I'm the Technical Director @ j2e, and this is a technical account of what I'm doing and thinking. You're welcome to send me your thoughts and suggestions for j2e.

My blog is edited using j2e.
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Thursday 21st January
BETT 2010
was a very busy exhibition for us. Thank you to everyone who came to our stand, it was so good to put faces to our favourite users. The interest in j2e continues to grow, at home and abroad. Also, our new product JiT (Just2easy Infant Tools) was very well received, follow this link to watch the video and try the Beta version. Full availability will be at the end of March.

Our next outing is to the Naace Conference in Blackpool, 16-18 March. If you are there, please come and see us.

On 18th May 2009 I showed some usage figures. Todays values are 33,380 user files containing 127,679 revisions and 52,579 photos. That means we have doubled in 8 months - fantastic progress, and still accelerating.

Thursday 17th December
Worcestershire LA have produced an excellent video to promote use of j2e within their schools. You can see this video on our News page, showing its use within science in a middle school. It is very positive about j2e, and produced quite independently of us!

If you love j2e to create your web pages, but would really prefer not to have www.j2e.com in the web address, then take a look at our domain name hosting. This is in early development, but you can get the flavour here, where Stokes Primary have started using it.

My personal favourite school web page is Victoria Junior School. As well as using j2e extensively with the children, they have used it to produce a splendid school web site. The page updates regularly, but at the moment you can see animated snow, a link to a postcard around the world (featuring j2e forms), and a j2e block puzzle. Well done Mr Kaye!

Finally, seasons greetings to you all.

Monday 7th December
Things at j2e are accelerating as we move towards 2010. The team is expanding - it's really great to be working with Steve and Eugenie again, our 'original' Softease team.

We just signed a two year deal with Dudley LA, after a successful pilot using J2E as an integral part of their netbook pilot. Read more about this on our new News page. We are also talking to several other LAs, where we have on going trials.

At BETT we will be launching our new Just2easy Infant Tools (JiT), an exciting on-line product for young learners. See a preview video here, and come and see it for real on our BETT stand.

Worcester Warriors Study Centre continue using j2e for their 'extra time tasks' and are looking into creating a West Mids PFS J2E group. They have produced a case study on their use of j2e which you can view here.

Friday 13th November
j2e is a finalist in the BETT awards 2010.
We are tremendously pleased about this, it carries great prestige. Hundreds of companies enter products into the awards, so to be one of seven finalists in our category is a great achievement. Come and see us at our BETT stand in January 2010, stand Q26 again - it will be busy! Click on the awards logo to find out more about the awards.

It's a while since I last wrote in my blog. Since then we have added teacher mark up to j2e. I call this 'pins and stickers', it is a really powerful feature for pupils as well as teachers. Read more here.

Use of j2e in UK schools is now growing rapidly, in the last month alone 96 different UK schools have saved j2e pages.

We have spent a lot of time and effort on reliability and performance - with j2e now starting up really quickly. If you need to write anything down, either for your own memory, or especially to communicate with others, then why not use j2e. - We do!

Tuesday 14th July
You will have noticed the j2e web site has had a make over. This makes it easier to see what j2e is, and what it can do for you. As ever, please send us your comments on the change.

Over the past couple of months we have been very busy, adding speech and symbols to j2e. The text to speech allows any text on the page to be spoken, and this even applies to your own saved web pages. Symbols is a joint project with Widgit Software, and lets you see pictures for the words you type, or hover over. These can also be shown on your saved web pages. New help pages exist for Speech and Symbols.

Both these products enhance learning and are particularly useful with special needs teaching. They are additions to the basic j2e product, and are available for both school and single user customers to purchase. For single user customers, we have now added an upgrade page, together with a Google checkout to pay for these new products.

Pfs - playing for success centres exist around the country, and are used to provide extra education enhanced by sporting links. j2e is starting to be used by several of these centres, with the Warriors Study Centre at Worcester leading the way. Warriors use j2e forms to set 'extra time tasks' for students. Using j2e has seen a dramatic improvement in the completion of these activities. If you are a Pfs centre, please get in touch to see how j2e could help you.

Monday 18th May
The Rose Report is a wide ranging report that will affect the curriculum in primary schools. I have reviewed it in the context of j2e. It seems to me that j2e is a tool that covers so many areas mentioned in the Rose Report, a tool that allows multimedia presentation using a wide range of media (text, pictures, animation, sound, video), to a wide audience (as big as the world!), with sharing and collaboration. For a more detailed review, look here. Encourage your pupils to use j2e for communication across the curriculum.

Use of j2e contains to accelerate. We now have 17,000 user files, containing 25,000 pictures. For these files there are 61,000 revisions, so each file is worked on and resaved an average of 3.6 times. These figures exclude the LGfL trial, which runs on a separate server. I wonder how big these figures will be by the end of the year? Use j2e for your own work as well as your pupils, we do!

Friday 27th March
Just got a 3G card, so I can use j2e anywhere, and update my blog from Gatwick airport whilst waiting for a plane! We've added a freehand pen tool to j2e, take a look here.

Wednesday 11th March
Last week at the Naace conference some people had a treat. Danny gave a Master class lecture to 25 delegates. Having shown them the j2e basics, he proceeded to demonstrate live collaboration on a big screen. The delegates all contributed from their computers onto a single document. Whereas Danny had though he might control the contributions, everyone dived in, producing a very active document. The next day Brian Smith told me how good it was, and that the result became greater than the sum of the parts. I really wish I had been there!

The latest version of j2e includes superusers for authorities. This gives authorities a view of how j2e is being used by their schools, and helps them to promote good practice. Read the help sheet for more details.

Monday 9th February
I've been quite slow using some of this new web technology, for example RSS feeds. Having studied these I am now an RSS convert, and so you can now use RSS feeds with j2e pages. RSS feeds can be quite complex, so in j2e I have tried to simplify them to the minimum, in my usual way!

Click on the orange feed icon to add my blog to your reader, and you will be notified whenever I update this blog. If you don't know what I am talking about then learn more here.

Monday 2nd February
We had a great BETT exhibition, much interest from Local Authorities looking to add j2e to their VLEs. If you missed us at BETT take a look at my 5 minute demo. We are next showing at the Naace Annual Strategic Conference in Blackpool.

For February, I have added a new word list to the library for Valentines day. Our word lists are a great way of helping children be creative with writing.

Wednesday 7th January
Why does it say Giraffe? Well, I was playing, and the texture seemed to fit the word! Take a look at this.

Version 2.02 introduces a selection hint box, to help you see what you are selecting or placing the caret in. It also has a help box on the button bar, if you are stuck it will use Google to search our help pages. I think they are both great additions, but as always your feedback is welcome.

Friday 2nd January
I wish you a very happy 2009.


At j2e we are getting ready for the BETT show at Olympia, London 14-17 January. Do drop in to stand Q26 and see us.

Version 2.01 released. It is very well integrated for Shibboleth users, and now ties into the Worcestershire Learning Gateway beautifully, using their single sign-on. If you are an authority using single sign-on, get in touch and we can integrate j2e for you.

I'm typing this on a shiny new MacBook. Very nice kit! and of course that meant a few Mac tweaks for j2e, also in 2.01.

At BETT you can also see j2e running on the new Intel powered ClassMatePC as well as on the Asus Eee PC.

older-> Geoff's j2e blog 2008





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style="font-family:'Marker Felt';;font-size:91pt;color:white;">Giraffe style="font-family:'Marker Felt';;font-size:91pt;color:white;">Giraffe
Naace
2009
Blackpool
Example of j2eSymbols for the word web
j2e stand BETT 2010
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