As before, if you click on a different pupil then it will show the current group writer text from their perspective.

 

If you find that the problem still occurs and it is not correctly copying and translating the pronouns then let me know and I'll let you know by a PM what files to email me so I can try reproduce the problem here.

Edited June 1, 2010 by ComputingData
spelling!

[Hiyawatha]

I'm at present working offline and I would be hesitant to update my programme unilaterally (what about others at my school - and the admin programme?).

Can I somehow get out from under the influence of the "Control word" ?, which seems to be preventing me from doing the things I want to and which would be no problem if I was in Word (simply copying, pasting statements etc. between pupils - or even moving statements from one subject to another).

[ComputingData]

If you update your version then it doesn't matter if the others don't update (the version numbers that different teachers use do not have to be in sync - that would be a nightmare).

 

I can't get what you're describing to happen easily, so as a suggestion you could try pressing Enter to make space for the paste/insert?

[Hiyawatha]

Have tried Enter - without success. At the moment so many little things are going wrong, and all very difficult to describe succinctly. The only way to sort them would be for you to see them yourself.

I think we'll just have to plough on and do the best we can. Don't want to ruin your afternoon as well ...... Thank you so much.

[ComputingData]

See my PM to you about me telephoning you.

[Hiyawatha]

Minehaha has just nipped out to visit the local medicine man. I'll give her your message when she reappears. After what time would you rather not be telephoned ?

[ComputingData]

Sorry I didn't reply earlier, I've been waiting for the site to come back online. I'm at the Edugeek conference today, but anytime after that, just pm me ur number and I'll be in touch.

[kaphc]

@ComputingData - hope you can help with this query. One of our teachers has written their reports and then exported them into rich text format. They have not saved a copy in reportplus format (i.e. a *.rp file). Can we import the rich text files back into report plus? I can't find a way at the moment. To add to this, the teacher in question left at half-term so we can't go back and ask them to sort this problem themselves!

 

Many thanks as ever for your help!

[ComputingData]

If you open the RTF file up in Word, then copy each subject in turn, you can paste it into the program using 'edit' > 'Paste (not AI)' or by pressing ALT and V.

 

This will take sometime though I expect. I'll see what I can do about adding an Import from RTF file, if the RTF file hasn't been altered since exporting then I don't think this will be a problem.

[mhussain]

hi computing data sent u am email

[ComputingData]

Ahh, for some reason it had been collected as spam. Sorry. I've just replied.

 

Edit: I think it was collected as spam because you mentioned my Grandad, I did have something in there to send emails with his name in them to spam! lol! I had a lot of emails from reporters asking me about him after he died.

 

I'll alter the setting now.

Edited June 11, 2010 by ComputingData

[kaphc]

If you open the RTF file up in Word, then copy each subject in turn, you can paste it into the program using 'edit' > 'Paste (not AI)' or by pressing ALT and V.

 

This will take sometime though I expect. I'll see what I can do about adding an Import from RTF file, if the RTF file hasn't been altered since exporting then I don't think this will be a problem.

 

Hi, thanks for the quick reply as ever - yes I tried copying and pasting as Alt & V which is OK, but will take me about an hour to go through and do for each pupil. It's not the end of the world if we have to do it like that, but I just wondered if there was a quicker way. And goodness knows where the *.rp file webt - although as I type this it's just occurred to me that I could do a search of his laptop for a *.rp file rather than searching for "report" which is what I tried first.

 

The Import from rtf would be fab, but I can't imagine it'll be used much except in this one instance - I'd say hang fire on this and I'll see what I can do with more refined searches first. Will let you know on Monday.

[kaphc]

BTW, I did leave a message with support about this earlier this morning, thas there was no reply on the phones (guess everyone's busy asking questions now!!!) so if you are able to cross that one off their list of things to do then please do :-)

[ComputingData]

Ahh - If your phone no ends in 26 then we did try to call you but you were not available. A message should have been left for you about the Alt + V and my email address?

[kaphc]

Yeah, I only work mornings on Fridays - expect I will pick up the message on Monday though, thanks for letting me know.

[smalls001]

We are looking at Report Writer from Blue Hills

 

Primary School Pupil Report Writing - Blue Hills Software

[kaphc]

Ahh - If your phone no ends in 26 then we did try to call you but you were not available. A message should have been left for you about the Alt + V and my email address?

 

BTW, I did get the message, thanks. In the end, I still couldn't find any *.rp files on the laptop and decided a copy and paste would be the quickest way to get the data sorted.