This short guide introduces you to the Portal + module of the Kaleidos Learning Platform: what it does, how it does it, and how you can control and develop it to meet your needs. The guide is aimed primarily at teachers, non-teaching staff and local authority staff, to help these users decide how best to use the portal to meet their educational objectives. Most students and parents do not need to read this guide.
Contents About the Kaleidos Learning Platform 3 Structure of the portal 5 Moving around the portal 11 My Space 11 Learning Spaces 14 Interest Spaces 15 Search 16 Contributing content 17 Administering the portal 17 Integrating with your MIS system 17 Setting user access rights 18 Creating sites 19 Modifying pages 20 Some key terms 20 What to do next 24 Page 2 of 24
About the Kaleidos Learning Platform RM s Kaleidos Learning Platform arms schools with a wide variety of digital learning resources and tools, including communication and collaboration tools, multi-media teaching aids, progress tracking and assessment tools, and much more. Portal + provides the means by which teachers, non-teaching staff, students, parents and other authorised users access the facilities provided by the Kaleidos Learning Platform. It acts as a portal, or gateway, bringing together information gathered from a wide range of sources and presenting it in a common and easily accessible format. Portal + is a Web site (or, more accurately, a set of linked Web sites), so users can access it round the clock, from wherever they happen to be, using a suitable computer with an Internet connection. Portal + is based on Microsoft s SharePoint knowledge management tool, but most users don t need to know this as it is not visible to them. However, more advanced users, particularly those with administration responsibilities, make use of SharePoint facilities to customise and configure the portal. Portal + provides access to a wide variety of resources and tools including: Communication and collaboration tools including email, online discussions, blogs, wikis, the message centre, chat rooms, web conference rooms, plus interest spaces and learning spaces (for definitions, see Some key terms on page 20) Publishing tools for sharing information including news, calendars of events, useful contacts and links, duty rotas, and uploaded documents, images, videos and sound files Displays of selected information extracted from the school s Management Information System (MIS) including student dashboards (incorporating student personal details, behaviour details, medical details, SEN details, attendance records and assessments) and school and personal timetables Personal sites (My Spaces), providing role-specific tools and resources, and enabling all users except parents, governors and others to store private items of interest E-portfolios for all users except parents, governors and others to publish examples of their best work Interest spaces, enabling groups of users to collaborate on projects Learning spaces, providing communication tools and resources and for students taking particular courses or modules Page 3 of 24
If your school has purchased licences, the VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) module of the Kaleidos Learning Platform is integrated with Portal +. The VLE enables teachers to build custom learning spaces for particular courses. Within each learning space, teachers can collect together suitable digital learning resources (both in-house and commercially produced), allocate tests and tasks for students to do in class or at home, receive work back, mark and/or comment on the work, and send the results to the student concerned. Students can view the work a teacher has allocated to them, do the work using the provided resources, and return the work electronically to the teacher by the due date for marking or comment If your school has purchased licences, the assessment modules of the Kaleidos Learning Platform also integrate with Portal +. Assessment consists of three separate modules: Advanced e-portfolio helps students to: publish showcases of their best work; reflect on their own performance; receive feedback from teachers and peers; provide evidence for the attainment of learning targets. Individual Learning Plans help students to: communicate their goals and aspirations; create, receive and manage targets; understand their current performance in each subject and the standards they are aiming for; understand their next learning steps. Analysis & Reporting is not delivered yet, but it will help teachers to: manage assessment data more effectively; understand individual and group performance more easily; identify students who need greater support; understand relative performance of similar groups. Whether or not you purchase the assessment modules, the standard product provides the ability to view key stage results extracted from your school s MIS system. Each authority and school will have different priorities and, as the name implies, the Kaleidos Learning Platform provides a platform for schools to build their own knowledge libraries and communication and collaboration networks in order to work towards their goals. With the Kaleidos Learning Platform you have the flexibility to choose which of the provided resources and tools to make available, and whom to make them available to. Page 4 of 24
Structure of the portal In Portal +, each establishment (where an establishment is a school, college, nursery, local authority or other educational body) has its own set of Web sites, arranged in a hierarchy similar to a folder structure in Windows. Each portal user only sees information that is relevant to them, and to which they have been granted access. Initially, the set of sites includes a personal site (My Space) for each user, incorporating a private area and, for all users except parents, governors and others, an e-portfolio. The Private area includes links to role-specific tools and resources. For more details, see My Space on page 11. A main establishment interest space is also provided, which the establishment can use to publish information that is of interest to all users. Beneath this, each establishment can create a hierarchy of interest spaces for selected groups of users to share information and collaborate on projects. For example, a school may create interest spaces for each year group, for school clubs, for science projects, for governors and so on. For more details, see Interest Spaces on page 15. Within e-portfolios and interest spaces, users may create a number of blogs. If the establishment has purchased licences for the assessment and/or VLE modules, students and teachers will see appropriate links. For more details on the VLE, see Learning Spaces on page 14. The following diagrams illustrate the portal structure. Page 5 of 24
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Establishments may be linked in clusters, enabling them to share information and resources, and collaborate on projects. Within a cluster, each establishment can grant membership to its sites (for example interest spaces) to users from other establishments. Each portal site has a number of pages. Here is a student s home page: Each user s home page (My Desktop) contains widgets. These are small windows of functionality that you can add and remove from the page, and reposition as you wish. For the technically minded, widgets are actually Adobe Flash movie files. Here is an example of a Latest News widget, showing all the news relevant to the current user: Page 7 of 24
Your school can set a different home page for each user role, or permit users themselves to select their own home page using the Make this my start page link at the bottom of any portal page. Most other pages are made up of areas into which you can enter formatted text and images and web parts. Web parts are like small windows that display items of information such as documents or pictures, or they enable you to launch applications or access resources. Here is an interest space page with a text/image area at the top and two web parts (News and Mathematical Solids which is actually a renamed Slideshow Viewer web part) below it: Many, but not all, web parts contain lists. These contain data in rows and columns, like a spreadsheet. All lists behave in essentially the same way. You can add items to a list, sort and filter items, switch to different views, and export list data to a spreadsheet. Here is an example of a web part that shows a list of links to Web sites that are of interest: Page 8 of 24
The portal includes the following lists, which you can include on pages of your choice and populate with information: Announcements Bus Timetables Calendar Contacts List Cover Duty Custom List Discussions Duty Rota Image Issue Tracking Lunch Menu News Relevant Documents Surveys Tasks Web Links What's On Many other web parts contain libraries. These are special types of list that include links to uploaded files, as well as information about each file, such as who created the file and when. Here is an example of a document library: The portal includes the following libraries: Document Library Form Library Picture Library Wiki Page Library Where the title of a web part is an underlined link, you can click to open the list or library. This displays the list or library full screen, showing all the items it contains, and you can use the toolbar menus to change various settings and your view of the data. Here is the document library shown above opened in this way: Page 9 of 24
You can create your own lists and libraries, either using one of the templates provided or from scratch. The provided views include All items view (a standard list of items), Calendar view (for date-related data) and, if you are using Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer view. You can also create your own custom views of the data, for example, to include or exclude certain columns. A special document library called My Files is provided in the private My Space of all users except parents, governors and others. This enables users to store their own private files using a Windows Explorer-style file manager, no matter which browser they are using. For more information, see My Files on page 13. Other web parts provide special functions. For example: RM EasyMail Plus (via single sign on) Page Viewer Picture RSS Reader Slideshow Viewer XML Web Part Sketch Sound Video For details on all the provided web parts, see the online Help. Page 10 of 24
Moving around the portal My Space You move around the portal using the navigation bar links, the tabs across the top of the page, search, or the facilities provided by web parts or widgets. As you move around, on many pages you can keep track of where you are by using the breadcrumb trail displayed near the top of the page. This shows you where the current page is in relation to the portal hierarchy, and you can click the title of any page shown in the breadcrumb trail to go directly to that page. The following four tabs appear across the top of every page in the portal: My Space (with sub-tabs Private and E-portfolio) Learning Spaces Interest Spaces Search These tabs are described in the following sections. When each user logs on to an establishment, they are taken to their home page, the My Desktop page within the private area of their My Space. Links to available pages display down the left hand side of the page. Some of the provided links are to pages that are specific to the user s role, and the user cannot modify or remove these pages. However, all users except parents can add their own pages, and request that links to these pages appear in the Space Content section of the navigation bar. The annotated screenshot below shows a teacher s My Space. Page 11 of 24
My Space / Private In their private space within their My Space, each user sees a selection of links to pages relevant to their role. My Desktop: This is the home page for each user. An example of a staff member s My Desktop is shown above. The widgets available on this page include: Latest News This brings together news from all the interest spaces that the user is a member of Clock (analogue) Calculator Bookmarks RSS Reader Work Due If the establishment has purchased licences for the VLE module, this provides students with a list of work teachers have asked them to do, along with a due date and status flag for each item. Students can click on an item to go into the VLE, carry out the work, and hand it in for marking Learning Platform Administrators can control which widgets are available to users, and can lock selected widgets so that users cannot remove them from the page. Page 12 of 24
Timetables: Teachers can select their personal timetable or the school timetable (including colleague and room availability) as extracted from the school s MIS system. Students can see their own timetable. Calendars: Users can overlay any selection of their portal calendars: personal calendar, establishment calendar, and the calendars for the interest spaces that they belong to. Colour coding identifies which calendar an event belongs to. My Files: This enables users to keep a private collection of files, using a Windows Explorer-style file manager, no matter which browser they are using. Here is an example: My Files provides an easy way for users to manage their files and folders using drag and drop, context menus (by clicking the right mouse button), and so on. However, users can select the standard document library view if they prefer. Students/My Children: This provides teachers and parents respectively with access to a student s MIS, VLE and Assessment data. The data is displayed as a series of fixed pages, accessed via tabs. Here is an example of a teacher s view of the data (the student dashboard for a selected student): Page 13 of 24
My Learning: This provides students with the ability to view their own assessments, attendance records and work done, on a page similar to the student dashboard that teachers and parents see. Tracking: If the establishment has purchased licences for the VLE module, this enables teachers to track student progress on assignments, and go into the VLE to assess work. My Profile: This enables each user to modify their own personal profile (which is visible to all users), change their password, change the theme (the look of the portal) and modify their v-me (personal avatar). My Space / E-portfolio All users except parents have an e-portfolio, which they can use to share examples of their work with other users. By default, an e-portfolio contains a Noticeboard page containing Web Links and Picture web parts, a Shared Files page containing a Document Library web part, and a blog. However, each user has complete control over their e-portfolio and can add and remove pages and web parts as they wish. Learning Spaces If your school has purchased licences for the VLE module of the Kaleidos Learning Platform, the Learning Spaces tab provides users with access to learning spaces that they belong to. Page 14 of 24
Within each learning space, students can access digital resources for independent and group-based learning, and teachers can create online lesson plans, allocate work and assess students' learning. Using the VLE module of the Kaleidos Learning Platform, teachers can create customised learning spaces for individual courses or modules; these can contain both teacher-created and commercially created content, including online tests, videos, sound files and web links. Teachers can also incorporate wikis, blogs, chat rooms and other collaboration and learning tools in learning spaces, in the same way as within interest spaces. Interest Spaces The main establishment site is the top-level interest space. Beneath this, users may create any number of interest spaces to cater for groups of users. Users can quickly access the interest spaces they belong to, using a drop-down menu under the Interest Spaces tab. If the establishment is in a cluster, the drop-down menu includes interest spaces from other establishments in the cluster, for example the relevant local authority interest space. Here is an example of a main school interest space page. The logged in user is a student, but all users see the same view of this page, unless the school has chosen to restrict access to particular pages or content. Page 15 of 24
Search The search tab provides facilities to: Search for content in Interest Spaces The content search finds content that the user has access to across all interest spaces that they belong to. My Spaces and Learning Spaces are currently excluded from the search. Browse for users This enables you to search for users by name, by drilling down in the hierarchy of groups. The following example page shows a browse for users. When you find the required user, you can use the provided links to view their profile and e-portfolio, or where appropriate update their My Space. Page 16 of 24
Contributing content In many areas on the portal, providing you have the necessary permissions, you can contribute content by typing it in directly. For example, to create an event in a What s On list, you simply click New and type or paste in the details of the event. Similarly, to comment on a post in a blog, you simply click Comments and type in your comments. You can also publish and share existing files. To do this, you upload the file from your own computer or from a network drive into a library on the portal via the Internet. When you want to update a published file, you edit it offline using the tool of your choice, then upload the new version. You can publish any type of file: documents, images, videos, sound files, and so on. Bear in mind that, depending upon the file format, users may need the relevant application or viewer on their computer in order to access the file. For example, to access.pdf files, users will need Adobe Reader (which you can download free of charge from Adobe s Web site). Contributed content can be filtered for use of inappropriate language. Administering the portal For each establishment, there is a single Learning Platform Administrator, whose responsibility it is to support users. This person has the permissions necessary to administer all the sites for the establishment. Schools can create additional administrators for particular sites, or across the entire learning platform. Generally, users administer their own My Spaces. However, teachers have update rights for any student s My Space (both the student s private space and e-portfolio). Similarly, the Learning Platform Administrator has update rights for the My Spaces of all users at the relevant establishment. Users cannot override these privileges. A school s Learning Platform Administrator can add customised role-specific content that users will see (and cannot remove) in the private area of their My Space. For example, they might add a link to email for all teachers. The creators of interest spaces generally administer the interest spaces they create, or they can hand over the responsibility to someone else. Interest space administrators have complete freedom to create pages and add content as they see fit. Integrating with your MIS system The Kaleidos Learning Platform is designed to integrate with an establishment s MIS system. This has two major benefits for users: It greatly eases the task of provisioning user accounts on the portal. RM will provide establishments who are using a supported MIS with a software tool to enable them to extract selected user details from the MIS system and create appropriate learning platform accounts, depending upon each user s role. Furthermore, any changes made Page 17 of 24
on the MIS system will automatically be reflected in learning platform accounts, ensuring data integrity and preventing unauthorised access. It enables displays of MIS data such as student assessments and attendance records, in an easily accessible format suitable for users with different roles. The MIS systems that are supported in this way is continuing to grow. As MIS suppliers enhance their products, RM will provide updated versions of software, as appropriate, to ensure that the benefits of integration continue to be available. Setting user access rights Initially, each user has appropriate access for their role to: Their own My Space The main establishment interest space The assessment and VLE modules (if the school has purchased licences for these modules) If required, administrators can selectively turn off role-specific resources for all users. For example, they can disable teacher access to student behaviour details or the VLE. In addition to these default rights, users gain access to sites such as interest spaces, blogs or the e-portfolios of other users through being a member. When a site administrator makes a user a member of a site, they allocate them to one or more permission levels. Each permission level defines a set of rights that users who belong to it possess. There are three standard permission levels: Reader (the user can only view information), Contributor (the user can view and contribute information), and Full Control (the user has complete control over the site, and can administer it; they can create and edit pages, create subsites and control membership). However, schools can create their own custom permission levels, to meet the needs of users or groups with particular requirements. By default, when a user is made a member of a site with a particular permission level, they will also be granted the same rights for all pages, lists, libraries, and items of content within the site, unless any of these have separate membership and permissions set. This is because, by default, membership and permissions are inherited as shown in the following hierarchy: Page 18 of 24
Site Page List or library Item of content However, administrators can choose to set unique membership and/or permissions for individual pages, lists or libraries, or items of content. For example, a user may have Reader access to a particular site, but Contributor access to a particular discussion group within this site; or a user may have Reader access to a particular library, but no access at all to the relevant site. Interest spaces are generally administered by the users who set them up. For example, here is a student s view of an interest space that they help to administer (they have the Full Control permission level). The interest space is for extra-curricular activities. Users who create interest spaces can easily manage who has access using the Membership Manager tool, which enables them to browse for users and groups and select the required permission levels. Creating sites Beneath the main school interest space, schools can create their own interest spaces, and grant access to selected users. Any user can be given the right to create interest spaces. Each interest space is a Web site in its own right, and is separately administered. Page 19 of 24
You can create multiple levels of interest spaces. For example, within a Sports interest space, you might create further interest spaces for the hockey team, football team, athletics team, and so on. You do not need to know anything about Web design or computer programming in order to create interest spaces and modify pages and web parts. When you create an interest space, you select a template to use, and a skeleton space is created for you with some sample pages and web parts already in place. You can start adding information to the space immediately using the provided pages and web parts, and you can add your own pages and additional web parts. Modifying pages Each user can select the theme (the fonts and colours) that they want to use on all pages on the portal, including fixed pages. Themes provide a quick and easy way for each user to change how the portal appears to them, without affecting what information they see or how other users see the portal. At any time, users can change the theme in use by selecting a thumbnail image from a gallery of themes. The My Desktop page contains widgets. Users can drag and drop widgets onto this page and position them as required, as discussed in the section on My Spaces on page 11. Many other portal pages are publishing pages, which contain a mixture of text areas and web parts in various zones on the page. Users can modify the layout and content of these pages as required. The available web parts for each site are contained in galleries. Users with the required rights can add web parts from the galleries to pages, remove web parts from pages, move web parts around on pages, and change the appearance of web parts. Some pages on the portal are fixed, and users cannot modify their layout or content. Examples of fixed pages are timetables and student dashboards, as well as administration pages. Some key terms Here are brief descriptions of some key terms used in the portal. For a full Glossary of terms, see the online Help. Accounts & Services Manager: For each establishment in the portal, one or more users are designated as Accounts & Services Managers, responsible for creating and maintaining user accounts and setting high level permissions and policies. Blog: A blog (or Web log) is a Web site enabling users to publish short items of interest and invite comments. Blogs can be used by groups of people to publish information that is of mutual interest, such as news or project status updates. However, more usually blogs are used by an individual to record a personal journey or record of their experiences. Page 20 of 24
Chat Room: If your school uses the optional Chat module of the Kaleidos Learning Platform, then interest space or learning space administrators can create chat rooms which enable members to chat online by sending short text messages to each other. Everyone involved in a chat session can see all posted messages. Cluster: A cluster is a group of establishments (for example a local authority and all schools within it, or an informal grouping of schools) that use the portal to share information and collaborate. Sub-clusters can be created within clusters. For example, within a local authority cluster there may be a sub-cluster for all primary schools and a sub-cluster for all secondary schools. Content Type: As its name implies, a content type is a type of content, such as a particular type of item in a list. The portal provides a number of generic content types, including document, picture, contact, task, issue, and page layout, and each provided list and library makes use of a relevant generic content type. However, you can define your own content types for particular purposes. For example, you might define a content type for a particular type of report or contract. Interest space: An interest space is a site on the portal that enables users to share knowledge, information and issues, and have online discussions on topics of mutual interest. A top level interest space for each school is always present, to which everyone in the school belongs. Beneath the school interest space, users may set up whatever interest spaces they require, with appropriate membership. For example, some students might set up an interest space to help them collaborate on a geography field trip project, and some teachers might set up an interest space to share information about training opportunities. Interest spaces can have members from across all establishments within a cluster, for example to support all SEN co-ordinators within a local authority. Learning Platform Administrator: For each establishment on the portal, a single Learning Platform Administrator is created. This person s responsibilities include: liaising with RM, controlling user access and permissions, configuring the Learning Platform to meet the school s requirements, supporting users, and resolving problems. This person also has Site Collection Administration rights for all sites within the establishment. Learning space: A learning space provides an online Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) where students can access digital resources for independent or group-based learning, and where teachers can create lesson plans, deliver classes, allocate work and assess students learning. Library: A library is a special kind of list used to store uploaded files. The portal includes document libraries, picture libraries, and form libraries amongst others. So, for example, a document library is a list of documents. The columns in the document library contain links to each document so you can view them, plus document properties, such as who created each document and the file size. Page 21 of 24
List: Much information on the portal is held and displayed in the form of lists. For example, the Contacts List, News and What s On web parts all contain lists. You can add items to a list, sort and filter items, switch to different views and export list data to a spreadsheet. Message Centre: If your school uses the optional message centre module of the Kaleidos Learning Platform, then logged on students and staff members can hold online conversations by sending short text messages to each other. More Accessible Mode (MAM): In Microsoft More Accessible Mode, the portal is more accessible for users with screen readers. Its effects include: replaces dynamically generated drop-down menus with pop-up windows; replaces non-accessible rich text entry forms with standard text input forms; replaces complex Gantt charts and graphs with less complex and more readable data tables. To turn MAM on and off, click the Accessible link at the bottom of any portal page. My Space: All portal users have a personal space, referred to as their My Space, which is under their own control. Within their My Space, all users have a private area, and all users except parents can store information, such as documents, images, contacts and so on. All users except parents also have an e-portfolio, where they can publish examples of their work and let selected other people see it. Page: The portal is a collection of interconnected Web sites, and each of these sites contains a number of Web pages used for publishing content. For example, each user s home page (My Desktop) is a Web page. Permission Level: A permission level is a means of providing groups of users with defined access rights to a site. On the portal, permission levels include Reader (can only view information), Contributor (can view and update information), and Full Control (can view and update information and also configure the site and control user access). Each user is assigned to a permission level for each site they have access to. Publishing page: Publishing pages are pages that you use for publishing and sharing content with other users, as opposed to fixed system pages such as entry forms or administration options, which you have no control over. Each publishing page is based upon a template, which defines the layout of the page and what it can contain. Each template includes one or more content areas into which you can add formatted text and images, and one or more zones into which you can add web parts, in various positions on the page. When you create a new blank page, you choose which of the available templates to use. SharePoint: SharePoint is Microsoft's knowledge management tool, providing users with document management and collaboration facilities. The portal is a customised Web site based on SharePoint and other tools. Site: The term 'site' is an abbreviation for a Web site. The portal is a collection of interconnected sites, each of which may be separately administered. Each user's My Space is a separate site, and each interest space and blog is also a separate site. Page 22 of 24
Site Collection Administrator: As part of their role, the Learning Platform Administrator for each establishment has Site Collection Administrator rights. This means that they can administer all sites owned by the establishment, including the main establishment interest space and all interest spaces and blogs within these. They also have administrator rights for all My Spaces for users owned by the establishment. Schools can create additional Site Collection Administrators to assist with these tasks. Space: A space is an area on the portal that holds a collection of content. Each user has a My Space for their own personal content, and each user may also be a member of various interest spaces and learning spaces. Each space may contain a number of sites. For example, an interest space may contain a number of sub-interest spaces and a number of blogs, each of which is a separately administered site. Web Conference Room: Groups of users can use the portal's web conferencing facilities to hold secure online meetings. For example, a group of teachers from a number of different schools may have an online meeting to discuss new approaches to teaching modern languages, or a group of students may have an online meeting to discuss interschool events. Individuals or groups can deliver online presentations. For example, teachers might deliver lessons to remote students or hold training sessions for other staff. Web part: A web part is a set of information on a web page, displayed in a small window. For example, Web Links, Slideshow Viewer and Picture are all web parts. So long as you have the required permissions, you can make use of the particular facilities provided by each web part to view and contribute information. You can add web parts to pages, move them around on pages, and remove them from pages. Widget: A widget is a small window of content that a user can drag and position anywhere on a screen. It is similar to a web part, but typically provides more basic functionality, and web parts can only be positioned on a grid on the page. All users have a set of widgets on their home page (their My Desktop in their My Space). Provided widgets include a clock, calculator, bookmarks, latest news and work due. Schools can lock selected widgets so that users cannot remove them. Wiki: A Wiki is a Web site that anyone with access can edit. Wikis are useful for brainstorming ideas, collaborating over a plan, or gathering information. For example, a group of pupils and teachers might set up a wiki to help them to plan and organise a school concert. Page 23 of 24
What to do next For details about how to log on to the portal and start using it, consult the relevant Quick Start. If you don t have a printed copy of this, you can obtain it in.pdf format from within the online Help. Once you are logged on to the portal you can get detailed Help by clicking the Help icon in the top right corner of most pages. For Help on particular web parts, you can use the Help option on the web part menu (this menu appears at the top right corner of each web part, and is usually a downwards triangle depending upon the theme you are using). Once within Help, you can search for the assistance you need using the contents, keyword index or full text search. Some administration pages link to Microsoft SharePoint Help, though the vast majority of users will not need to access this. Version 2.2, September 2009 PN 1FY-490 RM 2009 Page 24 of 24