All of our School Jotter users know that you can add documents to your Jotter site, but not all of them know the three different ways you can display them. It’s important to keep your documents up to date, and it’s also important to add them in the most appropriate format.
Whether you’ve got a long list of files you want users to download, a document you want to display directly on the website or just one you want to add as a link, School Jotter allows you to display your documents in three different ways.
Always save your documents as a PDF if possible, as this is a web safe format that makes sure your document will display exactly as intended without any issues.
1. Adding a document directly onto the page.
When first becoming familiar with School Jotter, this is the way of adding a document that users tend to notice. Simply click Insert Item and Document. You’ll be given black bars on your page with a choice of where to insert it. Click where you want to add the document.
Your file system will then open, and if you’ve already uploaded your file you can simply select ‘choose’ next to it. Otherwise, click ‘Upload File’ at the top of the screen. Click ‘add file’ to select a file from your computer, then start upload. Wait for the blue bar to finish the upload, then click ‘OK’. Your document will then display on the site as a PDF that users can scroll through and zoom in on.

2. Adding a link to a document
If you want to just link to one or two documents on a page, or you want to accompany documents with a description, adding a link to a document might be your best option. Simply type the title of your document onto the page in any text item. Then highlight this text, and underneath the green bar at the top should be a grey one with a series of options.

At the end of that is a blue chain link you can click on to insert or edit a link. Click on this, then click ‘file’.

Click on the folder with the magnifying glass to enter your file system, and then select or upload a file as normal. If the file you’ve uploaded is a PDF, you can check ‘open file in browser’ to have it open in a new window on click, otherwise users will have it download to the computer when clicked. Click ‘OK’ and then save and publish and your document will appear as a link on the page. It will look something like this.

3. Add a file list.
File lists are a great way to arrange a group of documents together, and many of our users find them helpful for keeping our policies in. To add a file list, click Insert Item and File List. Click the black bar on the site to choose where to insert it, then navigate to your file system. You can press ‘Select’ next to any file to add it to the file list, and it will appear in ‘selected files’ in the bottom half of the screen.

You can use the arrows at the bottom to re order your files, then press ‘Choose’ at the bottom of the screen to confirm when you’re done selecting them.

They’ll appear on your site as above for users to download, and you can edit them any time by going into edit mode, clicking on to the file list and clicking the three dots at the top to add and remove files.

We hope these three ways of adding documents provide you plenty of flexibility when it comes to keeping your site up to date. If you’ve got any other suggestions for ways we can make this easier, please do get in contact and we will be happy to pass on your suggestion.

Storing information securely is a key concern for schools. For that reason, we you might find it useful to have a private area on your school website for governors, teachers or OFSTED.
School Jotter makes it easy to add and customise access to your own private area, requiring a login for users to access it.
1 – Firstly, make sure you have a user login set up. You can do this by going to the ‘admin’ section on your jotter site and clicking ‘add user’.
Fill out the details there with whatever you want the user to log in with. Check their application roles have ‘Site’ set to ‘Viewer’ or above.

2 – Then, return to the site. Click ‘Manage’ and ‘Pages’ and then find the page you want to make private in the left hand side. Click ‘access’.

3 – Check ‘private page’ and then enter the name of the user you want to be able to access the page. Set their access to ‘view only’. This will be automatically saved.

Log out of School Jotter and when viewing the page as a non administrator you will be asked for your login credentials.

You can use your new private area to upload confidential documents and share meeting dates, improving communication between staff, governors or your PTA.

Jotter Mobile just got even better with the release of v1.8, which will roll out across all apps by May 5th.
After lots of market research our developers have created the features you most requested, and we hope you will benefit from this free update.                     
Here are some of the changes you can expect to see:
 

Custom apps:

• Custom sections in the navigation structure. Each custom link consists of a name, icon and an URL. You can define up to three custom sections.
• Reordering and disabling of sections in the drawer menu and the dashboard tray. These are edited from the Mobile Centre module.

All apps:

• Notification badges on sections within the app. These show that new content has been added but not read by the user.
• New expanding dashboard tray option. This can be configured at the delivery stage or can be added with PCR.

If you would like more information about v1.8 or Jotter Mobile please call 0800 862 0492 or fill out our short contact form.
 

 
 
Here’s our latest infographic on tips for perfect school websites. Follow our advice to achieve a great-looking website that will make teachers, parents and pupils proud of their school’s web presence.

School website Infographic

Schools should always make sure they meet Ofsted requirements when it comes to their website content and structure. It is also very important their school website design looks outstanding in order to appeal to parents, teachers and pupils.
A big majority of school websites look too colourful and it’s hard to read their content, so we thought to create an infographic with school website design tips as a guide for schools to take into consideration when they built their own website.
We hope you enjoy it!
 

 
Since 2003, School Jotter have been working with thousands of schools across the UK and worldwide to develop the best school website and e-learning software. We always make sure our school web design reflects the ethos of each individual school.
 

The BBC’s unveiling of the latest incarnation of their Micro Bit computer is something of a watershed moment for IT education. Not only does it represent the resurrection of the beloved BBC Micro scheme of the 1980s, but it marks the start of a coding education revolution. For too long kids have only known how to use a computer – now it’s time to learn why it works.
Continue reading →

Making use of new the features for tables in School Jotter 2

Tips from Primary Support Desk Analyst, Matthew Basierak
 
On the support desk we are often asked how to add and work with tables in School Jotter 2 and we have recently introduced some new features to the system which makes working with tables easier than before.
You can now change the colours of individual cells in a table.  In order to get started you first need to create an empty table by using the table icon in the grey editing toolbar.

Once you have added the table to the page, you need to select and highlight the cells where you wish to change the colour.
See the screenshot on the right.
Once you have highlighted the cells, the next step is to go to the Table menu in the grey toolbar, select the Cell option from the drop down menu then click on Cell Properties.  See the screenshot below which shows exactly where this option is located.

You should now find yourself in the Cell properties dialogue box.  If you then click the advanced Tab in the following window there are options to set the border width, style and colour.
In order to change the colour you can either enter a value into the background field, or alternatively you can click on the small back to the right hand side.  After selecting the colour you will notice that this information is automatically added to the style box.
Please see the screenshot below, which shows the background colour box with a new colour added to it.  You can now click on the OK button to save the changes.

If you need further help on working with tables, please see our help guide using the link below:
http://wa.schooljotter2.com/sites/insert-items/tables
 

At Webanywhere we’re very pleased to announce the latest addition to the School Jotter suite of apps – Office 365 integration. Microsoft’s online Office software is popular around the world and will allow you and your students to take learning online into a familiar environment. With select schools being able to take advantage of free Office 365 provision for students, there’s really never been a better time to integrate it with the rest of your online learning platform.
If you’re familiar with the School Jotter interface, getting started with Office 365 will be simple and straightforward.

You can see from the screenshot, the interface is simple and intuitive, and provides a familiar frontend to the Office 365 platform as well as a convenient way to organise files. You can even create Word, Excel and PowerPoint presentations straight from the interface.

Of course, as you can see in both the screenshots above, it’s not just Office files that can be stored – you can put anything, from static images to videos and anything else in OneDrive, all conveniently accessible from inside your or your students’ School Jotter accounts. Clicking through to Office 365 itself, we can see all the same documents:

With organisations increasingly seeking a unified online platform, integrating storage, editing and learning capabilities, we’re proud to offer this service to all Jotter customers. To activate a free trial simply check your Jotter App Store. Alternatively, if you don’t have a School Jotter account and are interested in trying out this and many other of our apps, register a free trial of the entire School Jotter suite.

Our Think Of An App competition is closing on the 18th of July. We’ve already received many ideas, but there is still time to enter with yours, and you could win £7,000 worth of existing apps like Blogs, Surveys, Learn and Merits for your school. Click here for more blogs on our app suite.
 
Our recent webinar on engaging parents using apps was a great success. You can watch the recording here for ideas on how to bring interaction for students, parents and teachers using Jotter 2.
 
The development of all our apps has been based on comments, suggestions and feedback from teachers – and this is your chance to see an app developed and made available to school, based on your own thoughts and ideas. We want you and your pupils to think of app ideas that maybe save you time, make learning more fun, or engage learners more. We’re welcoming ideas from both pupils and teachers.
 
The best app idea will be rewarded with a full suite of apps, worth £7K. Three runners up will win School Merits and Bloganywhere for their school.
 
We’ve put together an information pack for the competition (download here), which includes a lesson plan to get pupils involved. The closing date for the competition is Friday, 18th July, 2014.
 
Sign up for a free fully featured demo of the Jotter system here.