Looking Ahead

Changes are coming to the PLATO® Support Center web site. More information to come in next month's TechNews e-Newsletter!

Also, several fixes have been made in the latest releases of Academic Systems® Algebra and PLATO Learning Environment™ (PLE™). More details to come in the future.

New Courseware Reports Coming on PLE™

We are very pleased to announce the addition of a series of new courseware reports coming by late January on the PLATO Learning Environment. In addition to the AYP Demographic Report available today, PLE subscribers will soon have six new courseware reports:

• Learner Progress—Detail View (will replace the current Progress Report)
• Learner Progress—Summary View
• Learner Progress Summary—Graphical View
• Class Progress Summary
• Class Module Mastery
• Learner Daily Usage Report

These comprehensive new reports provide powerful and valuable information about learner and class progress. They will give your teachers more flexibility and data to guide instruction, improve communication between teachers and students, parents, and administrators, provide more accurate data on access and usage of the system, and track seat time when needed to grant credit. In short, the new reports will significantly enhance your PLE experience, helping you work more efficiently and get more from your total investment in PLATO Learning solutions.

Also—Coming Soon—New Assessment Reports on PLE™

Proactively identify student knowledge gaps and intervene and remediate gaps in learning with your PLATO® instructional content. The all-new assessment reports coming soon on PLE will make personalized learning an easy reality.

Five new assessment reports will be available by late January to PLE subscribers:

• Strengths and Needs Report
• Progress Chart
• Score Analysis Report
• Demographic Report
• Assessment Usage Report

These new reports give PLE subscribers the ability to simply evaluate which students need additional instruction and intervene quickly. Aggregated data at the district, school, and classroom level give the flexibility to report and analyze assessment data at different layers, and graphical views will ease communication with key constituencies, like parents and school boards.

These new assessment reports will track performance and participation against multiple variables and are applicable to tests within the PLATO® Test Packs with Prescriptions, PLATO® Courses, Straight Curve® Mathematics, and PLATO® Foundational Mathematics products on the PLATO Learning Environment™.

Unable to Load Client Print Control

When you are trying to print reports in PLE or Academic Systems Algebra, you may come across the following message: "Unable to load client print control." This happens when the Microsoft SQL Server plug-in is not installed. Most likely you will see a yellow bar at the top of the browser prompting you to install ActiveX Control. Click the bar to install the ActiveX Control and install the Microsoft SQL Server plug-in, then choose a printer when prompted. This will prevent you from seeing the message again. To see more information, take a look at the following solutions:

Academic Systems® Algebra: _ ERROR "Unable to load client print control" when trying to print reports in PLE _ Install the Microsoft SQL Server plug-in when prompted

PLATO Learning Environment™ (PLE™): ERROR: "Unable to load client print control" when trying to print reports in PLE _ Install the Microsoft SQL Server plug-in when prompted

New Solutions in the Knowledge Base

In upcoming PLATO Support TechNews issues you will see many new solutions featured as more changes are made with the PLATO Support Center web site. Here are a few to start out that you will not have seen before unless a Support agent has shared it with you recently.

PLATO Learning Environment™ (PLE™): Custom published course not in Licensing list; how to assign Named-User Licenses for it? _ Assign named-user license to original PLATO Course title, not to custom published course title

PLATO Learning Environment™ (PLE™): ERROR: "No Learners Available" when adding assignment to a class _ Add at least one student to the class before trying to give an assignment in PLE

PLATO Learning Environment™ (PLE™): ERROR: "You have already completed this assignment. You may not have to repeat it"; unable to run lesson _ Wait a day, then remove student from previous assignment to eliminate "assignment is already completed" message

Academic Systems® Algebra: Assignment no longer appears on student menu _ If student has not completed and due date passed, reassign activity to student in same class

Academic Systems® Algebra: ERROR: "Access is denied", "secure site" when trying to run AS Algebra on IE7 _ Disable Protected Mode for Internet Zone and add PLATO data centers and Adobe to Trusted Sites list

PLATO® eduTest Assessment: What are Knowledge Challenge tests and where are they found? _ Knowledge Challenge Tests - description and location

PLATO® Web Learning Network: Can a student retake a Fastrack Assessment and get a new initial grade? _ Fastrack assessment cannot be retaken; initial grade cannot be changed; enroll student with different PLATO name if need to reassess

PLATO® Pathways: How to enter exponents and subscripts in Calculus, Chemistry or Physics 1 and 2 on a laptop _ Enter exponents and subscripts on a laptop using numeric keypad overlay, e.g. Fn on a Dell

PLATO® Pathways: Will student performance data be lost if student removed from class? _ Student performance data independent of assignments but assignments needed to run some performance reports

Reminder: PLATO® Pathways 4.3 Courseware Updater

For those of you who have run the Pathways 4.3 system update, there is also a courseware update available that was not included with the system upgrade. You will need to download and install the Pathways Courseware Updater, available in the Pathways Downloads section at the PLATO Support Center. The Updater instructions are included with the download. Once you install it, the update will only be applied to courseware titles that you have already installed. In the future when courseware is reinstalled or new courseware is installed, you may want to run the updater again. Please reference the Courseware Maintenance Release Notes to see which courseware titles are affected.

Podcast: Reduce Drop-out Pace And Boost Graduation Rates (Part 2)

Dr. Jay Smink, executive director of the National Dropout Prevention Center, discusses the impact drop-out prevention has on the American public school system. Dr. Smink presents key drop-out prevention strategies to help boost graduation rates.

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If you have ideas for topics you'd like us to cover in an upcoming podcast, we welcome your suggestions. Send your feedback to web@plato.com.