All these users can customize the appearance of their portal pages to display information of interest. For example, teachers can include links to videos and text used in lessons, and students can add content for research and homework assignments. Using extensive collaboration features such as online meeting spaces, team sites, discussion groups, instant messaging, and custom staff alerts, educators, parents, and students will be able to work together more closely. To alleviate information overload, users will be able to take advantage of extensive search capabilities to quickly and easily find the information that they need.

Sharepoint Benefit

Students:

From any Internet connection, students can view their class list, grades, stored documents, school announcements and events, and a district calendar. The portal also links to the district's instructional content, an online student-advising system, and an online resource that reinforces reading and math skills.

Parents:

Parents can view their child's class list, grades, assignments, school bus information, state graduation requirements, immunization guidelines, and links to many other resources.

Teachers:

Teachers can view their personal information; e-mail messages; calendar; stored files; class lists; a roster of students in each class; detailed data from the Student Information System; a graphical "student scorecard" that shows each child's current performance and whether that performance is improving, holding steady, or decreasing over time. In addition, instructional content and lesson plans are on the portal, tailored to grade levels.

Principals:

Principals can see personal information and documents, calendars, weekly district briefings, reports from key district systems, and links to other relevant resources.

Improved Access to Information

Dr. Alice Quarles currently the principal of Greynolds Park Elementary in Miami Florida.
Students can now monitor their own grades and access a wealth of educational resources ranging from instructional content to the district library system. "Students can access instructional content to enrich their class experiences," Quarles says. "It's a way of engaging the class in more critical and creative thinking. We're empowering students to teach each other." Parents are presented with similar information, so they can get more involved in the education of their children.

Teachers can use a single point of access to commonly used applications, and to information that was previously unavailable.

"I'm able to be more creative as a teacher, because I have more time to find resources that can supplement my instruction," Quarles says. "I'm also better able to share ideas with other teachers."

School administrators can easily access the forms, tools, and reports they need to keep everything running smoothly, optimize their use of resources, and quickly identify any issues that need their attention.

“A couple of clicks, and I can get all the information I need on a child,"Quarles says. “I'm empowered with the information I need to make decisions about classrooms at all levels, so I can make decisions faster.”