Monday 19 November 2007

asttle

we use a product at school to test and record student literacy marks, the product is called asttle. When it works it does a great job, when it doesn't you have to come up with some creative thinking to be able to get it running properly again. Today was one of those days.

Thre are two versions of asttle, one that is pre-installed on a laptop, that is the single user, and the other which is a network version, the multi-user. the majority of laptops in the english and maths department use the multi-user. The teacher has been using for a number of years and when she got her new laptop didn't think to have it changed over to the multi-user. Now all of the year 9 and 10 english exams have been setup from her laptop on teh single user account. Imagine when it came to putting these results in by the teachers, they could not find the test, the other option was to redo the entire year 9 and 10 english exam. No way.

So one thing about asttle is that it always, and I mean always backs up. Everytime you do something in it, it backs up. 
So we had a backup, we just needed another machine with single user on it to restore the backup and export the test to be able to import it on the multiuser program. 
c:\Program Files\asttle\asttledata <- copy this directory and paste it into a network area to be able to be copied to the single user machine. Then open and restore backup, next export the tests to a .ast file and open up the multi user admin mode. Then under the advanced options import the .ast file.
 
So in under 15 minutes the problem was fixed and the teachers are happy they don't need to see the exam supervisior to get 800 papers re-photocopied or retested.

Why don't we have access to e-asttle now? This may have solved half this problem, but does e-asttle have the facility of the current asttle system in being able to print off a test and the teachers input the results into e-asttle?

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