2.1.0 ================================= Additions: -Added activity: Word Memory The student is required to remember words that are read to them, then type them in (spelt correctly). The difficulty adjusts as they get right/wrong answers. -Added activity: Definitions Match the words with their definitions. Currently enabled for Steps to Literacy book 1. -Added the Printables menu. This new menu contains a list of all PDF documents included in Steps. It is our intention to continue to add more printable material as we release each patch. -Added a 'Check for updates' button to the login screen. This will check if any new updates are available, and if so, tell you what's new and give an option to download. You can continue to use Steps2 while the download is active and it'll tell you when the download is complete. This feature is only available on Windows. -Added a choice of accent. Australian, British and New Zealand options. British will be used where sounds aren't available in preferred accent. Can be found in Admin Page4 for Tutor and Network, 'Options' button for Home. Most of First Steps and Steps to Literacy have been recorded in all three accents. -Added over 12.5 thousand sounds! -Added an additional file saving option that increase resilience to corruption at the cost of file size. Feature Requests: -Added the option to keep student files when removing students from Steps. This allows them to be re-added with all their old records using the 'Import student' function. -Added 'Spelling Age Tool' into the Admin menu. This tool will tell you what level to place a learner on, when supplied with the spelling age. -Added the option to hide target in Fireworks. -Added the Essential Spelling List category of wordlists. -Added a 'clear' button when setting the database path. -Apostrophes are now allowed in student names. -When opening a category while choosing a wordlist that is at the bottom of the screen, it will now scroll down to show you what you've opened. -Added renaming of custom courses. -Schonell spelling test now warns the user if it is about to leave early, thus wasting progress. -Printed wordsearches now have the answers listed in a random order. Changes: -Renamed the activity category 'Homophones' to 'Word Study'. -Adjusted the default file save format to increase integrity and reduce file size. -Word Builder now checks rime choice when left mouse is released, rather than pressed. This will avoid unnecessary errors when holding down the left click and hovering over options. Similar design change applied to onsets too. -Learners are now warned if they try to leave a Schonell spelling test mid way through. -Updated Steps to Literacy book 6 wordlists to match the physical workbook. -The Vowel Ladder AI now has a 50% chance not to be interrupted by the player picking up its target balloon. -Maori specific features are now turned off by default. Users should be prompted on first use if they would like them turned on. -Updated contact details for Learning Staircase. -Added contact details for overseas distributor. -Moved the letters in Vowel Sounds closer to the middle. -Calibrated the collision on 'Find the Word' and 'Sentence Builder' objects. -Added a hint to 'Four in a Row'. -Renamed 'Spelling Game 1' to 'Spelling'. -Renamed 'Sounds 1' to 'Sound Tiles'. -Changed all text to white in 'Reference'. -Schonell Spelling Test no longer recommends Steps to Literacy Book 6 as a starting point. -On Mac, you can now initially setup Steps2 even if you are not allowed to 'administer the computer'. -Database path will now automatically aquire the appropriate slash ('/' or '\') on the end of a path when it is missing from a manually made database_path.txt. e.g. \\server\database is interpreted as \\server\database\ -Adjusted the license expiry warning period to 20 days (from 10) in Network Editions. -The 'Import students' dialogue now has a scrollbar. -Wordgrid now won't use words that don't have recordings. -Pick the Word is now more random about its questions. -Added a 'Quit' button to the splash screen. -Short Vowel Activity2 now plays the word when you drop it into the right box. -Sentence Builder and Choose the Word will now work with only 2 compatible words, down from the previously required 4. -Activities that can't be played will now not appear, rather than showing as grey. -Added 'agree' and 'wheel' to StL1 8ee-A. -Added 'breeze' and 'squeeze' to StL1 8ee-B. -Added 'sharp' and 'shelf' to StL2 1sh-A. -Added 'finish' and 'rubbish' to StL2 1sh-B. Bug Fixes: -Extreme level in Vowel Ladder steals balloons again, as intended. -Fixed bars that show progression in First Steps so they track Spelling 1 instead of the (now) removed Spelling Test. -When renaming students the group should now be sorted Aa>Zz instead of AZ>az. -The expiry warning now shows up as intended for the Network edition. -Administrators can no longer overwrite each others changes when modifying the same files at the same time. -The word 'lowest' now has a matching sentence and sound. -Fixed the sound splits in 'quite'. -Fixed the sound splits in 'skin'. -Made the 'play sentence' button work in Spelling Test for custom words. -Fixed the sound 'OK' made in sentence builder when right clicked. -Fixed the sound 'play' made in Word Grid when right clicked. -Prevented Chunks from opening when using some print choices. -Stopped another word from being played when the user finishes Vowel Sounds and Clear the Skies. -Stopped the firing sound from playing when clicking 'Repeat sound' and 'Back' in Vowel Sounds. -The 'Wordlists' category now has the correct title image. -Fixed a bug that caused Word Flash to become unresponsive when clicking on a slot for a word that wasn't used. -Fixed non-preloader patches finding custom install locations. -Learners can no longer use a wordlist that has no words in it. -The onscreen keyboard now correctly shows up when renaming a wordlist in custom courses if its language isn't English. -Steps will now correctly append a forward slash to database paths on Mac when they are missing from the end of the path. -Fixed an error that caused the 'homepath' environment variable to point to the wrong drive if Steps wasn't being run from the system drive. -Fixed some portions of the Home Login screen from being unresonsive after choosing an avatar. -Fixed the avatar selection for new students in Home so it doesn't show the last selected avatar. -Fixed a bug when showing the sentence for 'dismay' in user wordlists. -Fixed a bug in 'Choose the word' that stopped some punctuation from showing. -Fixed a bug that caused 'set work' to stay set under some circumstances when pushing 'Back'. -Initially set level will now show properly on Schonell Spelling Test. -Previous results button will now initally show grey if no previous results exist in Schonell Spelling Test. -You can no longer accidently open the 'Search' window while scrolling through wordlists. -Fixed missing capital letters on some homograph choices. -Fixed a bug in Admin1 that caused buttons to become unresonsive when a dialogue is closed while still scrolling. -Fixed a bug that caused letters not to show in Pop the Balloon when the tick box was ticked. -Balloons no longer pop when the Pop the Balloon game finishes. -Fixed link to FSC 9x star cards printable. -Corrupted wordsentences.data files now automatically get renamed wordsentences.data_corrupt and a new blank file created. 2.0.4 (15-09-2011) ================================= Additions: -Added Activity: Directions This activity teaches the concepts of left, right, top and bottom. Two different levels; second level incorporates shapes and colours. Can be found in Topics under Perception. -Created a new category in Topics called 'Perception'. -New wordlist category: "At School". Currently includes 6 new wordlists. -'-est' wordlist added to the word families. -'gn- words' wordlist added to spelling patterns. -'swa - words' wordlist added to spelling patterns. -'wa- words' wordlist added to spelling patterns. Feature Requests: -Learners can now choose from eight different score tiles to see as they complete activities. -Games now show up in the logs as different colours to make them stand out. Changes: -The 'Topics' section has been renamed to 'General'. -Wordgrid now gives results based on the highest score achieved, not the difficulty level the activity finished on. -Moved the activity 'Perception' into the topics category 'Perception'. -Put in a help popup for Four in a Row. -Significantly increased the maximum size of words in Word Grid. -The suggestion to new users to take the spelling test now gets removed once the spelling test is done. You can still hide this by clicking 'Hide Forever'. -Prevented Tutor edition from accessing Admin Page2. -In Sounds 1, tiles with vowels and consonants (e.g. 'ere') now show up as red as well. -'Repair Corruption' has been relabelled 'Remove Corruption' to more accurately reflect what it does. -The 'Remove Corruption' tool in Admin page 1 has been upgraded to pick up additional types of corruption. Bug Fixes: -Fixed the language of custom sentences being appended on the end of printed out Wordsearch clues. -Fixed old sounds from accidently playing. -Fixed Sounds 1 and Sound Boxes sharing the same medal. -Fixed the Tutor Edition groups database regeneration. 2.0.3 (05-07-2011) ================================= Additions: -Added over 150 sounds. Changes: -When creating wordlists in the Custom Courses interface, users now get directed to the fully featured wordlist editor. -Changed the 'Continue' button in Hangman to say 'OK'. Bug Fixes: -Fixed a bug that caused the Months Activity 2 to fail to bring up a medal when the activity completes. 2.0.2 (30-06-2011) ================================= Additions: -Added game: Hangman Exactly like the game you play on paper, except in 3D. This game can be turned off in the Admin page 4. -Added game: Four in a Row The learner has to answer questions on a grid to make four correct answers in a row. Can be played against an AI or against another player. Questions can ether be spelling, or homophones depending on the options chosen. -Added spelling rule: Short Vowels Contains 3 activities for practising short vowel sounds for a,e,i,o,u. One activity for clicking on the right word, one for dragging the word into the appropriate column and one for clicking the list that the word belongs. Can be found in 'Topics' under 'Spelling'. -Added copy/paste with Ctrl+V,Ctrl+C,Shift+Ins. It works in the following situations: When first setting up Steps, you can paste in the license details and database path. Inside Admin page 2, you can copy/paste most elements. Just click in the field first! -Added many new words. -Increased the homophone list count to 40 (from 18) -Increased the words in Topics 'Endings -k -ke -ck' activity 2. Changes: -Added the variable "~" into database paths This correlates to the users home path. E.g. '~/database/' resolves to '/Users/{username}/database/'. Mac users will need to download a new Steps2 application (aka the 'preloader') from our website if they installed using a version less than 2,0,2 if they want to use this feature. -Most of the words in FSA 1a and FSA 2d have been re-recorded by Ros. -Database backup and password settings have been shifted to new Admin page 4. -Title images in Admin page 1 and Admin page 2 have been updated to the higher resolution that Admin page 3 has. -Removed the activities 'Drop' and 'Spelling Test' from First Steps. -Correct words will now turn green in Topics 'Endings -k -ke -ck' activity 2. -Centered the choices in 'Choose the Word'. -Updated the 'Repair corruption' tool to be more resilient. -Moved 'Back' button in 'Topics' further back so it's under the print menu. -Changed the medal text to white in 'Choose the Word'. -Added a missing scrollbar while choosing an Admin Wordlist while creating a custom course. -Allowed some symbols to be added to institution names. -Removed 'qu' words from the sound activities, as well as fixing up a few words that had the wrong sound splits in them. -Wordlists now require at least 5 suitable words (less than 9 characters) to play Word Grid. -Added the image for Steps to Literacy 6 when choosing a course. Bug Fixes: -Fixed a possible bug in Tetris when generating score sheets for medals files that haven't been upgraded. -Fixed a sentence in the o-e printable worksheet. -Fixed removing and renaming of personal wordlists when the student has no medals in any personal lists. -Fixed the homophones activity 'Pick the Word' so it saves medals again. -Fixed a bug that showed hidden symbols in the search function with some words. -Fixed a printing wordlist bug that occasionally caused hidden symbols to show up. -Fixed a bug that caused the 'y' tile to show up red instead of purple in Sounds1. -Fixed a bug that occasionally caused the options in 'Choose the Word' not to update. -Prevented the 'Import Students' tool from importing a file with a blank student name. 2.0.1 (09-05-2011) ================================= -Fixed a bug that caused pre-Windows Vista computers to throw errors when checking for Steps1 registry values that aren't there. -The licence code checker now removes trailing spaces from the institution name. 2.0.0 (09-05-2011) ================================= -Added game: Vowel Ladder Similar to the card based vowel ladder game. Students battle against the computer to complete their cards by collecting the vowel sounds. Comes with varied AI difficulty and different cards. -Redesigned login screen for Network and Tutor versions to show more learners and groups. -Added the ability to make your own courses. These courses may have as many sub-levels as needed. You can find this inside the Admin page 1 menu, under 'Custom Courses'. -Added Maori and English on-screen keyboards for spelling activities that involve typing. -Added activity: Word Grid The student is required to remember words that are read to them, then click on them in the correct order in the word grid. The difficulty adjusts as they get right/wrong answers. -Added activity: Number Grid The student is required to remember numbers that are read to them, then click on them in the correct order (or reverse order, if playing Level 3). The difficulty adjusts as they get right/wrong answers. -Added a homophones category of wordlists. -Added activity: Pick the Word Pick the correct homophone for the sentence. This can be found in the Wordlists section when choosing a wordlist from the 'Homophones' category. -Added over 1100 new words. -Increased the font resolution (made the dynamic text clearer). -Added new wordlist category: "Everyday Topics". -Added support for multiple sentences/recordings of the same word. If there is more than one varition of a word is found then you will be prompted which one you would like to use when creating wordlists. -Added a 'Custom sentences' menu inside Admin page 1 that allows the user to mange and create sentences for any word. Using this menu, you may create multiple sentences for any word. -Added support for words with spaces in the middle (e.g. "fire engine"). -Added word family lists into the First Steps progression. These wordlists were already suggested in the teachers manual as good reinforcement. The chapter list has been upgraded to show the new changes. -Added printable handwriting sheets to the 'Reference' section. You can access them through the button with a printer icon on it. -Added multiple lines into 'Sentence Builder' for really long sentences. -Added additional levels to 'Reversals'. The additional levels use the letters 'n', 'u', 'm' and 'w'. -Renamed 'General' to 'Word Lists'. -Moved the topics button so it's next to 'Courses' and 'General'. -Removed the Word Families section. You can access the word families lists through the General section. -Improved support for User Account Control in Steps Network. The patcher now launches itself with Administrator rights so it can update properly. -When installing Steps Home for the first time, it will detect any Steps Home Demo installations and give you the option of importing all records. -Steps Network now shows a 'database missing' screen instead of the 'welcome' screen when it can't find the database. -Changed Colours level 2 to click'n'drag. -Prevented the same cards from appearing twice in a row (on the same pile) in Snap. -Increased the tile size in 'Letter Names' and 'Letter Sounds'. -Changed tile shape in 'Digits' while playing with the 'numbers' option. -Adjusted the words in Steps to Literacy Book 4 to match the workbook. -Students are now allowed to be in multiple classes. -Fortified reading and writing of the database by attempting serveral times before giving up. -Prevented log sessions from being selected while the scroll bars are active. -Allowed apostrophes to be entered in sentences for custom words. -The search function now no longer picks up revision lists. -Apostrophes now correctly displays when printing wordlists and wordsearches. -Removed the 'Quit' button from the logs screen. -Changed the license code system to 16 digits. -Changed 'Wordlists' to 'Courses' in the Choose Wordlist menu. -Changed the printable sheets to white backgrounds. -Changed "toes" from a short vowel sound to a long vowel sound. -Changed Schonell back up to 10 errors needed in a row to end. -Adjusted the suggested book in the Schonell spelling test to include StL 5 and StL 6. The values for the First Steps suggestions have also been modified slightly. -Added words of joy when players manage to shoot the rabbit in 'Pop the Balloon!'. -Added the Steps to Literacy Book 5 cover as a thumbnail. -The last test is now automatically selected when you look at the previous Schonell test results. -Increased the size of tiles in Sounds 1 for sounds larger than 3 letters long (e.g. ough-t). -Added a 'Log off' button to several menu scenes. -Prevented the help menu being opened in Word Building while you have picked up a block. -Removed the place-holders for the 'new course'. These will be added again when the new course is closer to completion. -Fixed a bug with the force student to finish option that stopped the 'Pop the Balloon!' game from functioning. -Fixed a bug in the Admin1 menu which was causing the last 2 classes not to be displayed. -Fixed the repeat sound button in Months activity 2 -Fixed a bug with the thumbnails of activities not showing correctly. -Fixed the Shapes and Perception activities so they have the correct blurb. -Fixed a bug with Initial Blends Activity1 and Silent -e Activity1 that allowed multiple wrong clicks before moving onto the next item. -Fixed a bug in Word Builder that caused a 1 in 7 chance for the correct onset not to appear. -Fixed a bug with renaming students that allowed duplicate students. -Fixed a bug in the Word Families menu where the students name was too far to the right. -Fixed a bug with Months Act1 that stopped some of the buttons and medals from showing when it was the first activity run in Steps. -Fixed a bug in Word Flash that caused the mouse to disappear when the student failed too many times trying the last word. -Fixed a bug in Word Search that allowed the learner to select the same word several times. -Fixed a bug in Sound Boxes which caused capital letters not to display.