Sharepoint features - good practice examples

[meastaugh1]

Hi,

I need to give a little talk about sharepoint features and how they can be applied in an educational context at a forthcoming INSET.

I've got some examples, for instance the forums are used to set homework and have students reply, as well as used for discussions between students. Do you have any examples of how blogs or wikis are used? Or any of the other features for that matter?

I plan to give document library features and search a mention as they are pretty useful.

Thanks

[NewOrder]

You can set up sharepoint sites for classes or tutor groups. This gives you a virtual base.

You can use link web parts to linkk to useful website. Document webparts for resources such as ppts, docs etc.

Then their are announcement webparts for deadlines or calendars.

In a content editor webpart you can insert a course plan.

Sites can be changed to help you support learning. If you go to Microsoft they have a class site not that brill easier to develop your own.

I forgot memebers webpart just add the names of those you want to invite. Only works when limked to exchange and AD.

[zag]

Surveys are very usefull, stops all those silly paper questionaires around schools.

Announcements basically stop pigeon holes getting clogged up and mass emails being sent round the school.

As already mentioned the links to other school systems such as Exchange, reporting systems, library lookups, websites. Don't underestimate the power of having these all linked from your main sharepoint page, it means people actually use them

[meastaugh1]

Thank you both.

[zag]

Thought of some more

- Home access, much better solution than vpn or remote desktop
- Video streaming (we have a custom solution for this called vidflow)
- Public calendars, discussion forums.
- Sharepoint learning kit (teaching content, reporting, marking, workflow)
- Contact list on main page is great for having teachers emails on for students.

[meastaugh1]

Ta. Do you use SLK? Is there a way for the teacher to easily review the grades? I'm not sure if there is by default. At Bett, I believe MS showed an example of a company that accesses the SLK data and produces a results page. Anyone know if this is a separate product, is so, what is it? cheers

[NewOrder]

Slk has lots of potential but there are a few things missing. Grade book etc. Class server whilst limited in the type of learning resource and no self selection does have templates to greate content which can be automarkable. It has a grade book. There are also the web parts that link class server with sharepoint and exchange.

If slk had these it would be excellent. I beleieve that Microsoft had hoped their partners would develop these but not much activity yet. There are some extra webparts but they need testing and there probably a more on the way.

There are scorm content tools available but they tend to be complicated for teachers. A friend of mine will have a product available for teachers in May. It will not be free. I'm also aware of someone who is working on a site provisioning tool that takes classes from Sims/Cmis and will put them in to sharepoint class sites.

I have another friend developing an app that will report when, where and what a student has been doing in sharepoint.

A company is developing a grade book so they say.

These will all cost as people have to make a living. I hope to have a site up and running linking all the individuals that can help schools with sharepoint