Thanks very much Graham et al. This will really help me as we move forward. John <div>On 6/14/06, Graham <<a href="mailto:yorick@xtra.co.nz"> yorick@xtra.co.nz</a>> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">john wrote: > Hi all, > > This is not a K12LTSP question, but I hope you can help anyway. > We're looking into moving all of the computer labs in our district to > Open Office next year. > The tech department brought together the teachers who manage these > labs and after several hours of exploring Word and OO side by side the > teachers felt comfortable enough to give the o.k. to move forward. Now > we are trying to plan this rollout. > > This rollout is is going to happen on both Windows boxes and LTSP > nodes, with the majority being on XP/SP2 under Active Directory. Could > folks who have gone before give me some ideas of what to expect in > terms of teacher and student needs, complaints etc. I'd love to be > able to anticipate problems and solutions ahead of time. Are there any > case studies from schools for OO that anyone could point me at? > > TIA!! Excellent to hear John, A few points to help you along from experience. 1) It is invariably easier than anticipated. 2) Have printed copies of the OOo Migration Guide available at each school as well as on the network in PDF. (Available from <a href="http://documentation.openoffice.org/manuals/index.html"> http://documentation.openoffice.org/manuals/index.html</a> or in editable form [ODT files] from the OOoAuthors project at <a href="http://oooauthors.org/en/authors/userguide2/migration/published_final/">http://oooauthors.org/en/authors/userguide2/migration/published_final/ </a>) 3) Identify early adopters at each school and make them your friends and part of a Migration Support Group. Support them with poweruser level training, they will reward you by making your life real easy. Teachers often respond better to face to face assistance from a local "expert" than they do from email or support desk. 4) Set up a Wiki so that users can share experiences of cool things that OOo can do as well as solutions to small gotchas. Over time you'll get a picture of the types of inservice training that your teachers will need. 5) Never stop communicating. Weekly tips and tricks emails are a good way of teaching people and keeping them involved in the migration 6) Don't use the version of OOo that comes with the distro download. Get the latest version from <a href="http://downloads.openoffice.org"> http://downloads.openoffice.org</a>. At present the latest stable version is 2.0.3 and it is significantly better than 2.0.2 Some things that some will find annoying at the start. Registration and licence agreement request Window at first launch from a new account. Endusers sometimes are unsure what to do with this. I tell them to Agree to the licence then check the "Already Registered" radio button. There is a way to disable this on a Terminal Server system but unfortunately I've forgotten right at the moment. Some people don't like the standard toolbar icons. Since 2.0.2 you have options. Go to tools>options><a href="http://Openoffice.org">Openoffice.org </a>>view and the User has various options of Style and Size And NEVER, EVER.. that's NOT EVER show anyone how to get to the Starwars Game! :) Cheers Yo -- "GET LEGAL - GET <a href="http://OPENOFFICE.ORG">OPENOFFICE.ORG</a>" <a href="http://why.openoffice.org">http://why.openoffice.org</a> ISO 26300 compliant Graham Lauder, OpenOffice.org MarCon (Marketing Contact) NZ <a href="http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html">http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html</a> INGOTs Assessor Trainer (International Grades in Office Technologies) <a href="http://www.theingots.org.nz"> www.theingots.org.nz</a> _______________________________________________ K12OSN mailing list <a href="mailto:K12OSN@redhat.com">K12OSN@redhat.com</a> <a href="https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/k12osn"> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/k12osn</a> For more info see <<a href="http://www.k12os.org">http://www.k12os.org</a>> </blockquote></div>