Introduction to SharePoint - Part 3

If the notion of browsing to the Office 365 for Education portal, logging in, and navigating to a document before you even get started is just too much trouble, well – your right. It is too much trouble.  If using SharePoint to manage documents is not at least as convenient as using your local hard drive, then getting your users to embrace it will be a challenge.

Sure, when they really need to access a document that someone else created, they will go through the trouble. After all SharePoint is better than sneaker net;  but  without easy access to documents, both coming and going, they will likely not venture outside the My Documents folder.

So how do we make the wonderful world of collaboration possible? There are three ways that come to mind immediately. Let’s take a look at them from a more practical point of view.  I’ll even suggest a bonus method at the end of this article.

1. Through an app from your favorite app store
2. Using one of the Office Professional Plus programs
3. Using the SharePoint Synchronization tool

Applications from the App Store:

 

If the first thing that comes to mind when I say app, is the App Store, then there is a good chance you are using an iOS device (iPad, iPhone, etc.). There are a huge number of apps that have a SharePoint component.  This is also called a WebDav connection.

 

Check in the settings of your favorite app to see if there is not a SharePoint or WebDav connector. If so then you have the capability to connect to SharePoint. Now what you may or may not be able do once connected is a function of that specific app and outside the scope of this article.

 

In summary, most apps are designed for mobile devices to improve the function of a product or service offering as compared to simply browsing to the respective website. This is especially true of iOs (Apple) devices which do not always display content designed for Windows endpoints. For Windows phones the content is generally more accessible by browsing directly, vs. through an app, thus there is less of a need for apps in the first place.

 

Office Professional Plus Program:

 

A much more elegant and practical tool for managing documents is to do so directly from within one of the core Office Professional Plus programs. The most common of these is Microsoft Word, but the interaction is similar in other programs. The exception is OneNote which does the synchronization automatically (see my article about OneNote).

 

From within Microsoft Word for example, you simply create a file, complete with all of the complexity you can muster, then instead of selecting “S” for Save, or “S” for Save As, you instead select Save and Send and choose the SharePoint option. Although this will take just a few seconds longer, including a login screen for the first time you are using this program in the current session. You will be prompted to save your document directly into the SharePoint Cloud.

 

Opening a document is also straightforward, but instead of browsing to a folder, you browse to a SharePoint Workspace.

 

A word about sessions and session state is in order. One of my personal frustrations is the limitations on sessions in the Office 365 environment. You can actually map a drive letter to a SharePoint document library and save documents directly to a lettered drive, but only during the time a session is alive. Office 365 sessions expire after a couple of hours of inactivity. And the mapping will cease to work, unless you recreate it.

 

 SharePoint Workspace Synchronization Tool

 

One of the most efficient tools to manage your document library on SharePoint is with the SharePoint Workspace Synchronization tool. This utility works in the background and automatically synchronizes documents in a specified folder on your computer with a specified folder in SharePoint. This is an incredible tool, but use it with caution!

 

The caution is advised in two ways. First, be cautious that you don’t try to synchronize a folder that has multiple GB’s of documents, otherwise you will spend a lot of computing resources constantly keeping two large data sets in synch. Second, be cautious about synchronizing a folder accessed by more than a few users.

 

The presumption of a synchronization tool is to keep two locations in synch. Adding huge amounts of data or additional storage locations into the mix can be problematic.

 

Bonus

 

I could have mentioned this in last week’s article, but there is also a very powerful drag and drop capacity within SharePoint by using your browser. And this is where you will need to use Internet Explorer, and a later version at that. You can open your SharePoint site collection in an Internet Explorer browser window by ftp and then select the option to open the folder in Windows Explorer (not the same as Internet Explorer) and navigate the folders directly on your desktop. This would enable you to open two folders side by side on your desktop and drag and drop multiple files between your SharePoint site collection and your desktop.

 

Summary

 

If you have not yet gotten beyond browsing to the Office 365 for Education Portal, then signing in, and choosing the Team Site option, you are not using SharePoint efficiently. While this may in fact be more efficient than your previous experience of sharing files, it is SharePoint kindergarten. We want you to earn a graduate degree in SharePoint and become the model of efficiency.

 

Next week we will discuss using SharePoint as your public facing website and why it may be an excellent option for you. 

Implementing SharePoint - Part 2

The best place to start when attempting to understand SharePoint is your favorite internet browser. And we could easily get sidetracked into a discussion about browsers, but I’ll pass on that. SharePoint plays well with all Internet Browsers, but as you may have already guessed, it works optimally with Internet Explorer…. no surprise there!

So let’s browse right on over to the Office 365 for Education Portal. And if you don’t remember or write down anything else in this series of articles, remember this: https://portal.microsoftonline.com. This is the portal or gateway into all of the services offered in the Office 365 for Education solution. Once you log into the portal, you will have access to all of the services. And if you are an administrator, this is where you will also manage services for your organization.

Upon logging into the portal, you will see a link at the top for Team Site. This is your default SharePoint site. Once you are comfortable with accessing your SharePoint site, you can browse directly to it, rather than from within the Office 365 for Education Portal.

During signup or trial, your domain name will be assigned a default domain name similar to myschool.onmicrosoft.com. You will want to add your own domain name to the service as soon a possible, otherwise the URLs in this article might be confusing. Ultimately, the URL you you use to access SharePoint you will be something like myschool.sharepoint.com and that will also be the shortcut I referred to earlier.

Note: The “myschool” part of the domain name represents a third level name that belongs to your organization, names are available on a first come first served basis, and once accepted by the Office 365 for Education system, is registered with Microsoft as belonging to your Office 365 for Education subscription.

So now that we have got through all of the preliminaries of getting access to your Team Site, lets focus on what you can do there.

Your first experience with SharePoint may be similar to my first experience with a Personal Computer back in 1982. I anxiously hooked it up, powered it on, and was presented with a black screen and a blinking cursor. Hmmm, reality is such a harsh companion. SharePoint is not really like that, but the analogy is fair.

If you are expecting a default SharePoint site to be automatically customized to your organizational structure, filing system, internal process and work flows, you will be disappointed. In fact, the first takeaway from this article is that SharePoint requires you to become an information architect. You really need to think about your organization, how you manage documents and information, then begin the process of configuring SharePoint accordingly.

And since this is a team effort, it is essential that you engage your team. Doing so will accomplish two things. First it will improve your design and configuration experience, but perhaps as important it will engage your users so they will take ownership of SharePoint project and participate. Adoption among team members is always a challenge when rolling out SharePoint in your organization.

Admittedly it is unfair to be tasked with designing an information system for your organization when you do not know the capabilities of the information system at hand (SharePoint); hence my attempts at education in this series of articles. But as counterintuitive as it may seem, I would suggest that you start not with SharePoint, but with your own organization.

Take inventory of the types of documents you create, share, and file. Consider how you schedule events, meetings, and appointments. Evaluate how you create, update, and share lists and directories. And look closely at important relationships between organizations and groups and the projects they manage. Only after you have done this homework assignment, will you be capable of bringing your ideas and SharePoint’s efficiency into your organization.

Of course you will need to understand the basic capabilities of SharePoint in order to complete your design project, so let’s summarize the major SharePoint features and see if the workflows and processes you’ve dreamed up are possible.

Here are my top 10 favorite capabilities of SharePoint as it would apply to a charter school. Think about these ideas as you consider your SharePoint design project. SharePoint is:

A cloud based centralized filing system for all of your school documents

SharePoint is like a hard drive on the internet or a cloud based network share that gives access to authorized users and denies access to those unauthorized.  It stores documents of all types and formats, including forms, manuals, letters, reports, lesson plans, policy manuals, tests, assessments, lunch menus, etc. If you create, modify, or store information on a PC, it generally can exist in SharePoint.

A centralized store of lists, directories, and databases

Consider all of the lists you have in a busy school, everything from addresses, to school supplies, to vendors.  SharePoint can serve as the single repository of these lists and other data sets, that is both search and filter enabled. Consolidating all of your lists, directories, and databases, to the extend possible will greatly improve the efficiency of referencing information for all of your staff.

A centralized calendar of events for the school

Do you have challenges managing your calendar? SharePoint can serve as the one authorized and consistently updated calendar for all school activities. This calendar can be managed by one or several individuals and can provide automatic notifications for changes or pending approvals. This calendar can also be published to your public facing website eliminating the never ending process of updating the schools calendar on the website.

A discussion board, forum, or online meeting place

Amazing things happen when creativity and collaboration collide. SharePoint can serve as an internal meeting place where questions and documents can be posted and then discussed, without formal meeting times. The byproduct of this dialogue is a very useful knowledge base.

A Wiki

An intersting phenomena called Wikipdia, exists on the same platform as SharePoint. A SharePoint wiki can be a free flowing digital asset where all team members can contribute ideas, thoughts, insights or resources and links to resources.

A school wide issue resolution & tracking system

Technology and facilities management can be greatly improved when all interested parties have the latest information on issues and problems. SharePoint can serve as an issue tracking system that is continuously updated and available to all users. It can be created with complex work rules, time stamps, escalations, and automated communications or be as simple as a system a tod do list, with a status indication and user identification.

An image library

An important legal requirement for using photos at school includes protecting the identity of students and others. SharePoint is an excellent centralized storage facility for all approved imagery for use in school publications, communication, and presentations.

A video library

Yes, there is You Tube and other video sharing sites, but carte blanche access to these resources can put you at odds with CIPA requirements.  SharePoint can serve as a centralized storage facility for instructional videos. This can include both actual videos or links to approved videos for use in the classroom or for administrative purposes. And you can keep these organized by groups or simply lump them all together and allow the built in search features of SharePoint to provide you the access needed.

A social media system

Many schools prohibit the use of Facebook at school, which may be wise; but in doing so they limit students ability to learn important behavioral skills in the social arena. SharePoint, in the default Office 365 for Education configuration, provides a robust social media system that is restricted to the school, yet enjoys many Facebook like features. And the entire system can be managed by school administrators.

A Learning Management System

Some of the worlds most well know universities run on SharePoint LMS, a learning management system built on SharePoint. While this may not be appropriate for your school, SharePoint is a great way to share lesson plans with precise groups of students, discussion forums for each teacher/grade, resource listings, links, and social connections within classes.

All of these features listed above can be configured for your organization with SharePoint. And all of these systems would be present to you when you login as an authorized user at myschool.sharepoint.com or at the Office 365 for Education portal.

Next week we will discuss ways in which the management of SharePoint documents can be improved.

Implementing SharePoint at Your School

One of the core technologies I recommend for managing information at school is SharePoint, a core element of the Office 365 for Education system. I have mentioned SharePoint in several articles over the past two years and it continues to be a favorite tool at some of our partner schools. And while SharePoint is an enormously popular solution in larger commercial enterprises, it tends to have poor adoption in the Charter Schools community, as well as many other smaller organizations. 

While working with our partner schools, I constantly evaluate the barriers to implementation and have come to the conclusion that the primary reason SharePoint has lackluster adoption is its complexity. My purpose in the next few articles is to explore different ways you access SharePoint and what it can do for your organization.  Like many complex systems, SharePoint can be mastered - and the benefits are quite compelling.

 

SharePoint is a web based technology that allows you to share information from most endpoints with an Internet browser or from one of a myriad of applications on those endpoints. An application can exist on either a desktop or laptop (Windows or Mac), on a tablet (Windows, iOS, Droid), or on your smart phone. Understanding the difference between accessing SharePoint from the browser vs. an application installed on an endpoint is a key to understanding how it works. 

Once you understand the mechanics of connecting to SharePoint, using it becomes a little less confusing. It is probably helpful to also broadly categorize the kinds of SharePoint sites you might use.

SharePoint sites exist in two broad categories. There are public facing (Internet) websites and private facing (intranet) websites. Public SharePoint sites are just like other sites on the World Wide Web, containing images, text, forms, and features. Private SharePoint sites are collections of data that you share internally, or at least share in a controlled manner. Access rights is another very important SharePoint concept and mirror the access rights to files found in all computer operating systems. 

One of the most popular uses of SharePoint is document collaboration, which is often associated with sharing documents as we once did using “Shared” folders. But, this is not just document sharing, rather it includes a wide array of features associated with creating, sharing, storing, distributing, securing, and archiving documents. Furthermore, SharePoint provides clever notifications about your documents and automates the filing of those documents. And finally SharePoint contains a built in search mechanism which enables you to quickly located documents within a variety of site collections – like a Google search, except just for your website.

There are a number of reasons we use SharePoint instead of SkyDrive, DropBox, Google Docs, Evernote, or another cloud based sharing service. It boils down to features, function, and capacity. SharePoint has many features not found in consumer grade sharing sites, it functions well with all types of computing platforms (Windows, MAC, iOS, Droid, etc.), and has the capacity to grow with us into a fully integrated system. Consumer oriented technology that works well for a few users , does not always work well in larger organizations.

Document sharing, the most prevalent use of SharePoint, is the most common starting point for an organization. Unfortunately, many organizations don’t get beyond this functionality to enjoy the more robust features of Sharepoint.

Think of SharePoint as a cloud based shared folder, with all of the advantages and none of the disadvantages of a network “Share”. The advantages are numerous – collaborative work, document libraries, forms repository, document control, revision tracking , anywhere and anytime access, convenience in working from multiple locations, platform independence, and the list goes on.

The disadvantages associated with normal “shared” drives are significant, but do not apply to SharePoint. They include having your document overwritten or deleted by another user – intentionally or otherwise, lack of security for sensitive documents, and lack of controls to prevent simultaneous edits of a document. SharePoint solves all of these and other problems associated with collaborative work.

So how does one access documents on a SharePoint site? There are a number of ways, but they boil down to three overall methods:

1.       Browser based access

2.       Mapped Folders on your computer

3.       Apps or program that automate SharePoint Access

Over the next few weeks, we will address each of these access methods in detail giving you an introduction to the basics of using SharePoint.

With that introduction in mind, let’s take the next few weeks to consider the different ways you can access the SharePoint in your organization. And let’s approach this from the perspective of using Office 365. Few of our schools have the technical resources or capabilities to do SharePoint on premises. It requires servers, configuration, and administration resources that are not typical for most Charter schools.

See you next week...

Microsoft vs. Apple – Either, And, or Both?

I spent an interesting afternoon this week with an experienced teacher and department head of a small private school. I was amazed at how effectively he wielded his Apple iPad. And as we began to discuss the way in which he used the iPad in the classroom, I was even more impressed.

I have often opined that the iPad is a great way of consuming content, but you need a PC with a real keyboard to create content. As is often the case, I was only partly correct in my thinking. True, if you are writing a lengthy article and mostly typing words into a computer, any desktop or laptop computer is far more effective that an iPad or tablet (without an attached keyboard).

But how much classroom content consists of pure text?

Today’s students are best engaged with words, images, and video – and all in an interactive fashion that allows an instructor to  emphasize, dissect, highlight, and notate. And once content is created, to quickly post it to a website where students can gain access.

For many teachers, this is an improbable task. And for many organizations this can be a difficult due to institutional policies and infrastructure limitation, but it should not be so.

While there are a number of solutions to this dilemma, it is important to realize a couple of important principles. And this is the answer to either, and, or both. You can easily create and share content with Windows based devices and Apple or iOS devices or Android devices. But any argument about which DEVICE is better is pointless and mostly a waste of time. The best device to create content on is the device YOU are comfortable creating content on.

Here are three things you should consider as you discover the best way to manage content creation and publication in your public or private web space:

1.       Does the platform, solution, or program you are proposing support all types of devices?

2.       Do you have editorial and access control and ownership of the process and the content?

3.       Does the storage facility or website provide access to all browser types?

One of the technologies we recommend is SharePoint. SharePoint is many things: a shared document repository, a public website, and a development platform. And while the core features of SharePoint are impressive, the real potential of SharePoint is its ability accommodate a very wide variety of devices.

“Accommodating a wide variety of devices” is a little vague.  By this I mean that apps built for the various devices have a specific SharePoint publishing feature built into them.

To check this out, open up one of the many apps you have on your device and see if there is not a SharePoint or WebDAV Server option for file storage. Many of the popular applications I use on my iPad and iPhone come with that functionality.

Remember that getting a document into the cloud or online is only half (or less) of the solution. You also  need to provide a link to the content you just published, provide access control, automate the placement of that content into your student’s workspace, and then provide a venue for feedback or grading in the case of a worksheet or assignment.   Oh and then there is the question of document retention, archiving, and lifespan.

Forgive me if I am overcomplicating a simple solution, but from an institutional point of vew there is a little more going on here than a simple Dropbox sharing. At least it seems to me that there should be a little more going on.

It is apparent that Microsoft has embraced quite thoroughly the consumerization of IT. This is the process by which computing becomes less and less device specific. Our infrastructure must embrace and accommodate solutions that are available to anyone at any time on pretty much any device that is internet capable, to be truly effective.

So when someone asks me whether I like Microsoft or Apple, my response is generally YES – Either, And, or Both! And that is a good place to start in having a conversation about content creation, sharing, and management.                          

 

One Server or Seven – How many do you need?

One Server or Seven – How many do you need

Over the summer I have had occasion to visit a number of new schools. As I have done so, it is quite interesting to hear of the experiences of various school administrators.

One thing that surprised me is the wide variety of resources, measured by server count, which these similar schools possessed.

It would seem, given relative size and complexity that you would find an average server count – such as an average of 2.5 servers per school. But our experience suggests a much wider range of server capacity than you would expect. And while that is an interesting statistic (quite unscientific, I might add) what is even more surprising is the level of satisfaction we found between schools at the opposing end of the spectrum.

The school we observed having the most rational and functional information technology infrastructure had exactly one (1) server.  That school also reported the greatest degree of satisfaction in being able to manage their information systems effectively with very few outside resources.

On the other end of the spectrum was the school with the highest server count, seven (7) to be exact. Contrary to what you would expect, this school complained about irrational IT infrastructure, higher than desired management costs, and a very dysfunctional environment. 

I confess this is a very narrow sample and not a scientific study by any means. But, these are two very real schools, with very capable administrators and staff, each reporting a widely different technology experience.

One of the fundamental challenges we see with Charter Schools is that they are usually operated by administrators who come from traditional school districts, with conventional ways of doing things. That convention sometimes does not work in managing Charter School technology. Size and complexity of technology really does matter when managing a single campus freestanding charter school.

Without a thorough review of systems in either of these schools it would be unfair to characterize their technology providers as being irresponsible, but it begs the question – why so many or few. Sadly the answer may have more to do with the financial well-being of those recommending high server counts than what is best for the school.

Here is a list of common server roles and how you might outsource them at great savings:

Domain controller and active directory server

This common network environment provides user access control and group policy management to simplify administration of users. It requires a unique network ID or login for each user and individual passwords. While this may be necessary for schools that enroll older students, it can be very cumbersome for the younger grades. Students younger than 5^th or 6^th grade have great difficulty remembering usernames and passwords, so there is often a standard username and password published, which in effect invalidates your security policy.

Alternative – Office 365

Consider moving your user authentication to the cloud, where access is anywhere, anytime, and on any device. After all, the most common benefit for having active directory is so that your Desktop, Favorites, and My Documents follow you around.

Web server for hosting your website

Most organizations abandoned this practice years ago as hosting companies began stepping over each other to offer you website hosting facilities for a few dollars each month. But there are still a few diehards who insist on hosting their own website on their own hardware. This might be more of a job security play than a practical solution. Not only is this expensive, but the security ramifications are enormous. If your website sits inside your network perimeter, the chance of a security breach is greatly increased.

Alternative – West Host, Blue Host, or any other Web Hosting company

You honestly cannot even power a webserver inside your building for the cost associated with an annual hosting agreement at a website hosting company. And even if the power to run your web server was free, it would still cost you to maintain it. Only in the most unusual of circumstances does it make sense to host your own website.

Microsoft Exchange Email Server

Email is a critical business system in most schools, so up until recently we had an MS Exchange Email Server in every school we managed. But email as a hosted solution is a much more practical, reliable, and inexpensive solution.

Alternative – Office 365

 Don’t walk, but run to http://www.office 365.com and sign up for Exchange based email services that are now available free to academic organizations. It will be more reliable than your in-house email server, much less expensive to own and operate, and it will eliminate SPAM and Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE).

Exchange based email has so many advantages by way of features, security, and compliance that it is the gold standard communication platform for many organizations – large and small. If you are still using the email accounts that come free with your hosting account then your being negligent and probably spending much more time and energy than you would imagine dealing with the ramifications of such services.

Accounting Application Server

There are some really robust accounting packages used for education and hopefully you have found the right solution. But I have never understood why a charter school enterprise that has essentially one source of funding (State or Federal programs) needs an accounting program costing thousands of dollars each year, when a copy of QuickBooks will do.

But QuickBooks needs a server, right? Well, perhaps not  – a decent business class workstation, yes. A multi-core server with advanced drive arrays, gobs of memory, and expensive tape drive? Probably not.

Alternative – QuickBooks Online

And if you really want to simplify and cut costs, consider QuickBooks online. It requires “0” hardware and is available from anywhere at any time. And that’s pretty handy for allowing administrators access to reports when they are relaxing at home.

Server for Staff Shared Drive(s) or Student Shared Drive(s)

There are many challenges associated with managing documents on a “Shared Drive”, yet this seems to be a standard setup in every school (well except those we configure). This is a classic case of “We’ve always done it that way”, without considering the great improvements of technology advances.

SharePoint has been one of Microsoft’s fastest growing technologies for the past decade. It is the modern day version of a Shared Drive, with many advantages.  It provides all of the sharing capabilities of a shared drive, without the limitations.

Here are the challenges associated with shared drives that SharePoint eliminates:

·         Security – By definition a shared folder is available to pretty much everyone,  at least that is the common scenario. And some things just should not be shared – like HR records, medical records, employment contracts, etc.

·         Overwrites – Ever wiped out another staff members document changes after they spent hours  on a joint project. That’s not a fun experience, but happens routinely with a Shared documents.

·         Versioning – Have you ever edited a document only to discover that the version you had two iterations back was better? Or have you collaborated with someone on a joint project and needed to revisit changes of a month ago? Or do you simply not know which copy of your document contains the latest revisions? That is a common shared drive experience.

·         Notification – Want to know when a document is changed or a document is added to a Shared Drive – good luck, without SharePoint.

Alternative – SharePoint in Office 365

In addition to solving the above challenges associated with Shared Drives, SharePoint also provides real cost savings to your school in the form of reduced IT management costs. Here is how:

·         Eliminating servers will eliminate hours billed at your highest technician rates

·         Eliminating USB drives will save costs and improve access to documents

·         Eliminating access issues (remote access, different classroom access, etc) eliminates IT requirements

Summary

Charter schools, which typically have fewer resources for IT management, can tap into the economies of scale that are the basis of cloud computing. Many traditional “server” requirements can now be outsources with improved security, functionality, and cost. If you have more servers than you need, consider moving that functionality to the cloud.

Why you should ban USB drives at school

After spending hours restoring desktops recently, which a clever student had booted from a rogue USB flash drive loaded with Malware, it dawned on me that the convenience of these handy little gadgets might just be overrated. And when combined with the benefits of the cloud, specifically the free cloud available to students via the Office 365 (live@edu) service, the risks vs. benefit ratio has clearly tipped towards risk.

I know it seems like such a simple way to transport data like homework, projects, photos, etc, but it also just as easy to transport utilities that can destroy the hard drives on your computers, take direct control of the underlying computer hardware, or modify computer registry errors in a way that is nearly impossible to repair.

You may have the very best security practices in place, such as a perimeter Unified Threat Management (UTM) device, endpoint Anti-Virus protection, and separate VLans (network isolation), and yet be vulnerable to a meltdown caused by a free download from the Internet attached directly onto a PC in your school. It is nearly impossible to guarantee computer security if there is physical access to the device.

Banning USB devices is one of the simplest and most effective ways to reduce the cost of network administration in your school.

But aside from the security aspects, there are also some real practical benefits of tossing those USB drives. Let’s take a look at the advantages to see if they don’t, in your specific circumstance, outweigh the benefits.

Here are the top 10 reasons why you should ban USB drives at your school, in favor of the cloud:

• 10) Eliminate the cost of purchasing the hardware. At $5.00 - $75.00 ea. (depending on capacity), you could save a bundle of money.
• 9) Reduce the cost of managing the devices – tracking these identical (presumably) looking devices and accounting for them can be burdensome.
• 8) Avoid the cost of replacing the devices – responsibility for replacing the drives when they are lost; placing identity (ownership) upon them is difficult.
• 7) Reduce plagiarism - unauthorized sharing of work is nearly impossible to detect and prevent while using a flash drive.
• 6) Improve collaboration – accountable sharing of work is possible in the cloud, impossible on a flash drive.
• 5) Reduce support costs – time spent unnecessarily managing infected or otherwise misconfigured hardware is a real cost.
• 4) Lower the cost of your infrastructure – spending money on student servers can in most cases be completely eliminated.
• 3) Improving teacher to student interaction – with cloud based services, teachers can simultaneously push information to an entire class of students.
• 2) Increase student access to teachers – individual work can be made available to teachers with no extra effort by the student other than saving the work to their private cloud space.
• 1) Eliminating the excuse of “I forgot my homework, it's on my flash drive!” Homework is always a device away (computer, tablet, phone, etc). Presuming it is done, of course!

There you have it, ten solid reasons to ban flash drives from your school.

Now if you are more gently persuaded, have plenty of resources, and don’t want to offend anyone’s sensitivities, you could adopt a more persuasive approach to the matter by making cloud services available to your students and making flash drives subject to inspection if used on school computers.

Given the chance, smart students will quickly realize the tremendous advantages of using their own private cloud and soon leave their flash drives at home.

What’s the big deal about Live@edu? It’s more than a free email account

Offering your students free email will get you about as much mileage as offering them free brussel sprouts for lunch. It's just not a big deal anymore to have an email account, with Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo mail, and Facebook mail all competing for young minds as an advertising audience.

However, there may be very good reason for your school to offer Live@edu services for students. Here are a few advantages of doing so:

• Increased collaboration and communication among students and teachers
• Security and control of your email environment
• Brand and community building with customized logos, color schemes, and campaigns
• Real world training for your students to communicate in a 21st Century work environment
• Reduced infrastructure costs

So, it’s not really just free, it actually pays you significant dividends! Let’s dig a little deeper.

 

Increased collaboration and communication

 

By giving students the ability to email, instant message, video chat, share documents, and store homework assignments in the Live@edu system, you give them a powerful set of creative tools. They can collaborate on project documents using Microsoft Office Web apps, free online companions to Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and One Note.

 

Security and Control

 

Because the Live@edu is centrally managed by your internal staff, you have complete control over access to the system. And with Microsoft’s advanced email security you significantly reduce the risk of phishing, virus, and malware attacks on your internal systems. And in the event of a disciplinary matter, you have access to email communication and message archives.

 

Brand and community building

 

Think about every email sent outside of your organization as a small advertising snippet. As your students communicate around the world and across the community, your institution becomes more visible, relevant, and cutting edge. Your Live@edu email and workspaces are branded with your logo and school name.

 

Real world training

 

Live@edu services are built upon the same technology as Microsoft Office 365, a powerful and widely used business communication and collaboration system. Your students will gain valuable experience in real world communication by using Live@edu. And they can plug into the Live@edu from anywhere and on any device.

 

Reduced costs

 

How much are you spending for student servers? Maintaining shared drives, keeping track of student documents, managing student access, securing other student’s work, and keeping ahead of student hacks is a significant IT management cost. With 25GB of storage per student and access control by Live@edu account, you can eliminate a great deal of administrative expense.

 

Summary

 

Building a communication platform for students to email, instant message, video chat, share documents, and store homework assignments seems like a lot of infrastructure – and it is. An equivalent cost to build and manage such a system internally would be thousands of dollars, not to mention the administrative time diverted from more strategic initiatives.

 

Showcasing your school as a leader in technology and forward thinking will generate interest and improve your recruiting efforts.

 

K-12 institutions have a very specific set of requirements for cloud-based messaging and collaboration solutions. No one brings a richer set of free hosted solutions to the K-12 space than Microsoft Live@edu. Not only are our enterprise-grade services cost effective and flexible, but they also prepare students for the next step with professional tools used in higher education institutions and businesses the world over.

 

Let us help you implement a Live@edu solution on your campus.