Ensure your school leadership team is across the opportunity afforded by new technologies, by hosting a complimentary Windows in the Classroom seminar. Find out more information by visiting our website. To book a Windows in the Classroom personal development seminar at your school or for more information, please email nzeducation@microsoft.com.
Microsoft Partners in Learning is a $500 million global initiative working with schools and educators to improve teaching and learning practices; optimize the use of technology within pedagogy to improve learning outcomes; and help every student receive an excellent education and gain the skills they need in work and life. To sign up now, visit http://www.pil-network.com.
We've just launched our new Microsoft NZ Education Facebook page. If you enjoy receiving regular updates from us, come and "Like" us! We can't wait to give you more insight into what's going on in the NZ education sector.
Bill Gates recently presented an extremely inspiring TED Talk, focusing not only on professional development for teachers, but heavily on the importance of feedback. We want to share it with you. Gates believes that “everyone needs a coach”. “We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve. Unfortunately, there’s one group of people who get almost no systematic form of feedback to help them do their jobs better. And these people have one of the most important jobs in the world. I’m talking about teachers.”
“Until recently, over 98 percent of teachers just got one word of feedback: ‘Satisfactory,” Gates stated. “Our teachers deserve better.” Gates then goes on to explain how ongoing support for our teachers via systematic feedback and mentoring is a significant step forward that needs to be taken in the education system.
Check out the TED Talk above for yourself, and let us know what you think. We’d love to hear!
Have you tried Microsoft’s Office Web Apps? Microsoft has introduced a fully featured, inclusive approach to productivity that spans platforms, devices, browsers, online and offline experiences. Since we launched the Office Web Apps in 2010, we have made various investments in Office Web Apps to ensure people can work together, author documents and access Office content anytime, from anywhere, with ease. The Office 365 blog recently posted about the immense benefits and future plans of Office Web Apps, and we wanted to share them with you. You can also read the full article here.
As we think about how people communicate and collaborate today and how their needs will evolve in the future, we'd like to share our plans for some of the investments we are making in the Office Web Apps over the next year and beyond. Most excitingly, this includes big changes in co-authoring capabilities.
Since first introducing co-authoring in the Office Web Apps, we’ve seen an increasing demand for more fluid and dynamic collaboration capabilities when working online. We’ll introduce real time co-authoring in the Office Web Apps so that all file authors will automatically see presence and edits from others as they happen without needing to refresh. This is a subtle change, but a great enhancement to enable even richer collaboration.
We have started to deliver on this in the PowerPoint Web App where users can now see each other's changes almost immediately. You can see it in action in the video below or give it a try yourself with your presentations stored in SkyDrive or SharePoint Online. In the next few months you'll see PowerPoint Web App co-authoring get even faster and real time co-authoring support in the other Office Web Apps.
Check out this video and get an idea of how cool co-authoring in Office Web Apps really is.
Kevin Pashuk, Chief Information Officer at Appleby College in Oakville, Ontario Canada, recently featured in a guest post for CRN, where he outlined the immense benefits the Microsoft Surface Pro brings to education. We thoroughly enjoyed what he had to say, and wanted to give you a quick preview.
Pashuk makes an excellent comparison between the Apple iPad and the Microsoft Surface Pro. Have a read, because you will certainly learn a few things.
“As someone charged with identifying future technology trends that may impact education in particular and IT in general, I find it valuable to actually get my (or my team's) hands on a particular piece of technology rather than just read about it in an article.”
“If you check out the satchels of many executives today, there are three devices -- a laptop computer for working, an iPad (or Android) tablet for quick reference and browsing (as well as a session or two of Angry Birds), and a mobile phone.
Enter the Microsoft Surface Pro.”
“I picked up one a few weeks ago that was configured with 128 GB of storage and a touch-type keyboard (real keys, not the flat version). An extra power supply and a Targus USB 3.0 docking station were added to the mix.
One of the first things I noticed about the Surface Pro (other than its great styling, which bore an uncanny resemblance to the walking tank in Star Wars) was its speed. It booted from cold in six seconds, and the response was quick. It was as fast, if not faster than my laptop, even in processor-heavy applications like Adobe Lightroom.”
Pashuk then goes on to describe the validity of Windows 8 in education and how the “real test of this device was to take it on the road. I used to be one of those people with three devices. For this trip, I took just the Surface Pro and my phone.”
You can find out how the Surface Pro (coming to New Zealand very soon!) passed the test and read the rest of the article here.
The very first Daily Edventure’s Web Show premiered this week and we are so excited to share it with you.
So what’s all the fuss about? Anthony Salcito, Vice President for Microsoft Education, explains, “Every day, I get to see and experience the best practices in education as I travel the globe and speak to heroes in education. We also hear that the readers of this blog love the videos we share. So, the Daily Edventures Web Show is our chance share and celebrate the best ideas and practices in education today in a fun and energetic video show. Each episode will be a little bit different, with a different theme – game-based learning, one-to-one, accessibility or building teacher capacity.”
Anyone can contribute videos, ideas and stories. Just send your thoughts, photos and videos to dailyedventures@microsoft.com.
There will be plenty more to come, and we’ll make sure you get to see them. For now, check out the premier right here:
If you are considering using Office 365 Education for your school, you will probably want to know what’s in it for you. Office 365 Education gives you SharePoint collaboration spaces, Exchange Email, web versions of Office apps, Lync communications and SkyDrive storage services.
To get the full outline, check out the Office 365 service descriptions for SharePoint Online for yourself, but here’s a good idea of what you’ll receive:
Check out the full software boundaries and limits here!
The future of educational technology is “Bring Your Own Device”, (BYOD), and we are seeing more and more schools moving away from providing devices for students every day.
BYOD has allowed for there to be a one-to-one ratio of students with a diverse range of technological devices. Here are just a few of the benefits students gain from bringing their own devices to class:
Check out this video. The UK Microsoft education team demonstrate one possible device students and teachers can consider: the Surface Pro. Soon to be available in New Zealand (before the end of May!), we give you a sneak peek into the clever technological benefits the Surface Pro brings to the classroom.
If you enjoy the regular updates from Microsoft on the NZ education sector you receive from us, like our Facebook page. We've just started it up, and look forward to providing you with more great educational insights every week.
New Zealand organisations and educational institutions are quickly deploying cloud computing. The following article, this week published on the Microsoft GovTech blog, explains that while the low prices and convenience of cloud computing are appealing, there are also important questions to ask around privacy, security and data integrity. As a member of the education industry, the answers to these questions have great value as a current or future user of cloud computing in your organisation.
Waldo Kuipers, Corporate Affairs Manager at Microsoft NZ, says “Organisations know that trust matters. They need to keep business information secure, and do the right thing on privacy. But people often tell us they’re unsure what to ask.”
In February, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner published a plain English cloud computing guide. That guidance is available at http://privacy.org.nz/using-the-cloud/.
“Headlines about information leaks have raised awareness, and Kiwi organisations are taking privacy seriously. They want their move to the cloud to improve privacy and security, so they’re asking us to take them through this cloud guidance,” says Waldo.
Today, Microsoft NZ has released a standard response to help organisations assess the Office 365 cloud service, based on the cloud guidance from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. “It’s a very straightforward way for people to work through this official cloud privacy guidance if they’re considering Office 365,” explains Waldo.
Andrew Hunt, CEO of technology support company Kinetics Group, says, “Electronic records are critical. I ask people, ‘How well are you taking care of your data?’ Too often we’re asked to come in after data has been lost. It’s so much better to prevent issues in the first place.”
Privacy Awareness Week 2013 is next week, from 28 April to 4 May. “It’s like checking the batteries on your smoke alarm or your car’s warrant of fitness, you need to check periodically that everything is in order,” says Andrew.
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner's guidance says, “Think of what risks you currently have with handling personal information. Will using the cloud increase or decrease those risks?” Andrew agrees, “The guidance from the Privacy Commissioner is a valuable checklist to use with current and future providers. If you choose carefully, cloud services can definitely be a step up.”
With Office 365, Microsoft makes a contractual commitment to use customer data only to provide the Office 365 service to customers of the service. “We think this use limitation is important because customer data could include sensitive or personal information about your staff, clients, patients, customers, or students,” says Waldo. “Microsoft’s policy is not to use Office 365 customer data for other purposes, such as profiling people for advertising or improving advertising services.”
A recent upgrade to Office 365 added new security features, including the option to deploy data loss prevention rules that can help prevent sensitive information from being leaked by email. Upgrades to Office 365 are automatically available to customers, so they can have the latest technology at their fingertips.
“Privacy and security have been a big focus for Office 365 from the outset. We hope Office 365 will play a part in helping many New Zealand organisations improve privacy, security, and service continuity disciplines in a cost effective way,” says Waldo.
The standard response for Office 365 is available at http://aka.ms/NZprivacyOffice365.
Want to learn more about deploying Office 365 in your educational institution? Visit our website to learn about Windows in the Classroom seminars and book one today!
Windows To Go is one of the excellent new features of Windows 8 in education. As a teacher, regularly preparing class material both at school and at home can be hard to manage. File transferring and saving various versions of the same document isn’t always easy and we end up with the wrong and unsaved versions. Windows To Go provides educators with an easy solution - an imaged version of Windows 8 that reflects your school desktop. It is a self-contained, portable operating system that runs solely on a USB 2.0 or USB 3.0.
When started, the PC will boot from the USB device to a managed school desktop, which can even be password protected. Added to this, at their own discretion, teachers are given the freedom to choose which applications and security settings are set to that particular desktop.
Windows To Go allows teachers to fully benefit from bringing their own PC to school if a balance of their personal and professional lives is desired. It also enables the flexibility of file sharing with colleagues and students if a teacher is unable to attend a presentation or meeting.
Check out this great 2 minute overview of Windows to Go and how it can be used in schools.
Like what you see and want to learn more? Our Windows in the Classroom sessions are almost full. If you are interested in securing a spot, all you need to do is register your interest by emailing nzeducation@microsoft.com.
It is no secret that many countries are facing an increasing talent deficit in light of the economic crisis and the current shortage of skills necessary to fill new jobs in the private sector. New Zealand is no exception. Brad Smith, Microsoft Executive Vice President and General Counsel, states “The economy faces a paradox: Too many Americans can’t find jobs, yet too many companies can’t fill open positions. There are too few Americans with the necessary science, technology, engineering and math skills to meet companies’ demand.”
Take a look at this insightful infographic from Born to Learn, which covers the current state of IT jobs in cloud computing. IDC stated that there were over one and a half million cloud-related jobs that went unfilled in 2012. It is predicted that within in the next three years, that number will grow to 7 million open cloud positions. How can we tighten this gap moving forward? Our students will create and fill the jobs of the future. We need to educate them to become trained, certified and hired in STEM careers.
So where can we start? Microsoft's IT Academy programmes (www.microsoft.com/Itacademy) help schools and students bridge the technology skills gap with industry-recognised training and certification. Students also need the best tools, so take a look at Microsoft's Dreamspark programme (www.dreamspark.com) which enables students to access Microsoft's professional design and development tools at no cost. They can download these tools to their own devices and continue their learning at home.
Teaching our students to develop time management skills and learn how to prioritise their school, work and personal lives is never an easy task. During Windows in the Classroom seminars, our education specialists teach senior leadership teams and teachers from all over New Zealand how our expectations of students can be better met with 21st Century technology. One of the fantastic benefits of Office 365, is the way in which Microsoft Lync and Outlook work together to create a seamless and consistent system of communication between students and teachers.
Check out the video above to get an idea of how students and teachers can benefit from Office 365. Want to find out more?
Windows in the Classroom seminars finish at the end of June – and our schedule is filling up fast! You can host a session at your school or attend one in your area. All you need to do is register your interest by emailing nzeducation@microsoft.com.
Microsoft is committed to improving educational outcomes – and that is why we want to welcome you to Partners in Learning. It’s free to educators and schools all over the world - and you can get started today.
Partners in Learning is a global support network with professional development training, community discussion, free software, step by step tutorials and tested lesson plans. A fantastic feature of Partners in Learning is The Learning Suite – a special selection of software, just for education. It gives you many of Microsoft’s most innovative applications and teacher resources in one simple download. It’s so easy!
Partners in Learning also offers many other free tools for educators that you can check out here. But we’ll give you a quick insight to the innovative, 21st Century learning tools you can use right now, for free.
Microsoft Photosynth is just one tool you can use for free, as a member of the Partners in Learning network. It uses interactive 3D technology to help students tell personal stories and explore places, events and activities. Students and teachers are now able to reconstruct a 3D experience from a flat photograph and gives both detailed synths and panorama experiences. It’s easy to use, lets you upgrade your teaching materials to include more visually stimulating content and helps students produce impressive results. Check out this video to get a better idea of the benefits that you could bring your students with Partners in Learning.
So, what are you waiting for? Start inspiring your students today with new ideas and tools. Enroll here.
Last week, we looked at the benefits that Lync can bring students and teachers in creating an online classroom, accessible anywhere and at any time. Today, we are going to give you an insight into the co-authoring features of Office 365 that allow students to analyse data, brainstorm ideas and work collaboratively with their peers, in real time, on the browser.
It is no secret that collaboration is critical when it comes to effective learning inside and outside the classroom. Now, the clever combination of SharePoint Online and Office 365 offers an innovation in document collaboration, whether that be through co-authoring a graph or designing a field trip plan.
Check out these examples of the Excel and Word Apps that are being used by two people at the same time to edit their work.
Students and teachers don’t even have to download and open the document, they can work together in real-time, editing the document in the browser. Web Apps will also work across a large variety of devices.
Like what you see? Take a look at this video here and see how easy co-authoring with Office is for yourself!
We’re still taking bookings for our Windows in the Classroom education specialists. If you like what you see and want to learn more, you can host a session at your school or attend one in your area. All you need to do is register your interest by emailing nzeducation@microsoft.com.
The seminars will center around exploring the tools and technologies available to help educators teach 21st Century skills. For any school considering enhancing their one-to-one student learning programme, Windows in the Classroom will demonstrate the diversity of Microsoft software and relative devices available to aid student learning.
You can also find out more at our website. Don’t miss out!
Anthony Salcito, Vice President for Microsoft Education, was this week thrilled to give a very informative demo of the innovations that Windows 8 is offering educators worldwide. And we are thrilled to share it. Salcito explains in detail how many of the new features and apps in Windows 8 are part of the solution that is helping to transform education today. Check out his demo below, we promise you’ll come away inspired to try out a new app or put a cool new trick into use – we certainly did!
Are you interested to learn more about Windows 8, Office 365, or BYOD programmes? Give your staff and students the opportunity to benefit from the most innovative tools and technology of today and book your complimentary 2-hour Windows in the Classroom Seminar.
The seminars centre around exploring the tools and technologies available to help educators teach 21st Century skills. For any school considering enhancing their one-to-one student learning programme, it allows you to see the diversity of Microsoft software and HP devices applied to learning. Windows 8 will also be demonstrated through learning how it can be used to inspire students and improve educational outcomes.
We are still taking bookings for our Windows in the Classroom seminars. You can host a session at your school or attend one in your area. All you need to do is register your interest by emailing nzeducation@microsoft.com. You can also find out more at our website!
It is no secret to any student that the trick to excelling during exam time lies within the quality of their note keeping throughout the year. The better their notes, the better prepared students are to be tested on the content. The better the test, the higher the grade. It’s a vicious cycle! But OneNote allows students to get organized well in advance of their test, assignment or exam. This is achieved by the functionality to identify examinable or important material during class in order to assist the student in focusing when it comes to that important time of year.
As students take notes during a class, tutorial or lecture, they can now use a special tag to identify the material they know is important or may be tested. They can then focus their test prep on these notes. How do they do it? It’s called a tag.
Creating a custom tag
Students can easily create a custom tag within OneNote. For example, they could create "exam material" or "important content".
Firstly, click the More button in the tags section.
Then, click on Customize Tags.
Click New Tag.
Under the Display Name, type the tag you wish to use. For example, "Exam Material". You can then choose a symbol, font and highlighter colour for the tag you want to create.
You can then use tags to categorise and prioritise your notes. Find out more here.
Finding your tags, grouping them together and creating a summary page
To search your tagged note, simply click the Find Tag button in the ribbon.
You can then create a summary page of all of your tagged notes.
Finally, a new page will appear in the current notebook section with a full list of all notes with your tag. Studying suddenly got so easy!
You can find out about many more tips and tricks with OneNote at a Windows in the Classroom Seminar, where our education specialists demonstrate how Windows 8 and Office 365 can be utilized in the 21st Century Classroom.
Windows in the Classroom is a two hour, complimentary seminar which explores the tools and technologies available to help educators teach 21st century skills and optimise the classroom for advanced student achievement. This week, we’ll give you an insight into what our education specialists have been demonstrating to school leadership teams all over New Zealand with the wonderful Office 365.
One of the most fantastic features of Office 365 for Education is the ability to give online presentations which can be accessed anywhere. Teachers now have the flexibility to give interactive lectures to their students, who can also save the presentations for future viewing. Learning can now be done from anywhere, at any time.
Check out this awesome clip, it will give you a quick demonstration of what we cover in a Windows in the Classroom seminar.
We’re still taking bookings for our Windows in the Classroom seminars, but spaces are running out fast! You can host a session at your school or attend one in your area. All you need to do is register your interest by emailing nzeducation@microsoft.com.
Earlier this week the update to the OneNote app in the Windows Store was released – we are so excited! The update brings with it a few brand new features along with a couple of fixes too.
Want to get your hands on the download right now? It’s easy. Simply click the Store tile in Windows 8 and then click through to Updates. Don’t worry, if you haven’t yet installed the OneNote application, you can easily download it here.
Here’s a quick look at what you’ll experience:
Improvements with Pen and Ink
An improved pen customisation for drawing and handwriting, coupled with the ability to now easily switch between customised pens, were both requested by our customers and are now easily doable in the new app. In order to assist you in getting started, there are now four default pens to choose between. Bring your stylus closer to the screen and the radial menu indicator will appear. Tapping this will open your radial menu and allow you to see all of the available pens. You then have the freedom to easily customize your choice by selecting the appropriate colour and thickness.
Improved support for notebooks with Office 365
This week’s update has just made it even easier to access all of your notebooks on Office 365. The new OneNote app is a great way to keep you on top of all your personal and professional notes in just one convenient place.
Want to get started? Simply sign in with your Office 365 account.
The updated OneNote app will then use your details in order to make it easier to access all of your other notebooks. Simply tap More Notebooks and you’ll see a list of all the recent notebooks for every login you have used.
We hope you enjoy all of the new and improved features of OneNote! Don’t forget to tell all of your friends, and keep providing all of the helpful feedback we have been getting.
Over the next 5 weeks we will be giving you a sneak peek into the tips and tricks school leadership teams across New Zealand are learning at their complimentary Windows in the Classroom seminar.
This week we’ll cover the basics – teaching your students to customise their own start screen. Students can maximise productivity by keeping all the information that’s important in one place. They can now glance at their own personalised tiles to stay updated on the latest headlines, real-time news and information or they can quickly and easily access their favourite apps, websites and folders.
Two particularly cool functions include the ability to pin and unpin apps and to create tiles for your favourite people and places.
Pinning apps
Some of the apps your students use most might not be pinned to Start. But students have the freedom to pin what they want, where they want. On the Start screen, students can simply open the Search charm, select the app they would like to pin to open its commands, and then tap or clock to Pin to Start.
Creating tiles
A tile gives students the freedom to open their favourite app or content from the Start screen. To pin a website or contact from an app, open the app commands and click Pin to Start. To pin a folder or document, open it in File Explorer, right-click it, and then click Pin to Start.
Check out this quick video to get a better idea about how your students can benefit from the flexible and innovative new Start screen.
Make sure to look out for next week's Windows in the Classroom tip!
DON'T MISS OUT, we’re still taking bookings for our Windows in the Classroom seminars. You can host a session at your school or attend one in your area. All you need to do is register your interest by emailing nzeducation@microsoft.com.
Alternatively, ‘like’ our new Facebook page to receive regular updates and feedback about the seminars. Don’t hesitate to post a question or comment on our wall. You can also find out more at our website.
Ensure your school leadership team is across the opportunity afforded by new technologies, by hosting a Windows in the Classroom seminar.
Game based learning, commonly referred to as “gamification”, is predicted to take the education sector by storm as the awareness of 21st Century learning increases throughout the world. So what is this phenomenon? Game-based learning is a powerful new way of thinking for students.
When a child progresses through a game, they are learning; if they are actively engaged in the game, their minds are coming to understand a new system. Whether the game is for entertainment or serious purposes, this is true. So, when learning in the classroom feels dull for a student, they are not being engaged and motivated by the learning process. Learning is about acquiring the skills and thinking processes necessary to respond appropriately when under pressure.
What gamification gives our students is effective, interactive experiences that motivate their minds by actively involving them in the learning process.
Windows 8 has numerous learning based apps that are taking classrooms by storm. Among our favourites are Physamajig, which allows students to watch their own sketches be translated into realistic physics objects and Wordament, a very addictive word game, that provides a fun way to improve vocabulary.
This fantastic infographic created by Knewton, gives a very informative overview of game based learning. It is a great way to gain a basic understanding of a phenomenon you will be seeing a lot more of in 2013.
Lucas Moffit is an independent developer who’s focus is on writing Windows 8 apps for educators. His output is impressive, with Class Seater, Lesson Coder and Teacher Professional Standards Evaluator among his portfolio of success. But his most ambitious project, Essay Marker, has just been released into the Windows Store, and it is quickly climbing up the ranks.
Essay Marker is a fantastic app that allows educators to create, edit and share essay or assignment tasks and evaluate or mark student work. The app has been designed with the needs of the educator in mind, with each function focusing on providing quality feedback for every student.
Upon completion of marking, teachers are able to scroll through charts and graphs of their evaluation averages. They can then take full advantage of the benefits of Microsoft Office products by exporting these visual representations to programmes such as Word.
Essay Marker has revolutionised assessment marking and made the lives of our educators easier. Check out this full demonstration of the app here. You won’t regret it, we promise!
It is no secret that teachers can now become architects of the classroom experience with the endless possibilities of Office 365. In his recent blog post, Anthony Salcito, Vice President for Microsoft Education, highlighted the long list of benefits of Office 365 for Education. These benefits are certainly worth sharing. Below we have summarized Salcito’s thoughts and ideas, but you can find the original article here.
21st century learning is all about allowing students and teachers to access, collaborate and communicate knowledge in a safe and easy way. Not only do students need to communicate in the classroom, but with other educators and students alike, all over the world. But achieving this with a limited budget is a difficult reality for most schools.
Technology is quickly changing the way in which teaching and learning is happening in the classroom and Office 365 embraces this change and more. Here’s a taste of how the new Office 365 will improve teacher efficiency and the overall student experience:
And the best part of the new Office 365 Education? It is free to most schools! Schools can simply sign up here. Take a look at our great plans and pricing for education. Get ready to engage and motivate your students, with the revolutionising innovations of the new Office 365.
You may notice that some websites on Windows 8 ask you to open them in the desktop version of Internet Explorer, rather than the modern UI version, because they are written in Flash - even though Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 has an integrated Flash Player, avoiding the need to download and install an add-in. The reason is that if you're using a touch tablet, then some Flash websites are difficult to navigate because they need you to do things like a mouse double-click (tricky when you've only got a finger, not a mouse!).
So we maintain a list of websites that work on well with touch tablets, and these are the only ones that you can open with the Windows 8 modern UI version of IE10, otherwise you have to open them with the desktop version.
A few months ago, Ray Fleming wrote about "How to get a Flash website working smoothly on Windows 8 and Windows RT", describing the background to designing a web experience that doesn't require plug-ins for browsers. This is an important step to improve browser performance, accessibility support, increase battery life on mobile devices like laptops and tablets, and to increase security and reliability.
We've been working with various publishers to ensure their websites work well with touch devices. Yesterday, we added Mathletics to the list, so if you go to www.mathletics.co.nz on any Windows 8 device, it will now let you use Mathletics in full on any Windows 8 device (Windows RT or Windows 8, with either ARM or Intel processors). This is much better than having Mathletics content available through an app, because the website gives you access to the full Mathletics system and library of resources, whereas the mobile apps contain just a smaller subset.
This is good news for New Zealand schools, where Mathletics is widely used, but a quick look at the Mathletics leaderboard shows there's a long list of other countries that will benefit too.
This is great news for any school considering a BYOD programme!
The worldwide customer response to both Surface RT with Windows RT and Surface Pro with Windows 8 Pro has been exciting to see. Today, we are pleased to announce that, beginning in late March, we will continue our phased approach to the expansion of the Surface family of PCs into new markets.
In addition to its current availability, in the coming months Surface RT will be available in Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan.
Many people have left comments here on our blog asking about Surface Pro availability in other countries beyond the U.S. and Canada. We are happy to be able to tell you that Surface Pro will be heading to Australia, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, New Zealand and the United Kingdom in the coming months. We will follow-up with another blog post with more details.
We are focused on meeting demand in current markets for Surface Pro and are working super hard to get new inventory into retail but recognize demand exists in other countries as well. We are committed to working with our retail partners to ensure we are delivering a great experience in the above mentioned countries for our customers.
The new Office 365 is just around the corner, and the preview preview is available today. You can start building apps and solutions by following Office developer guidance and also integrate with Azure AD.
Over the next few weeks, we will be highlighting some great Microsoft partners that have built innovative solutions for the Office 365 platform and I wanted to start with Max’s Toolbox for Office 365 and a guest blog post from Wendy Kennedy, co-founder and Chief Executive of eWord, the company behind the solution.
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SharePoint is a fantastic platform for collaboration in the Enterprise, providing all the necessary tools for getting things done. From the minute we saw it, we knew we had to do for SharePoint, what for years we have been doing for Office, that is, make it a great platform for kids to learn.Max’s Toolbox for Microsoft Office has been described as “Training wheels for Microsoft Office”, a way to introduce kids to Office, giving them a smooth ramp to mastering tools that are essential later in life. It’s the same mission we have with Max’s Toolbox for Office365, taking the business tool that is SharePoint, and adapting it for kids. It’s still SharePoint; it’s just tuned for learning.
To see it in action, check out the video, and check out the full blog from Jonny Chambers.
The great thing about Windows 8 is its ability to make education fun as well as informative. This experience can be enhanced via the Windows 8 apps which you can create yourself. When we look at developing an education app we focus on the experience and how we speak tothe teachers and students before we look at the coding. To make this easy we have inspiration guides towards app creation – including an app idea book for Windows 8 Education apps.
A fictional education app for Windows 8 is described in the idea book to help to gain inspiration in designing your own education app. Different scenarios are provided and you can then see how the app can engage the education experience for both students and teachers.
Today I will look at the teachers experience with an app and how they can manage learning activity online (alongside how they can design the app). We want to reduce complexity and focus on creating an educational experience which is captivating for both students and teachers – allowing the leading edge of the design to be the teaching interactions.
Microsoft design language can be used to easily access media from the file system, while users gravitate to your app due to the live tiles.
The Teacher view gives an overview of the teacher's day, organised by their personal time table. Selecting another class instantly reveals the relevant content.
The teacher views all of her current tasks in the assignment overview and selects the Add button from the AppBar to add a new assignment.
From the pannable assignment view she can add details about the assignment, add students and groups, include grading information, and associate resources for the assignment.
The teacher uses the file picker to add video files to an assignment. The file picker is a standard method of selecting files and resources in Windows 8, and means that users get a standard way of interacting with files, whichever application they are using.
After she has finished creating the assignment, the teacher publishes the assignment to the students.
The livetile for the app receives a pushed update and it can then alert the student about the new assignment. This happens regardless of whether the student is running the app or not, and is one of the key benefits of live tiles.
The design ideas shown highlight that a single screen can hold a large level of media and interactive content; it is more enticing than listed text information and user confusion is eliminated via panning and touch. The design ideas also show how live tiles are developed to engage uses and keep workflow going. Live tile apps are brilliant as the app doesn’t need to be open to know if there is an update; this reduces memory and power usage as the app does not need to be running to update.
The first of the Windows in the Classroom seminars kicked off in Auckland yesterday with many more schools scheduled over the next few weeks.
The seminars centre around exploring the tools and technologies available to help educators teach 21st Century skills. For any school considering enhancing their one-to-one student learning programme, and it allows you to see the diversity of Microsoft software and HP devices applied to learning. Windows 8 will also be demonstrated through learning how it can be used to inspire students and improve educational outcomes.
By attending this seminar, you will:
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You can host a session at your school or attend one in your area – we’re easy. All you need to do is register your interest by emailing nzeducation@microsoft.com.