[K12OSN] Can printing be "controlled" in the school environment?

[Krsnendu dasa]

Just one idea to throw in the mix. I read somewhere that network
printers that you have to walk a long distance to reach are a big
waste of efficiency. An alternative is to have more printers located
close to those who are printing. Search the archives and you will find
scripts that direct the printing to the nearest printer. It also
"divide and conquer"s the task allowing teacher's to supervise the
kids in there immediate vicinity. Much easier than trying to manage
print jobs for a whole department or school.

Hope this is helpful. Look forward to hearing other suggestions.

Krsnendu dasa

On 27/05/07, Rita Gibson <rgibson57 at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> Are we the only school that has this problem, because we allow our kids
> to have complete access to computers all over the building all the time?
> I happened to substitute for the computer lab teacher last week just two
> days of the week. I know of at least three reams of unclaimed printing
> in the computer lab (we have two of the network printers in there) just
> last week alone! Kids and teachers print things -- they don't want to
> look through the pile, or to wait for their job to print, or really even
> know where their job went because they didn't pay any attention, and so
> they print it again... and again... Our school doesn't have grades per
> se, they use portfolios to demonstrate kids' learning. This is high
> season for completing portfolio work and every year at this time, I am
> reminded of this print problem of trying to control printing.
>
> http://www.pykota.com/
>
> Have you ever used this software? Or know of some kind of control
> software? I looked at this Pykota website a few years ago, but we were
> resolving so many other issues that I never looked at it again. Now that
> it is on my mind again, I need to look at it a little more.
>
> Uncontrolled printing may be a problem whose time has come to solve. I'd
> love a software that popped up a message to the user that said "I'm
> sorry, but you sent this job to the XYZ printer three minutes ago, are
> you sure you want to print it again?" or "I'm sorry, but you sent this
> job to the XYZ printer three minutes ago, there are four jobs printing
> to that printer ahead of your job, it will be approximately three
> minutes before your job will finish, would you like to send this job to
> an alternate printer, or wait for this job to print at XYX printer?" Or,
> "I'm sorry but you have met your print quota for the day, you must ask a
> printer administrator to give you a Exception Key key in order to print
> any more pages today." Maybe that's too extreme, however, what I saw
> last week was pretty wild with paper all over the floor and on the
> tables around the printers, stacks of unclaimed print jobs on the
> printer, the network printer in the hallway upstairs was the same, and
> sometimes worse. (OMG!, or however the kids would say it.)
>
> --
> Rita Gibson
> Tech Support
> School:  (303) 759-2076
> Cell:  (720) 935-4437
>
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