Alex Pearce's SharePoint Blog

This last week I've done a bit of travelling to London.  I love London with its underground, fast pace, culture and buzz and I feel like I'm at home there when I get off the train from Birmingham.

On Monday night I was invited down to the Handheld Learning Awards where many education organisations won awards for their use of handheld devices in the classroom and at home.  I would like to congratulate all those schools and universities who won and hope that other schools can get involved in these technology.

Staying on the subject of handheld/mobile learning I'm excited about a few projects I've heard of closer to home including my Mums school who have just brought 180 Asus EEEs for her Year 5 (9/10 year olds) to be used at school and at home.  I'm looking forward to seeing these in action when I get to visit.  At my own school my boss ordered 20 Playstation Portalables PSPs for use in lessons.  The kids aren't playing games on the device but we have brought the PSP camera (GoCam) that fits top and you can take both stills and videos.  The staff love taking these into lessons as it really gets the kids involved in e-learning making vidcasts and then uploading them to the Learning Gateway (SharePoint).

Thursday I was back in London for the SharePoint User Group UK meeting.  I try and attend as many of these as I can as it really does boost my knowledge of the product but also gives me some great ideas for applications for education.  There were well over 100 people there.  Thanks to Riaz and Chris for their presentations and thanks to Nick and Steve who organise and run these events.  The next one is in Birmingham – at last one in my home city – but I can't make it

I would highly recommend you attend your local group.  Find your local user group for this link.http://sharepointsearch.com/pages/spusergroups.aspx

• Handheld Learning Conference Handheld Learning 2008 – Home
• Asus EEE http://eeepc.asus.com/global/
• PSP + GoCam http://uk.playstation.com/psp/hardware/accessories/detail/item63425/Go!Cam/
• SharePoint User Group http://www.suguk.org

As you may have seen I've done a fair bit of blogging about the SharePoint work going on at Twynham school in Dorset, England.

I'm really pleased to see the school name a lot in articles on the Internet showing how a school system should be setup and discussing their work with their webparts.

Well you can now view their webparts online on their school website.

Try their Web Parts here http://gateway.twynhamschool.com/supportinglearning/onlinereporting/default.aspx

I was at the Microsoft Headquarters in the UK at the beginning of the month and they had just taken delivery of a demo Microsoft Surface.

Microsoft Surface is a new interactive screen that is the same height as a coffee table and allows the users to move objects around on the screen. You can also add objects to the screen and should it be programmed to it can recognise objects places on top like mobile phones, ID cards or casino chips.

I've heard that the first one in the UK is going to a school so very interested to see how it is used.

Here is a rubbish photo I took while I was there.  This example program is a pool of water and if you touch it slightly you get a little ripple of water.  Push your finger on it and you get a bigger ripple as the touch screen technology and detected the amount of pressure.  I did think at this time what would happen to the water if I punch the screen but I decided not to in case I hurt my hand.

I'm off to Barcelona for this years TechEd IT Pro in Barcelona starting on the 3rd November.

I'm not getting there until the Tuesday due to another trip but more details on that later.

I'm really excited as this will be my first proper Microsoft conference that I have been to, my first conference aboard and my first as a MVP. 

Let me know if your attending.  It would be great to meet up.

In part 2 of Using the Content Editor WebPart I want to talk about how you can integrate a Flash file into your site.

We've all seen flash before and we all know that you can create some great animations.  If you look around the internet many websites use flash for animations.

Some companies such as the BBC and SkySport have streamed videos through flash and YouTube using flash videos to stream their videos. 

Many sites that have banner advertising, also user adverts that are now in SWF/flash format.

So lets add a flash file (.swf) to run on the front page of our SharePoint Site.

We first need to upload the swf file into a document library.

Create yourself a document library.  You might want to tell the document library to be hidden from the Quick Launch bar down the left hand side so visitors/members of your site can't easily find the library.

Go to Site Action – Create and under Libraries click on Document Library.

Give your Document Library a name.  I'm going to call mine SWF.  Under Navigation, click No which will hide the library from the left hand side navigation.

I'm now going to upload my SWF file into the library and anything else that might be required for the flash file to run.

At this point we need to find out the URL of the SWF file as we need it later.

Right click on your flash file.  You will see your standard Internet Explorer properties and we need to copy the URL.  Click on Copy Shortcut and it will add the URL to your clipboard.  Paste this into Notepad or Word for reference later on.

We now need to add the Content Editor Web Part to our site.

Go back to the top of your Site and click on Site Actions, Edit Page and then Add a Web Part.

Find the Content Editor Web Part and add it to your site.

Click Edit on the webpart and then into Modify Shared Web Part.

Click on Source Editor and paste the following code

<embed src = "http://www.website.com/site/SWF/flash.swf" width = "500" height = "375"></embed>

If we have a quick look at the code here you will see three main areas.

Src = the URL of the flash file
Width = the width of your flash file
Height = the height of your flash file

We now need to add the code to the content editor web part.

Before we click save and finish we need to tell the code where to pull the SWF file from.

We copied it earlier, so we'll now paste the URL of the SWF file in the code after src =.

Click Save and you'll have your flash running in the page.

In my first post of the series I want to looking at getting YouTube videos embedded into a site. 

Many schools look at YouTube and see a website that is full of violence and inappropriate videos but when you search for some of these key words nothing comes up.

We look at YouTube and see a vast number of videos that can help students in their understanding of the subject.

So how do we get these into out SharePoint site?

There are many different ways to download videos from YouTube, convert them and then upload them to play in your site but there is a very simply way of adding them.

Go and find your video on YouTube.

If the user has allowed it you will see an embedded section down the right hand side.  You will then see some code down just below it.  Copy this text.

So now you should have something like this ready to paste into your SharePoint site

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/QeoKQbT8BKs&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/QeoKQbT8BKs&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

Open your SharePoint site and add a Content Editor Web Part to your page

When you've loaded the web part properties click on Source Editor.

Paste the code into this box.

Now click on OK and Ok again and you will see your video on your SharePoint site.

You now have your video in your sharepoint site

It's been a while since I last properly blogged so it's time to get back on track.

In the last few months I've changed jobs, been to the USA and now planning my next trip away which includes visiting a school in Serria Leone and TechEd in Barcelona.

While I was in the New York last month I managed to pop into the New York SharePoint Group event which I really enjoyed – thanks to those who made me feel so welcome.

I do a lot of posting at EduGeek.net and looking at doing some `how to' through Microsoft Live Meeting. If you have any suggestions please leave a comment in this post.
http://www.edugeek.net/forums/general-edugeek-news-announcements/23217-live-meeting-opportunities.html

So I've decided I'm going to do a little series of blogs on the content editor webpart.  I'm hoping this can help enrich your environment in your schools and show you how you can get some external teaching resources into your school.

Area I will cover include:

• YouTube
• Adding a Silverlight Application
• Adding a Flash Application
• Mashup

As part of my community work online I do a lot of posting on edugeek – www.edugeek.net

Edugeek is full of technical staff from the education field but there are many other who don't work in the education who post.

There are many discussion boards in the site including Windows, Open Source, Learning Gateways and VLEs, Security and Mac.

Also on the site there are wiki pages, chat areas, edugeek software (free) and blogging.

I would like to congratulate edugeek on receiving its 8000th user today.

If your stuck about something – give edugeek and try and test some of the best IT minds from around the globe.

I've covered Twynham school a few times in my blog and I think there are doing a great job down in the south of England.  I've been warned several times by the management team there that I am not allowed to nick their developers keep your eyes open Dave.

Twynham have been contacted by Microsoft to do some case study work and here is the first of hopefully many.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262582(TechNet.10).aspx

Its great to see some coverage of a school on the Microsoft website.

Only a few hours after I blog on the press release it now released on codeplex.

Its an extra download on www.codeplex.com/slk

You can download directly from www.codeplex.com/…/ProjectReleases.aspx

I'll get it installed over the next few days and do some screan shots for you all.

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