The Microsoft Springboard team, based at our headquarters in Seattle, create really good content on TechNet to help you to understand and deploy our latest technologies. In a way, they are a IT manager's best friend, because they provide useful web guides that provide step-by-step processes for things like Windows 7 deployment.
At last, they're hitting the road, and coming out to join us in Europe, with a free event in Reading on the 1st November. If you're looking for a single day when you can rapidly get up to speed on deploying our latest products included in your Campus Agreement - Office 2010, Windows 7 and the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack - then this is for you.
At the five-hour workshops you will:
You can read the fully detailed agenda on the website, but here's a quick summary:
9:30 – 10:00
Registration Opens
10:00 – 10:10
Welcome & Introductions
10:10 – 10:30
Riding the Windows 7 and Office 2010 Wave
10:30 – 11:30
Office 2010 Investments for IT
11:30 – 12:00
Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Application Compatibility in 30 Minutes
12:00 – 12:30
Application Virtualization and Deployment
12:30 – 13:15
Lunch
13:15 – 14:25
Moving from XP and Office 2003 to Windows 7 and Office 2010 – A Deep Dive into MDT and P2V
14:25 – 15:15
Desktop Management and Support
15:15 – 15:30
Closing / Panel Q&A
Places really will go quickly for this, as it is open to all UK organisations, so I'd recommend booking soon.
Find out more about the Springboard tour in Europe Or Register Now for the 1st November event in Reading
Microsoft System Center has evolved greatly over the last few years to become a suite of technologies which can manage the entire IT infrastructure across organisations of all sizes - whether it's for a secondary school or a university. This session will provide a high level overview of the products that make up the suite and serve as a good introduction for new users and provide an update for existing users.
Option 1: Tuesday October 12th 10:30-11:30
Option 2: Thursday October 14th 10:30-11:30
Register now for the webinar, and we'll send you a reminder for your calendar
What equipment do I need? You will need a PC with a web browser and either headphones or a telephone to hear the audio - To save time before the meeting, you can easily check your system to make sure it is ready to use Microsoft Office Live Meeting, using this link
Dimension Data are running an event here at Microsoft HQ on 3rd November, which will provide practical steps to saving money with ICT.
So the budget cuts have arrived or are heading our way (goodness knows what happens in next month's budget). There have been various doom-laden forecasts of the impact of these cuts, but although the government have cut the specific ring-fenced Ischool CT spend by 50%, colleges have always decided how much of their own budget they too will invest in ICT to support teaching and learning.
Of course, things are not good. It’s going to be tougher to justify investment in ICT – especially after so many years of plenty. And ICT leaders in colleges around the country are going to need to hone their skills to justify the investments they are bidding for.
Through technologies like virtualisation, power management, or embracing unified communications, the savings can soon mount up, and the savings are year on year, every year. It’s time to switch, stop and save. You can see more examples of saving through technology here.
Dimension Data, in partnership with Microsoft want to take you on a journey, to show you the art of the possible, and the real world savings that can be made through technology. You’ll also hear from a Leicester College on their experiences, and the savings they’ve made in costs and energy reductions.
If you’re interested in understanding how Dimension Data and Microsoft can help you, please register with Dimension Data. The event will be held on the 3rd November at Microsoft Campus, Thames Valley Park, Reading.
Email Dimension Data to provisionally reserve a space and find out more
Am I the only one who gets bored with a document format after a few months, and then wants a completely different design? That PowerPoint that looked so smart last year looks a bit clichéd this term. A document which looked professional when you first published it, doesn’t look quite so good when it comes up on the screen this year.
Well, if you, or your staff, have that feeling, then time to explore the Academic Templates Collection on the Office website. The Office team are spending a lot of time getting good templates and training materials ready, and have released a big batch of templates that are specifically designed for use in education, in a massive range of categories:
How many hours could you save colleagues by pointing them towards just one of these categories, or using our templates as a basis for creating your own template, with your logo etc.
You can find them all over on the Office Academic Templates Collection
Have you heard of the free Microsoft Learning Content Development System? We’ve just updated it to version 2.5, which now supports more complex content, and is Firefox and Silverlight 4 compatible. It is a free tool that lets you create high-quality, interactive, online courses, and publish them in SCORM 1.2 packages (exactly what your Learning Platforms/VLEs like to consume!).
It allows you to publish e-learning courses by completing the easy-to-use forms that seamlessly generate highly customised Silverlight-based content, interactive activities, quizzes, games, assessments, animations, demos, and other multimedia. And you can create a course structure that is easily rearranged at any time.
It’s the system we use internally to create all of the courseware for our various Microsoft qualifications, including the Microsoft IT Academy courses, and we also make it available free of charge for customers to use.
If you are looking for ways for your staff to create structured courses for their curriculum materials, and make them available on your learning platform or SharePoint system then it is worth investigating. And you can also use it to create standalone learning packages, that can be distributed on websites, CDs or memory sticks.
Here’s the link to find out more and download the Learning Content Development System. If you want to talk to others about their experiences, and to connect with other users, there’s a user forum here
It’s another one of those free bits of software we make available, that very few people know about – and which I think could be incredibly useful to colleges.
Quickly find all the other Free Stuff posts on this blog
Sometimes we publish so much information on a subject, in so many different places, that it’s tricky to find the wood from the trees – and that problem is as big for me as it is for people outside of Microsoft. So I’m always happy to find a resource where somebody applies an editorial approach – making judgements about the key resources to publish, and structuring them together, so that you can easily find the right needle in the haystack.
Which makes the TechNet Springboard site for Windows 7 definitely useful. If you’re thinking about Windows 7 in any way (either because you’re going to deploy it in the next couple of years, or because you’ve already deployed it), then this is a site to add to your bookmarks. Not only does it contain the definitive guide to resources for IT management teams, it also groups them into three key stages:
Which means that you can easily find the resources that apply to you at the moment, whether your planning for the future, getting ready for an imminent deployment, or want resources to help you manage an existing Windows 7 network.
And on the home page, you’ll also find some key introductory documents, such as:
Those clever people at Remote IT Solutions, one of our certified partners, are running a webinar on desktop optimisation – where you can learn about the different components of the solution, and how it can help you to reduce your technical support and management costs for your college infrastructure. The webinar is hosted by Dave Moore, a Datacenter and Virtualization Technical Specialist who has been involved with complex projects for a range of organisations (and I think that given the range of applications and user scenarios in FE, it is likely that your scenario would count as “complex”!)
The seminar is Wednesday 15th September, from 10:00 – 11:00, and will include live demonstrations, and includes:
I’ve just been reading a press release from Quest, about Kingston University’s project to to give staff and students virtual access to their university desktop and learning resources from any location, on a wide range of devices, at any time. With 23,000 students, and 2,000 full-time staff to serve, their project is aiming to create a ‘university without walls’, so that their users can access their files and applications from any of the 9,000 university PCs or from users’ own personal computers – wherever they are.
What caught my eye was this quote from Daniel Bolton, who’s a technical analyst at the University:
The whole solution has been deployed on Hyper-V, which is part of Windows Server 2008 R2, and is now the largest planned deployment for both Quest and Microsoft to date. Phase one of implementation is due to complete in October.
You can read the full release on Quest’s website. I’ll keep an eye out for updates as the project goes into implementation.
If you are one of the colleges that need to use Internet Explorer 6 to stay compatible with a specific application you use in some departments, then you may find it useful to know that there are options to help you to move your ICT infrastructure forward, whilst keeping IE6 support on your network for certain users.
One option is to read the “Tools to make working with Internet Explorer 6 in Windows 7 easier” blog post
An alternative is to put an hour aside to join the Springboard virtual roundtable on 30th September, at 5pm.
Roundtable: Deploying Windows 7, but still running Web applications based on Internet Explorer 6?
Join us live on Thursday, September 30, 2010 for a virtual, interactive roundtable discussion on migration strategies, standards, and support for organisations moving from Internet Explorer 6 to Internet Explorer 8.
As organisations deploy Windows 7, many still depend on web applications that were designed for Internet Explorer 6. Will they still work, and what can you do when they don’t? Join a panel of IT Professionals, Microsoft specialists and technical experts to discuss best practices to simplify and accelerate the migration to Internet Explorer 8. Topics will include an explanation of the causes of and solutions for application compatibility issues (including policy, code, and virtualisation solutions), an introduction to tools, and a review of best practices.
Ask your questions live during the event with our online tool - or submit your questions in advance to vrtable@microsoft.com.
Find out more, and register for the Virtual Roundtable