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

[Rita Gibson]

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