Sharepoint - any innovative ideas?

[dbate]

Hi all,

 

Just investigating how other secondary schools are using Sharepoint. As we've got it as part of Office365, how are other schools using it to enhance teaching and learning? If there's impact that can be measurable, that would be great, as I'd like to obtain some money for investment, such as linking to SIMS.

 

Thanks in anticipation.

 

Dave

[barks1312]

Dave

 

We have trialled it with a Technology group using a team site. We like the fact that they can access their resources and continue working on things away from School. It has also allowed the group to communicate with each other and the teacher. It is now part of the product design GCSE and all resources are on there, I'm now under pressure as every department wants to be able to use it.

 

I'd recommend using a lower ability group in one subject area as you soon get to iron out the problems. I'd be interested to know what else i can do with it as I'm only using document folders, newsfeeds and hand in areas.

 

We're considering having a parent login at some point if we can identify a real need for it.

 

Barks

[Sylv3r]

@dbate I don't think it's possible to link your SIMS with an Office365 Sharepoint site.

 

SLG will only work self hosted or hosted via CAPITA I believe.

[ellsandell]

Dave

 

We have trialled it with a Technology group using a team site. We like the fact that they can access their resources and continue working on things away from School. It has also allowed the group to communicate with each other and the teacher. It is now part of the product design GCSE and all resources are on there, I'm now under pressure as every department wants to be able to use it.

 

I'd recommend using a lower ability group in one subject area as you soon get to iron out the problems. I'd be interested to know what else i can do with it as I'm only using document folders, newsfeeds and hand in areas.

 

We're considering having a parent login at some point if we can identify a real need for it.

 

Barks

 

Currently exploring uses of SharePoint for us, I'd be interested to see some examples/layouts of how you have it setup?

[FN-GM]

Have a look at this - SalamanderSoft Limited - SharePoint & SharePoint Learning Kit (SLK)

[zag]

Forget about office 365 SharePoint, its a massive step down from a locally hosted Sharepoint 2010 server.

 

I wouldn't bother with SLK either, we tried and it was far too complicated for anyone to use.

 

Sharepoint does work well in schools but keep it locally hosted, and design the pages to be easy to use with big buttons.

 

Sims access wont work but they do have a project called SLG, but its poor in my opinion and very expensive.

 

We have successfully integrated our room booking system, IT ticket system and a number of other web pages.

Edited July 10, 2014 by zag

[TheScarfedOne]

Definitely worth a chat with @rpwilis for SharePoint related stuff. I know there was a project he was working on with a customised prebuilt intranet gateway with SLK, the Salamander bits and more

[jaminben]

We've just started using Sharepoint 2013 and created a custom intranet page for staff / students... its only been rolled out to a few people so far but it looks promising. We have specific areas for staff / students documents along with hand in areas and resources. Each department has a its own page with a calendar and Twitter feed to try and make it more interactive for everyone... a simple design is the key I think.

 

Its a steep learning curve but we'll see how worthwhile it is when it goes fully live in September.

[zag]

Looks good ^^

 

The problem with using Office 365 SharePoint is they have to sign in each time.

 

Using a local server you can get it to auto login pretty easily.

[ryoung]

I got a lot of ideas looking at the 2 minute how to videos from ITHeadsUp. See:

 

Here is what has then worked well at our school

* Create departmental sites

* Leverage newsfeeds by getting a) staff to post updates in a news feed and b) students to follow sites, documents and/or staff and then get students to use the newsfeed tab in office 365 to see a target list of updates.

* Using departmental onenotes to curate resources and as handbooks

 

I want to create subsites within the ICT Site for each of my classes and then use discussion app for feedback, etc

 

Managing permissions is the issue. We already Use Salamander for AD and the next step is to use their SharePoint. This lightens the load on IT Support but is another £1,500 we do no have

[FN-GM]

The problem with using Office 365 SharePoint is they have to sign in each time.

 

Not with ADFS. Its dead easy to setup etc.

Edited July 11, 2014 by FN-GM

[jaminben]

Not with ADFS. Its dead easy to setup etc.

 

That was my understanding but wasn't 100% sure... we're hopefully setting it up next academic term.