[K12OSN] advice needed: Moving to Open Office

[john]

Thanks very much Graham et al.

This will really help me as we move forward.

John

On 6/14/06, Graham <yorick at xtra.co.nz> wrote:
>
> 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
>     http://documentation.openoffice.org/manuals/index.html or in
>     editable form [ODT files] from the OOoAuthors project at
>     http://oooauthors.org/en/authors/userguide2/migration/published_final/
> )
>
>     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
>     http://downloads.openoffice.org.  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>Openoffice.org>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 OPENOFFICE.ORG"
> http://why.openoffice.org
> ISO 26300 compliant
>
> Graham Lauder,
> OpenOffice.org MarCon (Marketing Contact) NZ
> http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html
>
> INGOTs Assessor Trainer
> (International Grades in Office Technologies)
> www.theingots.org.nz
>
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>
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