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October 29 I got asked for a list of what we can offer for free recently… of course Live@edu topped the list :) there was a lot more however. My thanks to Scott Thompson from MS for helping me pull this together. You can download a word document of this content here.
Live@edu – a complete solution from Microsoft for your school’s email and collaboration needs for students:
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Name |
Description |
URL |
|
Live@edu |
A free co-branded service offering student email (Outlook Live) and a range of collaborative online services. |
http://get.liveatedu.com |
Internet based services that you can access through your browser:
|
Name |
Description |
URL |
|
Office Live Workspace |
Online storage and sharing for teachers:
· Allow students anywhere, anytime to access class information
· Store course material, assignments, and class notes, and distribute them instantly
· Manage schedules, due dates, and calendars in one place
· Save money (and trees) by printing fewer documents |
http://workspace.officelive.com/en-us/online-storage-teachers |
|
SkyDrive |
25GB of online storage – your USB stick in the cloud. Access your files from anywhere. |
http://skydrive.live.com |
|
Live Groups |
Create social or class groups for sharing, discussion and collaboration, features include:
· Discussions
· Calendar
· Group SkyDrive for file and photo sharing |
http://groups.live.com |
|
PhotoSynth |
Stitch photos together into an interactive and immersive panorama. Capabilities include:
· Walk or fly through a scene to see photos from any angle
· Zoom in or out of a photo
· See where pictures were taken in relation to one another
· Smoothly change viewing angle between nearby photos
· Smoothly zoom in and out of high-resolution photos
· Find similar photos to the one you're currently viewing
· Send pictures
|
http://www.photosynth.net |
|
Microsoft Translator |
Language translation tool that can translate text excerpts or complete web pages into a range of languages. |
http://www.microsofttranslator.com |
|
Live Spaces |
Blogging and social networking platform. Teachers can use this to maintain a blog for their class. Students can use this to blog on academic activities, or to build themselves an ePortfolio of their work. |
http://spaces.live.com |
|
Worldwide Telescope |
Explore the galaxies interactively in schools lessons. |
http://worldwidetelescope.org/ |
|
SilverLight |
A video streaming service offering 10GB of storage. |
http://silverlight.live.com/ |
PC utilities that can integrate with online services:
Other useful free tools:
Teacher Resources:
|
Name |
Description |
URL |
|
Teacher Toolbox |
A load of free resources that a teacher can use in the classroom. Lesson plans, templates, clipart, media, and more |
http://www.microsoft.com/learningspace/TeachersToolbox.aspx |
|
Innovative Teachers Network |
An online community for teachers containing:
· Discussion fora on various topics
· Virtual Classroom Tours
· Professional Development
· Career mentoring for kids
· Peer Coaching tools
· Lesson plans and artifacts
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http://innovativeteachers.com | October 27 Check these out… some great content in here! November 12, 2009 10 AM PST Managing Your K-12 Live@edu Domain https://www.educationwebcasts.com/Webcast.aspx?i=5061 This webcast provides an in-depth look at the tasks and tools your administrators will use to manage the Live@edu domain, users and groups. Special Guest Demonstration: Scott Hansen, CTO, Marion County Schools, will demonstrate the tools his team has created to approach his own Live@edu deployment. We will conclude the session with question from attendees. November 19, 2009 10 AM PST PowerShell for K-12 Live@edu Administrators https://www.educationwebcasts.com/Webcast.aspx?i=5062 This is a virtual hands-on session covering basic PowerShell commands and scripts for K-12 administrators. Customers who would like to follow along with their own domain should be sure to install PowerShell before the session. Instructions may be found at: http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/cc546278.aspx November 19, 2009 12 PM PST Managing Communication with Supervision Policies for K-12 https://www.educationwebcasts.com/Webcast.aspx?i=5063 This is a virtual hands-on session demonstrating how to implement domain-wide policies with a special focus on K-12 needs. We will use both the Exchange Control Panel and PowerShell. Customers who would like to follow along with the PowerShell commands on their own domain should be sure to install PowerShell before the session. Instructions may be found at: http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/cc546278.aspx November 20, 2009 10 AM PST Pilot and Deployment Strategies for K-12 Live@edu Domains https://www.educationwebcasts.com/Webcast.aspx?i=5064 In this session we look at best practices for piloting and deploying Live@edu to your users. Special Guest Demonstration: Keith Price, CTO of Hoover City Schools will join us to demonstrate the system his district has developed to ensure consistent usage and quality of the Live@edu tools within and outside of the classroom. We will conclude the session with question from attendees. Jonny October 26 Interest in Live@edu in K-12 continues to grow at an outstanding pace… and this is a customer segment that has very specific needs around how they manage and maintain the service. Along with my teammates, we often run workshops where we drill into these on a 1:1 and broad basis… you can keep track of these here: http://www.educationwebcasts.com/Results.aspx?keyword=teaching. One of my colleagues, Barbara Chung, worked to pull together a list of the typical things that typical K-12 customers consider, and optionally deploy. I have added some of my own thoughts, and I am delighted to include this for you here. Any comments are appreciated. Using the EDUADMIN TOOL: https://eduadmin.live.com 1. Safe-list your internal mail servers and gateways: If you have an on-premises mail server(s) hosting accounts for faculty and staff, you will want to whitelist the IP addresses of your internal mail servers and gateways in order to guarantee delivery of messages between the internal mail organization and your Live@edu domain. https://eduadmin.live.com/IPFilter.aspx | 2. Configure your Sender ID (SPF) DNS setting: This setting is related to handling of SPAM. It allows your email domain to build a reputation as a ‘good’ sender. This helps to avoid having your entire domain blocked as a ‘bad’ sender by the major ISPs when you have a problem; for example when a machine in your domain is compromised and used to send SPAM. https://eduadmin.live.com/Mail.aspx | 3. Deploy some Co-Branding: The co-branding process removes ads from those properties that have them: Spaces, SkyDrive, etc.
Be sure to co-brand both Outlook Live and Windows Live even if you are only using Outlook Live. https://eduadmin.live.com/Cobrand.aspx | 4. Configure Critical Notifications: Create a distribution group with more than one contact to cover times when your main contact is absent. You should check for notifications daily. https://eduadmin.live.com/Details.aspx | 5. Familiarize yourself with the support options: This will always contain the correct information for filing a support ticket or calling the telephone hotline. https://eduadmin.live.com/Support.aspx | 6. Configure accepted domains if necessary: An accepted domain is a domain that you associate with your primary tenant domain that you want to use as follows: | · Create users who will have multiple email addresses for a single mailbox; for example: astudent@myschool.org and astudent@myschool.tx.k12.us | · Create users who want collaboration tools, but not email. For example, teachers whose email resides in an on-premises deployment on a different domain, may still wish to login to Office Live Workspaces with their school ID https://eduadmin.live.com/Domains.aspx | 7. Consider using Single-Sign-On (SSO): Lets your users sign on only once for access to both internal resources, such as a school portal, and their Live@edu email. Implementation of SSO often requires outside consulting services to implement. Ask your account manager if you need help finding a partner to assist you. https://eduadmin.live.com/SSO.aspx | Using PowerShell or the Exchange Control Panel 1. Provision user accounts: · Consider naming conventions for user accounts, · Set custom properties for dynamic groups, and · create test mailboxes when necessary. Unlike usernames in Active Directory, usernames under Live@edu cannot be easily reused. For enterprise scalability and identity management from Active Directory to Live@edu considering using GalSync 2010. Deploying GalSync may require outside consulting help. If you need assistance in locating a partner to assist you, please contact your account manager. http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/cc511395.aspx and http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd575560.aspx | 2. Review Group Options and Create Groups Groups offer powerful features to your Outlook Live users. Take a look at them in the Exchange Control Panel (ECP) tool. Groups can be managed from an automated GalSync process, from ECP (manually), or via PowerShell script. http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd302403.aspx | 3. Configure and test large broadcast messages. SPAM filters that sit between your on-premise email system and Live@edu will affect how you configure large distribution groups. http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd439355.aspx | 4. Review Mailbox plans and set a default for users: · Show/Hide user name from the GAL · Allow/Disallow mobile connections to the service (ActiveSync, POP, IMAP) · Allow/Disallow connection via full Outlook client · Allow/Disallow forwarding to text http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd229067.aspx | 5. Create LiveIDs for teachers, if required If teachers will use Office Live Workspaces, but not Outlook Live email, import their email addresses as Mail User accounts. This will require the setup of an Accepted Domain (see above) on your primary tenant domain for your on-premises domain that your teachers reside in. Creating Mail Users for your teachers will also put them into the student Global Address List. http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd207277.aspx | 6. Create Mail Contacts for teachers, if required. If faculty will use not use any Live@edu applications, but you want their email addresses listed in the GAL, import the addresses as Mail Contacts. http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd302404.aspx | 7. Create mailbox resources, if required. Resource mailboxes are special accounts that can be automatically reserved when a user sends a meeting request. Resources can be rooms, projects, sports fields—any shared resource. http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd569933.aspx | 8. Delegate service administration as necessary. There are a range of delegation options available, some can be quite advanced, others very straightforward. Explore some of the options below to decide what is right for you. · Create additional Outlook Live Administrators: http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/cc188669.aspx · Create a password reset role, and assign it to a user or group: http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd297481.aspx · Create a completely custom role: | 9. Configure Instant Messaging in Outlook Web Access: By default, we enable Live Messenger presence information to be controlled from within Outlook Live, and we also allow users to engage in IM conversations from within the interface. This can all be disabled however. http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd875469.aspx | 10. Disable Subscriptions, if desired. Email Subscriptions is a great service that allows students to pull their mail in from any other accounts they might have into a consolidated inbox. In K-12 however, email subscriptions may cause a concern as it allows a student to directly pull content into their Outlook Live inbox that bypasses any filtering or controls that the school may have put in place for inbound email. http://liveatedu.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!C76EAE4D4A509FBD!1355.entry | 11. Configure options for managing mail delivery, if required. Outlook Live offers tremendous opportunities to control and monitor mail flow in your organization. You may wish to block external domains from emailing your students, block students from emailing the outside world, create a bad word filter, etc. http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd251303.aspx | 12. Configure rules for controlling mail flow, if required Administrators can define specific message attributes, or conditions, and the actions that they want applied to any message that contain those attributes. For example, you may wish to add a disclaimer to any outgoing messages. http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd207276.aspx | 13. Disable users from modifying how they appear in the Global Address List, if required. By default, Outlook Live allows users to modify the attributes that describe themselves in the GAL. This can be turned off by an administrator if required. http://liveatedu.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!C76EAE4D4A509FBD!1089.entry | 14. Disable users from creating new distribution groups, if required. By default, Outlook Live allows users to create and manage Distribution Groups in the GAL. This can be turned off by an administrator if required. http://liveatedu.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!C76EAE4D4A509FBD!1161.entry | 15. Review Cross-Mailbox Search and Mail Delivery tools. For many reasons, you may wish to monitor what is happening in your users’ mailboxes. We offer a growing range of comprehensive tools to enable this. http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/cc836952.aspx | Other useful tips 1. Follow Live@edu mini-notices for K-12 on Twitter: www.twitter.com/k12liveatedu | 2. Ask questions about Outlook Live on our community. http://outlookliveanswers.com | 3. Subscribe to the Live@edu blog RSS feed http://liveatedu.spaces.live.com/ | 4. Block unused Live Services URLs at the firewall: Some organizations want to block some of the Live@edu apps at the firewall to prevent students from accessing them while at school. This is not a recommended practice, since—absent very restrictive Internet filtering--any student would still be able to take their school email address and sign up for any number of unauthorized applications on the Internet. | Home.live.com – Live Homepage | Skydrive.live.com – Live SkyDrive | Spaces.live.com – Live Spaces | Profile.live.com – User’s Live Profile Page | Office.live.com – Office Live Workspaces | ***Note that children <14 can’t get to these pages even from home | 5. Consider the need to extending written policy regarding Internet service to include Live@edu | 6. Consider pros/cons of extending services to Parents | October 23 I am always excited to see the kinds of custom development projects that spring up around products and services we deliver in Microsoft... and I see that Live@edu has a growing number. I just did a quick search on Codeplex, our Open Source Project Community and I see that we have 6 up there.
- Live@edu SSO WebPart for MOSS 2007 - a custom web part for WSS 3.0 or Office SharePoint Server 2007, that provides end-user a single sign on (SSO) to Live services functionality.
- Windows Live@EDU Single Sign On - a middle tier WCF service, as well as SharePoint webparts and direct connectors for providing Single Sign On from your student portal into the Windows Live@EDU environment.
- Live@Edu Sync Service - a Windows service, which can create Hotmail\Outlook Live users, getting their data from MS SQL database.
- Windows Live ID SSO Luminis Integration - enables Luminis to pre-authenticate users and seamlessly transfer them to Windows Live without a secondary credential challenge from Windows Live servers.
- PowerShell Assistant - a tool to help customers deploy Microsoft Live@edu.
- Windows Live ID SSO J2EE Integration – J2EE support for Live SSO.
All of these projects are open for your downloading/feedback/altruistic contributions… please support the project leaders and check them out. Finally, if you feel so motivated, you can also start your own project.
Jonny There really is such a lot that an administrator can do in Outlook Live that I don’t know where to start sometimes… we have some really great functionality for our administrators. Just yesterday a customer asked me if there was a way to allow a school office administrator to create and manage Email Contacts in the Outlook Live GAL… but they did not want the office admin to have the ability to interfere with Mailboxes/Groups/Transport Rules/etc. I decided to work out how to do this, with a little help from the Exchange team, and blog on it. I even recorded a video. double click to view in full screen… The commands I used in this demo are as follows: #create a management role based on the Org Management Management Role
New-ManagementRole -Name ContactMan_Custom -Parent OrganizationManagement #List all of the cmdlets and parameters assigned to the Management Role
Get-ManagementRoleEntry ContactMan_Custom\* | ConvertTo-HTML > C:\tools\ContactMan.htm #Remove cmdlets that are not required
Get-ManagementRoleEntry ContactMan_Custom\* | where {$_.Name -ne 'Get-Contact' -and $_.Name -ne 'Get-MailContact' -and $_.Name -ne 'New-MailContact' -and $_.Name -ne 'Remove-MailContact' -and $_.Name -ne 'Set-Contact' -and $_.Name -ne 'Set-MailContact' -and $_.Name -ne 'Get-Recipient'} | Remove-ManagementRoleEntry #Check the management role entries in the custom role
Get-ManagementRoleEntry ContactMan_Custom\* #Assign the role to the user in question
New-ManagementRoleAssignment -Name "JennyA Contact Management" -Role ContactMan_Custom -User jennya As usual… happy PowerShell Scripting! Jonny October 12 From time to time, customers ask me about the specific URLs used if a user is connecting to the Outlook Live OWA service… typically this question comes from K-12 given their heightened focus on compliance and security. I pulled together a list based on my observance of what happens when you connect through OWA… I hope this is of use. Outlook Live: Identity Management:
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