I have been at West Hatch for about 2 years and for the last 8 months or so we have been using SharePoint 2007 as the basis of our Learning Gateway. While a number of departments have really started using it to great effect, it hasn’t been widespread. So we came up with some strategies to drive staff use.

Media Library

The first one of these we introduced was the media library. For this we took videos from departments converted them to digital media files and then used Windows Media Services to stream them to users.

What the user see is shown below which is just the asx file. This way the Learning Gateway isn't clogged up with media files and when the user views the file it is being streamed to them properly.

Shared Documents

Our School like most uses network drives to store files, this is OK but how do you get to them when you are away from School. So we came up with a plan and timescale that would solve both the issue of accessing files away from School but also drive the use of the Learning Gateway.

The main thrust of the plan was to move all of the files in the following network files to the Learning Gateway

• Department Files – Used to store files for staff by department
• Student Resources – Used to store files by staff for use by students
• Workpost Box – A network drive where students can ‘dump’ work for marking by staff

We had to go through a series of consultation and a document was given to staff before Christmas 2009 that they could respond to. This document had a timeline that is shown below.

Timetable

Below is a proposed timetable for the implementation of this proposal

After Xmas

Discussion with departments / SLT / Leadership Forum on Learning Gateway Setup / access etc and folders created by IT team

February Half Term

All current ‘drives’ made read only and any new content has to be added to the Learning Gateway

After February Half Term

Key members of each departments will be given access to the ‘drive’ based content to ‘clean up’ content in readiness for IT team moving them to the Learning Gateway

Summer Holiday

IT team moves all ‘drive’ based files to the Learning Gateway sites

We are currently 1 week away from half term and have answered a lot of queries from staff. During half term we will make the drives read only and then a new post will probably be needed.

Read the complete post at http://learninggateway.net/blogs/ictforeducation/archive/2010/02/03/driving-staff-usage-of-your-learning-gateway.aspx