Epson 'Easy Interactive' whiteboard tools

Some of us will soon be using Epson short-throw projectors with whiteboard software (and a chunky pen!) for the first time.

Here is Epson's basic guide to using this software:

http://files.support.epson.com/pdf/bl455wi/bl455wiwugs.pdf

David

Logging on from home - emails and documents

You can access your U-drive and N-drive files and documents and your university emails when you are not at work. The email access is via my.bham, and the  U + N drive files are accessed via Citrix.

 Email 

Use your web browser to go to www.my.bham.ac.uk  and then click on the email link at top right. For those staff without a permanent desk and computer, you will already be using this method of accessing your university emails.

 Documents and files: U-drive and N-drive

At work
When you log on at work with an ADF user name, you can access network drives N and U. To find them, click on 'Computer' on the Windows Start menu. If you do not see the two drives, contact David Griffiths (d.griffiths.2@bham.ac.uk), who will arrange this for you.

The N drive is for EISU documents, for example timetables, learning resources and IT/ILC/WebCT information,and you should not usually edit or delete any of these documents. At the moment (August 2012), all documents relating to the EAS programme and EISU Selly Oak management and administration are in the folder 'EISU Selly Oak'.

The U drive is for your documents and you have about 1 terabyte of data storage here. If you can only see the N drive, scroll down until you see a folder called 'Users' where you should find your U drive folder, listed by username.

The IT support team suggest that any large files such as video, photo or music files should be kept on your C drive. We get charged by the gigabyte for any network data storage, so if you have a university PC, use the C drive for big files if possible.

At home

When you are working away from the campus network, it is still possible to access your documents on the U drive and the EISU documents on the N drive.

To do this, go to www.secure.bham.ac.uk www.remote.bham.ac.uk and log on with your university ADF user name and password. You will see a screen listing Microsoft Office 2003 and 2007 programs, but the easiest way to start is to open the folder marked 'EISU Windows Explorer'. The EAS documents will be at EISU Selly Oak and your U drive files will be inside the folder marked 'Users' under your username. You can only open your own files, so these U drive files are completely confidential.

Troubleshooting

If Citrix does not work in one web browser, try another - Mozilla Firefox seems most reliable at the moment for this program.

If you cannot get started and receive a message about 'launch ica' , you can fix this yourself by going to http://www.remote.bham.ac.uk/client/ and clicking on the download link 'Online Plug in 12.1' at the top left of the page. You’ll find some instructions below that as well, but it should be fairly straightforward.

Some people have received error messages about certificates. If this happens to you, contact David Griffiths (d.griffiths.2@bham.ac.uk) for a new certificate and instructions on what to do with it. 

David

 

Converting Right to Left text

Some students (mainly Arabic speakers) are submitting homework which is word-processed in a program using Right to left (RTL) script. This will cause you problems if you want to mark/give feedback with Comments or Footnotes.

One simple solution is to copy the text, open a new document, use Paste Special and choose Unformatted Text. This will strip out all formatting, including text direction.

Another solution, which we can also give to students, is to put RTL and LTR buttons on your Quick Access Toolbar in Windows 2007. 

You can find detailed instructions at 

http://libroediting.com/2012/07/11/what-to-do-if-my-comment-boxes-are-running-right-to-left/

This means that when you open a Word document submitted in RTL by a student, you can switch it to LTR by clicking on the LTR button.

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UPDATE JAN 2015

not entirely successful for the whole text! However, it will work on changing text direction in a Comment Box, which is where we started.

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I have tried it on one document – not a comprehensive test I admit! – and it works. I’ll also give it to some of my students to try out. If it is that simple and we can persuade students to use it for submitting homework, this problem should disappear.

David