Learning Gateway User Group

Social Computing for Teaching and Learning in Schools

Adrian Edgar — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:47:00 GMT

This week I attended the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2009 in Las Vegas. We were shown many of the new features of SharePoint 2010 due for public Beta release in November. There are many great new features such as a revamped My Sites, but the aspects that interested me more than anything was the concept of Social Computing in a corporate environment.

This started me thinking about how this concept could be adapted in a school environment to promote conversations between teachers and learners; between leaners and co-learners. Looking at the statistics provided by our internet filtering system at school, Facebook regularly scores substantially higher than any other site which may not surprise many but when you consider access to this site is restricted to an hour before breakfast and after evening prep it really does show an intense period of activity.

Just imagine if one quarter of that time spent ‘Facebooking’ were spent discussing homework assignments, collaborating on projects or heaven forbid, engaging in dialogue with a teacher on the aspects of history that interest you yet don’t appear on the curriculum. Could we harness the power of Social Computing to stimulate academic interest or a deeper approach to learning and understanding of a subject?

Imagine the scenario where Jonny is at home working on his GCSE maths coursework, he gets stuck on a particular aspect of integration, but notices that one of the maths teachers is online. It’s not Jonny’s teacher, but they have included the topic area under their ‘Ask me about section’. Not only is Jonny able to get some direct support, he feels confident enough now to chat to his two schoolmates online and share the solution model with them. Jonny then posts on his profile that he too can be asked about maths problems.....

Discussing the concept of Social Computing in schools with @mikeherrity and @alex_pearce at the conference, Alex posed the question asking what would happen if pupils could access and share their school work documents through a Facebook application. I think I’d rather go the other way and be able to load the Facebook news feed into my School site. That way the access and content rules would still apply for the pupil body.

I wonder how pupils would cope as the line between their regular social computing activities and school work becomes blurred. Will teachers consider this to be an imposition on their time or an extension of the learning environment? How would pupils feel about a blog post from their teacher waiting for them before they start their homework?

There will be more to follow on this theme as I start to develop my school’s approach to Social Computing in Teaching and Learning. Exciting times ahaead for those using Sharepoint 2010.

Adrian Edgar

Director of ICT, Culford School

@adrian_edgar

Windows 7 – Remote Administration

Alan Richards — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 08:10:42 GMT

If you’ve used Windows XP or Windows Vista then you will be used to being able to manage your Active Directory and use RDP from your desktop to manage all aspects of your network.

In Windows 7 it’s changed slightly. The first thing you may notice is that there are no built in admin tools and you can’t install the XP adminpak or the Vista admin tools.

What you can do though is download the all new RSAT tools from Microsoft's website

Installation

Firstly you need to be running Windows 7 Enterprise, Ultimate or professional to install the RSAT tools

Once you have downloaded the file relevant to your PC architecture double click the file and install it

Don’t go looking for a shortcut or new folder though as the install doesn’t actually install the tools

Adding The Feature

What the install does is add new features to your Windows 7 machine from which you can choose the ones you want to use

To add the features go to control panel and select Programs

Now select Turn Windows Features on or off

You should now see this screen with the new RSAT feature installed

If you click on the + you will see the expanded view and all the tools you can select from

All you need to do now is select the tools you want to use (and there are a lot of them)

Click OK and your done

To get to the tools you can go through Control Panel | System and Security | Administrative Tools

Another option and the way I have it setup is to create a shortcut on the desktop to the Administrative Tools, to do that go to Control Panel | System and Security

Right click on the Administrative Tools title and select create shortcut. The shortcut should then appear on your desktop

So now you can use these tools to administer almost everything in your domain

I’m attending #SPC09 SharePoint Conference 2009

Alex Pearce — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:01:35 GMT

I’m very excited that at the end of this week I will be in Las Vegas for the SharePoint Conference 2009. Its going to be a great event with the first real look at SharePoint 2010.

If you are attending and would like to chat about Learning Gateways, Learning Platforms or just SharePoint, please get in touch or send me a tweet @alex_pearce.

I’m getting in from Gatwick on the Saturday evening and staying at the Luxor until the following Saturday.

Look forward to meeting you all there.

Windows 7 – Features

Alan Richards — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:32:16 GMT

I thought I would put into a post some of the features of Windows 7 that our students and staff are using. This is not an exhaustive list but more a list of what people have come to me and said -

Did you know it does this

Snap

This was described by a student as sick. Quite simply it allows you to move windows around and snap them to sides of the screen. Here's a quick video (no sound though)

Pin To Taskbar

This is a much easier way of adding shortcuts to the taskbar. Just right click the application you want to pin and select Pin To Taskbar

Quick Menu

This one gives you the option to quickly access documents produced in a given application. Right click any of the shortcuts on the taskbar and you will get a pop up menu.

Here is the IE one

From here you can get to recent documents (In Word etc) or in this case recent websites plus other options

BitLocker To Go

This is an awesome feature, it allows you secure your USB memory stick. Here’s another quick video.

Search

The search feature in Windows 7 is very much improved. Writing a word or term into the search box on the start menu will bring back a list of document, shortcuts and web site, as shown below

Clicking on the See more results will open up a seperate screen

Now these are only the start. We have a policy ‘Can Do’ at West Hatch which encourages students to have a go at anything new and to this end we haven’t put in place any specific training on Windows 7.

Our students and staff are finding more and more everyday which I will post as they find them

Edugeek @ NetworkSi - Conference

James Evans — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:32:00 GMT

Posted on Edugeek.net - http://www.edugeek.net/forums/general-edugeek-news-announcements/42800-edugeek-networksi-conference.html

Evening all,

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone at NetworkSi for inviting me to a conference they held today at their offices in Birmingham.

The Morning went very well and I found the day to be very productive indeed, the main focus at the conference was "Parental Access" and this is one of the main things that Secondary Schools need to make sure they have in place by September 2010.

NetworkSi and Novotronix are building a partnership to deliver SharePoint solutions to the Education and Business. With NetworkSi's Advanced Project Management skills and Novotronix Advanced SharePoint knowledge this seems like it is going to be very successful indeed and already they have helped many schools around the UK implement a SharePoint solution(s).

As I say the main focus on the event was Parental Access, we had a presentation from Alex Pearce (MVP) about what people should be doing when planning to build a SharePoint Portal but also the best way to go about providing parental access.

One point that was made is that people should not be thinking that parental access means just giving parents access to their students grades etc it should also be to get them involved with the school provide them with information.. Courses the school may off and any services in the local area but to also provide parents with information about their children throughout the year through reports. If schools report on students and the parents can view this content then they will be able to work with the school to sort out any problems if they should arise but to also help the parents encourage their students throughout the academic year there is no point providing the parents with this information at the end of the school year @ parents evenings because it has already been done and it could possibly be too late.

Also, allot of schools are finding it difficult to make the students/parents be aware of events... news etc how do they know a certain page has been updated... what if they just dont check the area on a regular basis maybe because they work long hours and do not find the time to check the portal often they want just like us as IT Pro's to be able to get the information where ever they go weather this to be a Mobile or Portable Handheld Device etc so one way alex did say that we should be looking into is RSS feeds as we all know these are very powerfull! But will easily keep parents/students up to date (as long as they subscribe to them of course) without them having to check the portal every single day of the week.

Another thing is you want to engage students and allow them to be happy to get involved, what students do when they go home after school?... they go to their facebook maybe.. or there twitter page any social networking site these days.. so maybe create your school a group or twitter page and allow updates to be sent via this.. (this is not telling every school they should open up facebook etc inside the school network) but you are just keeping with the modern ways of communication.. you know what they are going to do when they go home so use that to your advantage rather than a weakness! (*I know allot of people may have different thoughts on this, and quite so.. but I personally did not think of this and think it is a great way to make people aware*)

Planning was also something that was talked about quite allot at the conference and this is very important especially if you are just thinking about implementing a solution. Alex had 2 useful slides that I really liked and I recommend everyone has a look at them some print screens can be found here: Content for the Learning Gateway - Alex Pearce's Learning Gateway Blog - Learning Gateway User Group as he previously mentioned it at an event he spoke at. but this are very useful if you want a great way to plan where content is going to be published.

Novotronix did give us a demo on some webparts they have created to extract reports out of your MIS system... if you are a Data Manager or someone who has to extract and manipulate reports and get fed up of doing it every 5 minutes because not everyone knows how to do this then i would highly recommend you take a look at there webparts they have available.. i am sure if you contact them or networksi they will be able to give you more information on that! worth a look if anything.. will save alot of time!

I do not have the slide deck as of yet but I should have this in the next day or so and I will happily post it on here for people to take a look at.

I hope I have not rambled on too much there, but I just wanted to pass over some information to the community as some valid points were made during the day and it is something that everyone needs to think about.

On another note:

As for all of you who did attend the conference, I am very pleased to hear your great feedback about Edugeek and your thoughts on the new features that have been implemented.. these have been passed back to the boss himself

Oh! and by the way the 30 pizzas did go down very nicely! and I think the NetworkSi Employee's had a great end of day meal with them! (god there were loads)

Once again thank you for inviting me to the conference, I had a great time and I am glad to see the hard work pay off, thank you to all the speakers/presenters throughout the day you did a grand job and a big thank you to all the NetworkSi Staff who helped out you did a grand job and I am probably not the only one that felt welcomed (you have a nice building btw)

James.

Content for the Learning Gateway

Alex Pearce — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 20:22:26 GMT

I recently spoke at an event about engaging users in your Learning Gateway with the right content in the right areas.

You have content everywhere. Don’t think that content is just a Word document or SCORM files you have brought from a content supplier. Content is everywhere, it changes everyday, the school newsletter, the latest year 10 football team win or the gossip around the staff room, your MIS system.

Below is a table I showed in a recent presentation and how you can list all your content.

Down the side of the table you list all the content from around the school while at the top you list the areas of where you can present this information.

If we evaluate this we can now see where we can put that content both within the Learning Gateway and external sources such as the school website, Twitter and Facebook.

From the table above we can now see where we can advertise that the school football team beat the local rival school, and of course you want to share that will the outside world.

Looking at it from another angle, when you have filled in this table you can see what content needs to be on your website and the different areas of the Learning Gateway.

The 10 examples of content above are very few that you could have. Each teaching department could fill something like this in and get at least 20 different ideas of what content to deliver and where.

Windows 7 – Movie Maker

Alan Richards — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 09:29:14 GMT

IT ISNT THERE

I know the first line may seem a strange way to start a post but it just isn’t there.

if you work in a School you probably find that at some point your teachers want to use Windows Movie Maker with students. Its a simple program to use and gets the students involved early on in producing some basic movies.

However you may be in for a shock because Windows 7 does not include Movie Maker unlike all the previous incarnations of Windows. You now have to download it as part of Windows Live.

This makes it very interesting as of course it wants to install from the web and if you have this sort of things blocked on your filtering system you won’t be able to do it this way. Don’t despair though as if you click the download button and cancel the 1.09Mb download you will see a Try Again button

Clicking the Try Again button will download the full fat install package which is about 134Mb

You can then install Movie Maker using this large file; one word of warning though is that it includes all of the Live apps so make sure you untick anything you don’t want on your PC’s

You also need to be aware that Windows Live Movie Maker as a default seems to block the importing of files from network drives, you can alter this by adding a registry entry in the HKey_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\Windows Live\Movie Maker

The registry entry to add is a DWord called AllowNetworkFiles and set it to 1

The only problem with this is that it would need to be set every time a user logs on as it is a current user setting.

Alternative

After a conversation yesterday we tried copying the Movie Maker folder from a Vista machine onto a network and this seems to work perfectly, so if you don’t want to mess around with all the above just find a Vista machine and copy the Movie Maker folder to a network location.

Windows 7 Early Adopters Forum

Alan Richards — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:08:00 GMT

Today I attended the Windows 7 Early Adopters Forum meeting at Microsofts Reading campus. Organised by Mike Herrity of Twynham School and hosted by Ray Fleming of Microsoft, it was a meeting of Network Managers from across the country who had all decided to deploy Windows 7 as soon as it was pretty much released.

At this point I would like to put in writing my thanks to both Mike and Ray Fleming for organising the day and inviting me.

A few of us had prepared presentations and we also came up with 5 reasons to choose Windows 7 and 5 tips for deployment.

If you want to check out the presentations then take a look at Mikes excellent blog

Windows 7 – Issues

Alan Richards — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:59:20 GMT

This post is the last in my Windows 7 series and it is going to be a now holds barred look at issues we have had with installation and running Windows 7 as an early adopter.

Before I start I have one thing to say; I love Windows 7. I genuinely think that this operating system is the best Microsoft have come up with in a long time. In all my Schools I have always gone for early adoption of anything that Microsoft released; when I did this with Windows Vista at The Long Eaton School it caused quite a few problems and Vista never lived up to the hype.

With Windows 7 we have had less irritation from staff; students have loved it and some of its features just have a wow factor. So on to the issues:

Installation

This was a breeze really, with WDS and MDT 2010 we had no issues with installation at all

Laptops and Hibernation

We only happened across this issue by chance. A member of staff kept complaining that when they moved rooms they lost wireless connection and so could not do their register. There is one thing you have to bear in mind while reading this. We have just installed, as part of a whole site network upgrade, a HP fully managed wireless solution that gives us FULL school coverage.

After further investigation and running the obligatory IPConfig we found a strange result. The IP address appeared as shown below.

172.16.1.15 (preferred)

No matter what we did it wouldn't ping anything. So renewed the IP address and everything kicked into life.

After some testing we found that when certain laptops hibernated (closing the lid) and came back on they did not reconnect the IP stack. We solved the problem by setting group policy to not hibernate the laptops when the lid closed.

Drivers

Some of our older machines installed Windows 7 with no problems but could not find the drivers for certain bits of hardware. The main culprits are the VGA cards in old Dell’s. Windows 7 recognises the card but does not have any drivers and unfortunately Dell only has drivers for up to Windows XP.

We haven’t resolved this problem as yet

Default Route

On a number of machines we found that Widows 7 decided to create a default route. While this is normal practice, Windows 7 ignored the metrics, so even if we set the actual route with a lower metric Windows tried to use the default route.

The route looks like this in the routing table

0.0.0.0 OnLink

We resolved this issue by adding an entry to the registry for DisableDHCPMediaSense

This is quite a well know issue which first appeared in Vista SP1

Conclusions

I only have one conclusion – Why haven’t you installed Windows 7 already.

It is a major step forward in Microsoft's OS portfolio and for the first time in a long time, I am actually having fun with an OS

MDT 2010 – Advanced Options

Alan Richards — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:55:15 GMT

Multicast Deployments

As a basic install MDT 2010 uses a standard Windows share to distribute its images. While this works its not ideal for large scale deployments.

You can enable multicast deployment using Windows Deployment Services while still keeping the functionality of MDT 2010.

Right click the deployment share

Select Properties

Put a tick in the Enable Multicast and click OK

Hiding Windows

In a standard task sequence you will be prompted for information that you didn’t setup in the initial task sequence setup

To hide windows or skip tasks right click the task sequence and select Properties

Click on the Task Sequence tab

From here you can disable steps in the process

So as an example to disable the BitLocker step

Click on the Enable BitLocker option on the left
Click on Options
And select Disable this step
Click on Apply

You can disable as many steps as you like and than click on OK

So that's a couple of features that will help you make deploying a bit faster

Installing Windows 7 – MDT 2010 Part 2

Alan Richards — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:30:25 GMT

This part of the series is going to look at capturing an image using MDT 2010. For this you will need you master machine you created earlier with your base Windows 7 image plus all of the necessary software that you want on the PC’s

Creating the Capture Task Sequence

Right click Task Sequences and select New Task Sequence

Give the sequence a name and description

Select Sysprep and Capture

Select the image you created earlier

Complete the rest of the screens as you did in the previous task

Once created right click on the capture sequence and select properties

Click the task sequence tab

Find the Execute Sysprep option and click it

Click on the Options tab

Click Disable this step

Click OK

Capturing The Image

Capturing the image is a two stage process, I prefer to sysprep the machine manually and then capture the image using MDT 2010.

On your master PC click the windows button and type: C:\windows\system32\sysprep\sysprep and hit Enter

Set the options as below

The computer will now reboot

To capture the image follow these steps

Boot the PC to the network
Select the Lite Touch Boot Image
Set the keyboard layout and click Run Deployment Wizard
Enter a username and password that has access rights to your deployment share
Select the capture sequence task you created earlier
Select the Capture An Image option
Ensure the location is correct
Give the image file a name
Click Begin on the summary page

The capture will now begin and once completed you can use the steps in Part 1 to create a task sequence to deploy this image

Installing Windows 7 – MDT 2010 Part 1

Alan Richards — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:57:21 GMT

This post is the next in the series about installing Windows 7 and will deal with using Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010. I am going to split it into two sections.

Part 1 - Installing MDT 2010, Importing Operating System, Deploying Base Operating System

Part 2 – Capturing an image, Deploying captured image

You can download the executable to install from Microsoft website, you have 2 choices the x86 or x64 versions depending on what platform you are installing to.

I have installed MDT 2010 to the same server we use for WDS so it’s a x64 platform with Windows Server 2008 R2 installed.

Once you have installed the package you should now have a menu item for Microsoft Deployment Toolkit

Open the Deployment Workbench option

Your first step should be to check that you have all the components necessary to run MDT 20010. To do this click on the Components section and check that all required components are installed

You now need to create a deployment share

The first step is to create a folder on the server and share it out. The share permissions are up to you but I have ours set with domain admins as full and everyone as read only

Right click on the Deployment Shares and select New Deployment Share

Enter the path

Share name

Now complete the rest of the screens.

Descriptive name – Something obvious
Allow Image Capture – Put a tick in this if you want to allow MDT to capture images from master machines
Allow Admin Password – I suggest unticking this
Allow Product Key – Again leave this unticked you can script the key

The rest of the screens are self explanatory

You should now see the new share in the window

Expand the new deployment share

We now need to add a base Windows 7 image from the DVD

Right click on the Operating Systems folder and select Import Operating System

We are going to go for the Full set of source files, you will need the DVD for this

Clicking Next will take you to the screen to select the source files (DVD)

You then need to select the destination directory name

Click Next twice and the import will commence (It will take a while)

Once it is complete you should right click on the MDT Share and select Update Deployment Share

Click Next twice and it will start to update the share (I normally do this after any change to the images or share)

Create A Task Sequence

To deploy the image you need to create a task sequence

From the deployment share right click on Task Sequences and select New Task Sequence

Give this sequence an obvious name and description

Select from the list of option for the task template – Standard Client is normally OK

Select the image you will be installing

The next screens will ask you for the following details

Product Key – If you are using an in-house licensing server then you can leave this as not provided
Name etc – Complete as per your organisation details
Administrator Password – Again complete as per your organisations policy

Click Next on the summary and the task sequence is complete

Deploying The Image

To this I would recommend using Windows Deployment Services to pump out the boot PXE file, this can be achieved by opening the WDS management console

Right click Boot Images and select Add Boot Image
Browse to find the LiteTouchPE file. This will normally be in a boot folder in your deployment share.
Complete the wizard screens with all the relevant information
Once the boot image has been added start up a PC and boot it from the network
When prompted with the boot image selection screen, select the new Lite Touch Boot option
You will now be greeted with a Solution Accelerators screen
Change the keyboard layout to the correct one
Click Run The Deployment Wizard
Enter user details that have access rights to your deployment share
Select the task sequence you created earlier
Give the machine a name
Decide if you want it to join the domain
Select if you want the user data restored (normally not)
Set the languages
Set your time zone
According to your company policy set or not set bitlocker

Your image should now start deploying and the next screen you should see is the one telling you it has completed

Installing Windows 7 – WDS (Part 2)

Alan Richards — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:18:03 GMT

This post is going to concentrate on using Windows Deployment Services to rollout images you create to your PC’s and laptops. In part 1 we installed WDS and added a basic Windows 7 image and a boot image. This combination allowed us to install Windows 7 onto multiple PC’s without the need for the DVD

One of the great things about WDS and Windows 7 is the continued use of wim image files which in effect are hardware agnostic. Using this feature you can build up a PC with all the required software and then capture an image of that PC to install on all your other computers.

Capture Image

Right click on the boot image you created in Part 1 and select Create Capture Image

Change the name and description to show that this is a capture image
Select a location for the new capture image
Click Next and WDS will create the capture image

You will now have 2 boot images

Creating the master PC

The next step in this process is to create the master machine. For this you need to install Windows 7 and then all the software that you want to be on the PC. At West Hatch we have 3 images.

Standard student – Includes all the commonly used software
Teacher – As above but includes some specific teacher software
Design and Technology – Same as the student plus CAD / CAM software and other D&T software

Once you have built the PC and got all the software on it you need to prepare it to be captured. To do this you have to run sysprep.exe, which you will find in the folder: C:\windows\system32\sysprep\

Select all the options as shown above and click OK
Once the machine reboots, select F12 and boot from the network
From the DOS type screen now you should see 2 boot images: Select the Capture Boot Image you created earlier
You will now get a screen that asks you:
- Which drive you wish to capture (normally C:)
- Which server to upload the image to (your WDS server)
- What username to use to connect to the server
- If you have created any install groups then you can choose which group to upload it to
Once you have selected all the options and clicked on OK the capture process will continue. (this can take a while)

Your capture is now complete, next time you want to install an image to a new or broken PC then you will have the basic image you created in Part 1 plus the images you created in Part 2.

All you need to do now is go and create as many images as you need.

Installing Windows 7 – WDS (Part 1)

Alan Richards — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:13:00 GMT

This post is going to explain how to install Windows Deployment Services to rollout images to your PC’s and laptops.

Installing and ConfiguringWindows Deployment Services

This is a straightforward procedure. I would recommend highly using Windows Server 2008 R2 as WDS has been improved upon in the new R2 version.

From Server Manager select Add Roles
Add the WDS role
Once the role has been added open up the management console
Right click on the server and select configure
Follow the wizard screens to configure the server

You will be asked at some point through the process to add an image. For this you will need your Windows 7 DVD

We now have a basic configured WDS server with a Windows 7 image. You now need to create a Boot Image to be able to install Windows 7 onto your PC's

Create a Boot Image

Right click on the boot images folder and select Add Boot Image
In the file location box, browse to find the boot.wim on the Winodws 7 DVD
Click Next
Give the image a name and description you will recognise
Click Next
The boot image will now be created

Installing an image to a PC

You now have a basic image and boot image. To install this image boot your PC from the network (normally by selecting F12 at start up)
You should now get a DOS type menu that has one option with the name you created in the earlier steps
Select this and then work through the wizard screens to install your base Windows 7 image to the PC

Simple really

Once the image has been applied the PC will reboot and you will then be greeted with a few screens to complete the setup

Part 2

In part 2 of the WDS section I am going to explain how we used WDS to capture an image and then install that image to our PC’s

STSADM Command Line Reference Guide

Simon Taylor-Jones — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:20:53 GMT

For a brilliant list of the STSADM commands have a look here

http://www.wssdemo.com/Lists/stsadm/AllItems.aspx

Powered by Qumana

Installing Windows 7 – Options

Alan Richards — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:22:57 GMT

As promised here is part 1 of the installing Windows 7 series. In this part I am going to look at your options for installing Windows 7 across a large site.

In place Upgrade

This is obviously an option but I would say the least preferable for a large scale rollout. For a start you can’t upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7 so if you are making that large leap, that immediately rules out this option.

I only used this used for 3 machines that had Vista on them and Sims – there was no way I was going through the trauma of installing Sims onto Windows 7 (especially after the joys of doing it on Vista)

DVD Installation

You could, of course, go around every single machine and install from the DVD. Only problem is by the time you have finished the next version of Windows will be out !!

Plus unless you have systems in place for installing software you need to do this manually as well.

Windows Deployment Services

This option is one of my favourites, it makes the installation of Windows 7 simple and straight forward. The basics are that you have a server that you use to home images and install those images onto clients using PXE booting. WDS in Windows Server 2008 R2 is very much improved and I will go into more detail about this in a later post.

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010

I liken this product to a cut down version of System Center Config Manager (SCCM). Again like WDS it is simple to use but it also gives you the option to install applications as well. MDT 2010 is very script driven and so you can script nearly all of the install pages and produce a near zero touch installation of Windows 7

So that was very short – the next posts will go into more detail and the issues we have come up against as we rolled out Windows 7 across our site.

Installing Windows 7

Alan Richards — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:33:16 GMT

As one of the first Schools to install Windows 7 across the School site I thought I would pass on our experiences.

So to that end I am going to write a series of blog posts on the following subjects]

Installation options
Windows Deployment Services
Microsoft Deployment Tools 2010
Issues

Each topic will be a separate post and the first one will appear soon.

Welcome

Alan Richards — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:13:00 GMT

Hello one and all to my new blog.

Firstly thank you to Alex for letting me host it here. The blog will hopefully provide a resource for anyone in IT.

New posts will start to appear soon.

How to upload documents to a document library

Simon Taylor-Jones — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:43:00 GMT

1. Once you have created your document save it where you normally save your documents.

2. Now in your document library please the upload button

3. You will now see the upload screen

4. Press the browse button

5. The default Windows browse button will appear and browse to where your document is.

6. Press OK

7. You will notice that the location (path) is now displayed in the name box

8. You can choose to overwrite existing files if required

9. Now press the OK button

10. You will now be able to enter the properties that you specified earlier.

11. Fill in the required information, which in this case is:

Title: Test Document

Type of resource: Lesson Plan

Type of document: Word

12. Press OK

13. You document has now been uploaded to the document library, and the document library is automatically shown.

Searching for your content

Simon Taylor-Jones — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:41:00 GMT

The search feature in MOSS 2007 is extremely powerful and can be configured in various ways that include searching your current list, document library and site, and normal network shares.

Most websites let you search the site. You will see that there is a search box in the top right of most of the pages in SharePoint. Users can use this search box to search the site or list that they're viewing.

Scenario

You are planning a lesson on trench warfare, and you want to see if there are already some resources available.

You could just go to the history document library and browse for all documents that have trench and warfare in the title. And you would find some results, but what if the title is WW2? What if the English department have some war poetry resources?

The steps below will show you how to search just document libraries and lists, the current site you are in and the whole SharePoint Portal

The image below shows a History Document Library, that has lots of resources in it.

2. In the search box enter 'trench warfare' and the results will be displayed. The result page shows the user the following:

· Title of the resource

· Some instances of the search criteria – trench warfare

· Location of the resource

But what about the possible English resources?

On the top navigation bar you will see a search tab. By pressing the search tab button you will be taken to the Search Centre

3. In the search box enter war and press the magnifying glass. Your results will show information from any where on the portal that has the word 'war' in it.

Discussion Boards

Simon Taylor-Jones — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:56:00 GMT

A discussion board is an online notice board. You will probably see some discussions on your staff pages, but you can also use discussion boards on your pupils and families areas to start group discussions.

How to add a discussion board

1. Navigate to the site where you want to add your discussion board

2. Select the 'View All Site Content ' link in the top left corner

3. Click the 'Create' button

4. The main create page will load up

5. Under Communications choose 'Discussion Board'

6. The 'New' page will load up

7. Enter the Name of the discussion board. Use a self descriptive name like 'Main Staff Discussion Board'

8. Choose whether or note you want it to appear in the quick launch bar

9. Press 'Create'

10. Your new discussion board will appear.

11. Press the 'New' button to start a new discussion.

12. The 'New Item' page loads

13. Enter the subject title for your new discussion. Something like: 'What improvements would you like to see on the VLE?' or for the pupils 'What is your favourite subject or topic?

NOTE: Be careful not to use a discussion board as a way to get data back from your users, if you want to get data back from users you will need to use a Survey.

14. In the body of the 'New Item' page you can enter your first opinion, or leave it blank if you are just posing a question.

15. You will now see that your new discussion topic has appeared in the list.

Embed Windows Movie Player on your page

Simon Taylor-Jones — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:46:00 GMT

Add a Content Editor WebPart to your page/site

Open the source editor and paste in the code below: and edit the URL Value to point to the Windows Media file on your site

</OBJECT>

List of all the standard WebParts and a description of what they do

Simon Taylor-Jones — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:44:00 GMT

Web Parts in common with WSSv3

Content Editor Web Part
Use for formatted text, tables, and images.

Form Web Part
Use to connect simple form controls to other Web Parts.

Image Web Part
Use to display pictures and photos.

Members
Use the Members Web Part to see a list of the site members and their online status.

Page Viewer Web Part
Use to display linked content, such as files, folders, or Web pages. The linked content is isolated from other content on the Web Part Page.

Relevant Documents
Use this webpart to display documents that are relevant to the current user.

User Tasks
Use this webpart to display tasks that are assigned to the current user.

XML Web Part
Use for XML, and XSL Transformation of the XML.

List View Web Part

Data View Web Part

Web Parts specific to MOSS 2007

Business Data

Business Data Actions
Display a list of actions from the Business Data Catalog.

Business Data Item
Display one item from a data source in the Business Data Catalog.

Business Data Item Builder
Creates a Business Data item from parameters in the query string and provides it to other web parts. This web part is only used on Business Data profile pages.

Business Data List
Display a list of items from a data source in the Business Data Catalog.

Business Data Related List
Display a list of items related to one or more parent items from a data source in the Business Data Catalog.

Content Rollup

Colleague Tracker
Displays your list of colleagues and any recent changes they made have had.

Memberships
Displays your site and distribution list memberships.

My Links
Use to display your links

My SharePoint Sites
Use to display documents authored by you on sites where you are a member and sites of your choice.

My Workspaces
Displays sites created under your My Site.

Site Aggregator
Use to display sites of your choice.

Dashboard

Key Performance Indicators
Shows a list of status indicators. Status indicators display important measures for your organization, and show how your organization is performing with respect to your goals.

KPI Details
Displays the details of a single status indicator. Status indicators display an important measure for an organization and may be obtained from other data sources including SharePoint lists, Excel workbooks, and SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services KPIs.

Other

Excel Web Access
Use the Excel Web Access to interact with an Excel 2007 workbook as a Web page.

I need to…
Displays tasks and tools from a list

IView Web Part
Displays iViews from SAP portal servers.

RSS Viewer
Renders RSS Feed

This Week in Pictures
Use to display the images library in the News web

WSRP Consumer Web Part
Displays portlets from web sites using WSRP 1.1.

Filters

Authored List Filter
Filter the contents of web parts using a list of values entered by the page author.

Business Data Catalog Filter
Filter the contents of web parts using a list of values from the Business Data Catalog.

Current User Filter
Filter the contents of web parts by using properties of the current page.

Date Filter
Filter the contents of web parts by allowing users to enter or pick a date.

Filter Actions
Filter Actions

Page Field Filter
Filter the contents of web parts using information about the current page.

Query String (URL) Filter
Filter the contents of web parts using values passed via the query string.

SharePoint List Filter
Filter the contents of web parts by using a list of values from a Office SharePoint Server list.

SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services Filter
Filter the contents of web parts using a list of values from SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services cubes.

Text Filter
Filter the contents of web parts by allowing users to enter a text value.

Misc

Contact Details
Use to display details about a contact for this page or site

Outlook Web Access

My Calendar
Use to display your calendar. This part works with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 and above.

My Contacts
Displays your contacts using Outlook Web Access for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.

My Inbox
Displays your inbox using Outlook Web Access for Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 or later.

My Mail Folder
Displays your calendar using Outlook Web Access for Microsoft Exchange Server 2000 or later.

My Tasks
Displays your tasks using Outlook Web Access for Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 or later.

Advanced Search Box
Entry point for advanced search

People Search Box
Entry point for people search

People Search Core Results
Web part to display the people search results.

Search Box
Entry point for search.

Search Core Results
Web part to display the search results.

Search High Confidence Results
Web part to display the special term and high confidence results.

Search Paging
Displays search paging.

Search Statistics
Displays search statistics.

Search Summary
Displays search summary.

Site Directory

Categories
Displays categories from the Site Directory

Sites in Category
Displays sites in the Site Directory

Top Sites
Display the top sites from Site Directory

Really useful toolbar for your pages! Add a print view, Send to, Add to favourites and more. And its FREE

Simon Taylor-Jones — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:25:00 GMT

This is a brilliant toolbar to add a bit a usability to your sites and pages.

Download the DWP file here and import it to your web part gallery

http://james.milne.com/SPPageToolBar/Demo/

Remove Quick Launch Bar

Simon Taylor-Jones — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:21:00 GMT

Want to remove that sometimes annoying Quick launch bar and reclaim that space?

Add content editor web part.
Click the Source code button

And paste the following code:

<style>

.ms-nav

{

display: none;

}

</style>