Quick Answers…

If the moderator can see all but a few students’ screens: 

1. Verify the students have internet connectivity. 

2. Verify the students are enrolled in the class either by viewing the roster on the teacher’s computer or through the Administration Console. 

3. Have the student(s) restart their computer(s). 

4. Verify the students have the ‘COMPLETE’ installation of DyKnow.

The following DyKnow Monitor features can be applied to one or more students:

• Attention
• Shut Down Machines
• Block Applications
• Open/Close Applications
• Filter URLs

To save class time and ensure students are on task upon arriving to the classroom, DyKnow Monitor plans/rules can be applied prior to students arriving in the classroom. After starting Monitor, you can choose your Attention, Application Blocking, and/or URL Filtering plan(s) and apply them before students appear in Monitor. As soon as Monitor is able to identify the students’ computers on the network, your plans will take affect.

Keep in mind that you should not start Monitor prior to the end of the previous period. Doing so could result in a conflict with another teacher’s monitored class.

If your school has a publicly available DyKnow server then yes, students can be monitored when at home or anywhere that their computers have an internet connection. Most schools choose to restrict monitoring to the school’s network only. To learn how to limit when and where students can be monitored, please refer our What restrictions are in place to prevent unauthorized monitoring of students? article.

If a teachers forgets to stop Monitor at the end of a class period, each student will continue to be monitored by that teacher until another teacher requests to monitor the student or the student loses connection with the DyKnow server. This means that students computers will still be under the control of any Application Blocking or URL Filtering plans that the teacher applied during class.

Visit our Knowledge Base and choose the Monitor FAQ category.

At the end of each class, students save their DyKnow notebooks to a desired location.  See why we suggest saving to the DyKnow server.  After class, students access these notes through the DyKnow client with the following steps (these steps apply to notebooks saved on the DyKnow server):

1. Open and Login to the DyKnow client
2. On the ‘My DyKnow’ screen, click the name of the class where the file is saved
3. Click the ‘Notebook Name’ of the desired notebook to open

SMARTBoards come with software that launches a special screen overlay on top of the application the user is running whenever one of the SMARTBoard pens or the eraser is picked up.  As a result, using the SMARTBoard pens and eraser will mark on top of DyKnow rather than directly on the DyKnow panel or interface.

There are two different approaches users can take to effectively use a SMARTBoard with DyKnow:

Approach 1

Disable the SMARTBoard software. This will turn the SMARTBoard into a large touchscreen that will interact directly with [instead of on top of] DyKnow and other Windows applications regardless if the SMARTBoard pen or eraser is being used.

 

Approach 2
Leave the SMARTBoard software enabled, but either a) refrain from picking up the SMARTBoard pen or eraser [and use a finger or other object], or b) put an object (e.g. a dry erase marker) in each of the SMARTboard pen trays or cover the sensor that activates when a pen is picked up.  The goal [particularly with option b] is to allow the user to continue to use the SMARTBoard in a fairly normal manner by tricking the SMARTboard into thinking one of the pens has not been picked up.

Starting with DyKnow 5.4, it is easy to share class notebooks with students right on the DyKnow server.

1. After class, save your notebook to the DyKnow server
2. Navigate to the ‘My DyKnow’ screen (View –> My DyKnow)
3. Click the link associated with the name of your class
4. Find the notebook(s) you want to share and check the box to the left
5. Click the  button at the bottom of the screen to share the selected file(s) with all students enrolled in your class

Notice the ‘Shared’ icon is added in the Shared column and the word “Shared” is added in parentheses next to the notebook name.

Students can access this shared file with the following steps:

1. Login to DyKnow
2. Navigate to the ‘My DyKnow’ screen (View –> My DyKnow)
3. Click the link associated with the name of your class
4. Open the desired shared or private notebook by clicking the associated file name

After collecting panels from students during class, you can grade and return them to students within DyKnow both during and outside of an active class session. Simply open the notebook containing the panels you want to grade, mark up the panels with your comments, and follow these steps to return the panels to the students.

1. Open the notebook that includes the panel(s) to be returned. 

2. Choose ‘Session > Return Panels from notebook’. 

3. Select the class and type in a name for the notebook panel(s) being returned. 

4. Press ‘OK’. 

The students can find their returned work by clicking on their class folder in the ‘My Current Classes’ screen.

There are a variety of ways to bring your content into DyKnow. You can copy & paste text from documents into DyKnow, open PowerPoint presentations directly (click open in DyKnow then choose your PowerPoint file) or use the DyKnow Notebook Writer.

The DyKnow Notebook Writer is a tool that allows you to turn any document into a DyKnow notebook.  This works much like a PDF writer by creating a virtual printer on your computer that you use to “print” your documents to DyKnow notebooks. To install the notebook writer on your computer, go to http://www.dyknow.com/downloads/ and choose either the 32bit or 64bit installer that matches your computer. Once installed, follow these steps to convert your content:

1. Open the file you want to convert (e.g. Word document)
2. Choose File –> Print
3. Choose the DyKnow Notebook Writer as your printer
4. Click Print
5. The Notebook Writer will convert the document
6. Choose a save location and Save your new DyKnow notebook
7. View the “Options” and “Help” dialog on this screen for more information on optimizing your notebook

Visit our Knowledge Base and choose the Vision FAQ category.

For students and teachers to access your DyKnow server from outside your school network, you will need to give the server a public IP address then assign a DNS entry to it.  No changes need to be made within the DyKnow server software.  We suggest contacting your service provider for information on obtaining a public IP address for your server. 

Common scenarios for making your DyKnow server public:

• Students want to access their saved DyKnow notes from home
• Teachers want to grade and return work from home
• Teachers want to hold evening study sessions in DyKnow
• Students want to join class while absent

How to backup the DyKnow server

The Microsoft Developer Network website has articles which detail the steps to backup a database.

• Introduction to Backup and Restore Strategies in SQL Server
• Full Database Backups

How DyKnow automatically creates a Server Default Backup job

The default DyKnow DB Server installation sets up a basic DB backup plan. These backups are:

• Automatically performed by the DyKnow Database Server SQL Agent every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday at 1:40 AM.
• Stored in the folder “%INSTALLDIR%\Backups\”.  For example:

C:\DyKnow4\Backups\DyKnow40_20080911102842.BAK.

• Automatically removed 1 week after their creation.

To set up a more extensive maintenance backup plan, the SQL database administrator can change the current backup process or delete the default DyKnow backup agent job, and replace with another.

Note: The default backup installed backup plan is set up during the initial DyKnow DB Server installation. All subsequent applied DyKnow SQL DB upgraders do nothing to change the SQL Server Agent backup jobs. In other words, changing the backup maintenance plan after the original basic backup setup will not be changed by the DyKnow SQL DB upgraders.

How to restore a DyKnow Database to a functional DyKnow Server

1. Perform a fresh installation of the DyKnow Database Server on the new database server.
2. Run any DyKnow Server upgrades that might be necessary to bring the new DyKnow database server to the same version number as your current server.
3. Do a backup of your existing DyKnow database through SQL Server, as shown above.
4. Copy the backup you just created to the new server and Restore the database over the fresh install.  Instructions to restore a database may be found on the Microsoft Developer Network website Performing a Complete Database Restore (Full Recovery Model).
5. Open SQL Server Management Studio and open a new query window for the DyKnow40 database.
6. Type in the following Script and Execute

use [DyKnow40]
go
sp_change_users_login ‘auto_fix’, ‘proguser4′
go

sp_change_users_login ‘auto_fix’, ‘ditouser4′
go

Once you’ve run the SQL script, log into the DyKnow Admin Console on the new server to verify everything successfully transferred and then log into the DyKnow client (you can use your admin account to do this) to confirm the DyKnow Client can properly connect to the server.

To relocate the DyKnow database to a different SQL server or to another location on the current SQL server, the detac/attach option in SQL Server Management Studio 2005 will be used.

1. To locate the .mdf and .ldf files for the DyKnow database, right-click on the DyKnow40 database and select PROPERTIES.

2. Select the FILES page. This will display the file locations for the .mdf and .ldf files.

3. After recording the location of the files, press CANCEL or exit this screen.

4. Right-Click on the DyKnow40 database and select TASKS > DETACH, then click OK.

5. In Windows Explorer, navigate to the location of the .mdf and .ldf files. This information was recorded in step 2.

6. Copy the .mfd and .ldf files to the new location.

7. After the files have been copied, right-click on Databases and select ATTACH. Click ADD and locate the new location of the files and select the .mdf file. Click OK

8. Open the Administration Console and login to verify the migration was successful.

If the admin console displays an error, the following script will need to be run:

1. Open SQL Management Studio and start a new query

2. Execute the following script:

use [DyKnow40]
go
sp_change_users_login ‘auto_fix’, ‘proguser4′
go

sp_change_users_login ‘auto_fix’, ‘ditouser4′
go

 Note: If the application server needs to be pointed to a different database server, please follow the steps in: Point the Application Server to a different Database Server

In short, no.  Due to the limitations of Microsoftt SQL Server Express, we are unable to offer this as an option for the DyKnow database.  You will need to acquire Microsoft SQL Workgroup, Standard or Enterprise Edition.   Check out our server specifications page for more information: http://www.dyknow.com/support/server-info-center/detailed-client-server-specs/.

The DyKnow Database and Application Server are supported on the following virtualization platforms:

• - VMware ESX 2.5.5 or later
• - Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V
• - Citrix XenServer 5.5 with Windows Server 2008 or later

Where available, the resources allocated to a DyKnow Application and Database server tiers must be reserved. Not reserving these resources for the DyKnow Server may cause sub-optimal performance. Microsoft provides Windows Operating System and SQL Server support for these virtualization environments through the SVVP Program. DyKnow independently validates its software solution against a subset of these vendors. Configurations not meeting the above requirements are not recommended or supported.

Visit our Knowledge Base and choose the Server FAQ category.

DITO is a tool that runs on DyKnow’s application server that allows for the import and synchronization of users, classes, and enrollments into the DyKnow database from any other information database.  The primary benefit of DITO is that it allows for automated bulk imports and updates of large quantities of this data without manual manipulation.

Yes, you can run DITO in migration mode to update data that already exists in your DyKnow database.  Please refer to the DITO user’s guide in order to setup DITO in migration mode.

The DITO tool can be used to sync user (student, faculty, admin), class, and enrollment/class roster data.

External_Person_Key
The External_Person_Key is the primary key DITO uses to distinguish one user from another.  This field is also used in conjunction with the External_Course_Key to create enrollment records in the database. Equivalent examples of the External_Person_Key in a typical Student Information System (SIS) might be:

• Student ID number
• Staff ID number
• userID (common if utilizing Microsoft Active Directory)

External_Course_Key
The External_Course_Key is the primary key DITO uses to distinguish one class from another.  This field is also used in conjunction with the External_Person_Key to create enrollment records in the database. Equivalent examples of the External_Course_Key in a typical Student Information System (SIS) might be:

• Course ID number
• Course code
• A concatenation of the course number followed by the section number

The difference between manual and snapshot mode is that snapshot mode has the ability to block and set data to be purged from the DyKnow database.  Typically manual mode is used to import and update data in the DyKnow database, while snapshot mode would be used in in a situation where a more complete synchronization should occur.  

It is most common for users and classes to be imported using manual mode since that data is not often deleted while it is most common to import enrollment records using snapshot mode while students are adding and dropping classes to ensure they are blocked and removed from dropped classes.

Visit our Knowledge Base and search keyword DITO.