<csukoneck@penncharter.com> wrote:
>We have had a pilot group working with Google apps for a number of months
>now. Everyone is quite happy with the Calendar feature and the Email. As
>we move forward I woud like to see us include the Start Page but have some
>reservations. I remember not very long ago someone posted to this listserv
>a link to their Google start page. Unfortunately I cannot locate that
>post.
>
>I setup a start page that my tech group was very pleased with. However we
>found that there is no way to control the widgets features on the start
>page. We could set the widgets we wanted but after that it was a
>smorgasbord for the kids to add whatever they wanted. If someone has
>discovered a way to freeze the start page without giving the kids access to
>the multitude of widgets, many which are not appropriate for education, I
>would love to hear from you.
>
As it currently stands, the Start page is simply a user-controlled page for
consolidating content with very little admin control beyond establishing the
initial layout and turning on/off the Start page itself.
I would like to see more admin-level control over the Start page too. About
all you can do is lock one column, but even that has it's drawbacks because
it locks a snapshot of the column (i.e. the default gadgets for the column
at the time the user first logs on). If you as an admin want to modify the
locked column, the modification only affects NEW users. I would like to use
a locked column for school news (e.g. an RSS feed) etc. but the inability to
modify the column for existing users makes this locked column "feature"
pretty much useless to us. [Note: I just found this in Google Help: "If you
created your account or added the Start Page service after November 19th,
2007, you won't have the locked column feature."] As far as I know this is
not possible to control the content in the other columns.
--
Tom Phelan
Director of Technology
Peddie School
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