Office 365- how are you using it for teaching and learning

[Liam]

Just looking for some thoughts on the above.

What advantages have to found and implemented to aid t&l.

 

We have found teacher dashboard to be good, but it would be great to know what others are doing.

 

Tbanks

[Patman]

Hi Liam:

 

We are just getting untracked. Can you tell me a bit about the teacher dashboard? Do the teachers like it? Can parents see homework posted and due dates?

 

Thanks,

 

Patman

[saintoctopus]

We're in the early stages of getting to use O365. Lots of things to work out, including teacher dashboard, which could be a game changer with regards to cloud education as far as we're concerned. I'd be keen to network with other schools who actively use O365...

 

http://www.teacherdashboard365.com/

 

I recommend taking a look - I've not got much further than installing it yet, but I will!

Edited April 23, 2015 by saintoctopus

[JRowley]

We are also experimenting with teacher dashboard and Office 365 currently, looks good so far though we aren't using it on a wide scale yet.

[maxrebo]

We are in the midst of implementing office 365 over the next few weeks, i would be grateful to hear what parts the teachers have taken to and other parts they dont particularly like.

[Liam]

Teachers hate change.. And despite my promotion of it they don't really understand the benefits. One drive is a little restricted in that you can upload folder etc so that's put a lot of people off straight away.

[MrFrostmaul]

So far with our change there hasn't been many moans and groans.

 

We are looking at drive mapping and promoting the feature of all files in one place no matter where you are and that stuff.

 

I've done about half the staff and remaining this week and next week.

[witch]

I have configured the sharepoint site so that cover teachers cant see it but they can see the cover onedrive which has cover lessons etc

I keep mentioning the benefits of the various bits and pieces but we struggled with calendars and now they have given up. I will have a look at the teacher dashboard

[Liam]

It's just a shame one drive can't be integrated at enterprise level. I think as part of the ms road map this will always be the case. Staff just hate the fact they have to log on etc. I'll win this battle. I have taken the decision to prevent all removable USB storage from the network too. Too much hassle, so hopefully this will change the way they work.

I love it, everywhere I go I have all my docs, my calendar and mt mail. As well as software to download for free. I got to admit that staff have hammered the staff advantage and the ms software.

[Patman]

One of the challenges might be that O365 is not an "all in one" for a teacher's tasks. For example, a teacher can share files, etc, but s/he can do that in a VLE or a 3rd party application like Edmodo that has more features, can't they? Another example, parents cannot see assignments, can they? Our staff are a little bit frustrated with having to "go to different places to do different things".

 

I was hoping that by moving to Sharepoint (on premises, before O365) we might be able to integrate 3rd party applications and staff would only have to sign on once to access all the tools they need. But SSO does not mean "one time sign on", and it does not allow us to integrate data from multiple sites and applications. Our vision that we have sold to the staff is "one stop shopping for everything, anywhere, anytime, from any device". I think that is what our staff want, but o365 only delivers a subset of tools to them. It appears to be a nice subset, but it is still a subset.

[Liam]

I couldn't agree more. We are currently developing something within share point.

It's certainly very powerful and the appstore provides an abundance of resources. Some schools have chosen to cometely do away with home folders and just use OD. A little gamble I'm. Not prepared to take.

[saintoctopus]

I got to admit that staff have hammered the staff advantage and the ms software.

 

My concern with the advantage business is staff accessing sensitive stuff on personal devices - how do you manage this (with regards to OneDrive and syncing etc.)?

[Liam]

Well staff sign our aup and are more than aware about sensitive data. I'm pretty strict on that and regularly remind them of their expectations . I guess we run the same risk with email etc. It's about trust I guess.

[Patman]

I'm pretty strict on that and regularly remind them of their expectations .

 

Hi Liam: How do you regularly remind them? What are the consequences for violations? Do the SLT support you in deed as well as verbally?

 

patman

[Liam]

Slt are extremely supportive. We regularly have whole staff safeguarding meetings and generally this covers data protection. We are like big brother on my team, and impero plays a big part in that. To date, we have never had any issues.

We also frequently send out our aup and highlight certain parts from it.

[rpwillis]

OneNote within SharePoint online or shared through OneDrive is a very powerful tool for colloboration and delivering the curriculum & lessons. You can create individual notebooks (manually or via a tool) or use OneNote Class Notebook Creator for a more consistent experience.

 

There's lots of resources at OneNote for Teachers - Interactive Guides.