Posted By: David Gorbet, SLK Group Manager

 

This week we released our third community technology preview of SharePoint Learning Kit. CTP3 has a host of cool new features, including instructor queries and the Grading page, which completes the assignment workflow. You can download CTP3 at http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName=SLK.

Cool reporting samples in CTP3

Two of the new samples in CTP3 show how you can easily create cool reports from SLK data via the LearningStore. Samples are in the SLK-SDK-1.0.[build]-ENU.zip package.

Report 1 shows how you can create a report that uses a SharePoint master page that includes the SharePoint chrome. This simple report shows a list of all fully graded assignments for which the current user is an instructor. Clicking an assignment title opens the Grading page for that assignment.

Report 2 demonstrates a report page that displays a grid of "final score" values for each graded learner assignment for which the current user is an instructor. Clicking an assignment title opens the Grading page for that assignment. This report also uses DHTML to highlight assignments as you mouse over them.

The coolest thing about both reports is that because they use LearningStore, they automatically observe the SLK security rules. The person running the report will not have access to any assignment data that they shouldn’t have.

I think you’ll be amazed at how simple it is to generate this kind of report. Let us know what you think by posting on CodePlex, and feel free to send suggestions for future samples to slkfb@microsoft.com.

OK, and now for the contest!

You’ve seen the reporting samples from our resident samplemeister SLicK Rick. Now it’s your turn. We’re having a contest to see who can create the most interesting and useful report or reporting tool for SLK. The prize? Your very own unique SLK Team Bowling Shirt. If you were at NECC, you’ve seen some of the SLK Team members wearing these awesome shirts. They’re customized shirts embroidered with your unique SLK nickname, followed by the words “SLK Bowling League.” Full details to follow on the CodePlex site.


SLK team members in their SLK Bowling League shirts

Grading page is now implemented

CTP3 also comes with our Grading page. This page completes the assignment workflow, allowing instructors to assign grades, add comments, and control the workflow of assignments:

A few cool things about this page:

  • You can immediately stop work on all learner assignments by clicking Collect All on the toolbar. This is a sort of “pencils down” button that allows you to call in all outstanding assignments at once.
  • You can use this page to access the Assignment Properties page (where you created the assignment) so that you can change things like the title, description, due date, and even who it’s assigned to.
  • The Grading page shows you the autograded score, and allows you to enter a different final score if you want. It even allows you to leave the final score blank in case someone has been excused from the assignment.
  • SCORM 2004 has a concept of “primary objective success status,” a fancy way of saying that the content thinks that the learner passed or failed. If the content reports this status, we present it to the instructor as a diamond icon. In this case, I failed and Mark passed (you know Mark’s the smart one from all the posts he answers on CodePlex).
  • You can enter as many lines as you like in the comments field. The field will auto-grow to fit your comment. You can even enter comments before the learner has started the assignment, perhaps to give them a bit of extra instruction. These comments appear on the learner’s “lobby” page.
  • Clicking the learner name for any assignment that has been submitted (or collected) will show the actual learner work, although in CTP3 this is not yet implemented. For now, we take you to a placeholder page where you can experiment with different graded score values that ultimately will be set in the frameset’s Grading view.

There are other cool things in CTP3, including support for SCORM 1.2 content (please try it out and let us know how it works with your favorite content). CTP3 also has an updated Solitaire example, which is really useful for those of you who are trying to figure out how to create interesting SCORM 2004 content (or who need to learn how to play Solitaire).

Pre-populating sites to which users can assign

Many of you have asked if it’s possible to pre-populate an instructor’s site list. The answer is yes, and of course we have a sample to show you how. CTP3 comes with a sample (AddToWebUserLists) that shows how to read data from an Excel XML Spreadsheet and use the SLK API to populate this list with the spreadsheet data.

What do you want to tell us about? What do you want us to tell you about?

We’d like to make our community as interactive as possible. Tell us what you’re doing or planning to do with SLK, and maybe we’ll have some suggestions for how you can use SLK to accomplish your goals. Tell us what you like and don’t like. We’ll share what you like with the team so that they can feel good about the hard work they’re doing, and we’ll share what you don’t like with the team so that we can make SLK better. Also, tell us how you’d like us to communicate with you. Would you like to see monthly status updates in email? Maybe some tips and tricks? A “feature of the month?” Let us know; we aim to please!

Finally thank you for your interest in SLK. We aim to make it a great free tool for enabling e-learning in SharePoint, and your feedback and support will help make that possible.