Ensure your school leadership team is across the opportunity afforded by new technologies, by hosting a complimentary Microsoft in Education seminar. Find out more information by visiting our website.
Your end-to-end solution begins here.
To book a Microsoft in Education seminar at your school or for more information, please email nzeducation@microsoft.com.
With Student Advantage, your school can enable all your students to have the full Microsoft Office software for personal use, at no additional licensing cost*.
This is a benefit of the Ministry of Education’s agreement with Microsoft, where every state and integrated school in New Zealand is eligible to get Office 365 ProPlus software for your students.
Find out what your next steps are to take up this fantastic benefit here!
*Datacom may charge an administration fee, for further details please contact Datacom at nzschool@datacom.co.nz.
Microsoft offers free professional development for faculty and staff, on-demand courses on teaching with technology, and provides rich resources in the online Microsoft Educator Network. To learn more, visit: mseducatornetwork.com.
Education Blogs
Twitter in Education
Facebook in Education
We are thrilled to announce today four major updates for OneNote for Mac, OneNote for iPad and OneNote for iPhone. Building on our recent updates in May, these enhancements make OneNote the best choice for taking notes and staying organized at school.
Addressing customers top requests, we added several new features in this release including the ability to:
These updates and more are available to download in the App Stores today. Below are some of the details on the updates.
We know many of you using OneNote for Mac have been asking for the ability to access your work or school notebooks hosted on OneDrive for Business. With this update you should be good to go! You can now open, sync, and create personal or shared project or class notebooks on OneDrive for Business. Additionally, if you are using OneNote just for work or school, we made it easier for you to get started with OneNote by directly signing in with your organizational account upon opening OneNote.
Whether you are a professional preparing for a big meeting with the boss or a student getting ready for a new school year, we’ve added new capabilities to help you stay organized and keep all your notes and related documents together in your notebook. Now you can insert and view files, including PDF printouts, in your notebooks on Mac, iPad and iPhone. For example, on Mac you can drag and drop a PowerPoint deck or a Word document into your notes, as an attachment, and then view it in the OS built-in, Quick Look, or in the app itself.
On iPad or iPhone you can insert pictures or documents you receive in Mail or other apps by selecting ‘Open in OneNote.’ That way, even on the go, you are never losing track of important documents relevant to the project you are working on within OneNote.
In addition, if you have a PDF file, you can insert it as a printout in your notes, making it easy to annotate with your own notes, whether they be meeting or lecture slides, research papers or class readings.
We received many requests for the ability to access password protected sections created on OneNote for Windows. Now you can do so on Mac, iPhone and iPad. Simply navigate to the section and enter your password to access your private notes. Once you have reviewed or edited the notes you can easily lock the section, or after a few minutes it will lock automatically. That way, a confidential company note or study guide remains for your eyes, and your eyes only.
As you add more sections, section groups, and pages to your notebooks you may want to reorder or move items to keep your notes organized. This is especially handy when you’re sharing notebooks with colleagues or students and new content is added by others in different locations of your shared notebook. You can now keep your notebooks organized from Mac and iOS devices.
To enhance your experience of capturing content in to OneNote we’ve introduced additional copy and paste improvements this release for both iOS and Mac. If you are doing some research for a project at home, school or work, you can now copy formatted content from websites or other apps and paste in to your notes on any of your devices.
In addition to the ability to send your notes as PDF attachments in OneNote for Mac, you can now choose to send your notes in the message body. This can be handy when sending meeting or class notes to others.
Try out these updates today and tell us what you think. We appreciate your feedback as it helps us improve OneNote and deliver on your top requests. Check out our new and recently launched feedback site where you can post your own suggestions and vote for others. We would love to hear from you.
To learn more about OneNote and download OneNote apps for all your devices go to OneNote.com
We are only one week away from the SharePoint in Education event, held at Microsoft New Zealand! It's going to be a fantastic afternoon and we are all very excited to hear the amazing Lou Zulli Jr give his insights on Office 365 in Education. Click here to Register now! More information below:
If you are from the education sector, and would like to learn more about SharePoint and specifically how it is used in Schools, then this is for you!
Microsoft is hosting an afternoon get-together with a few presentations followed by networking and drinks. Although FREE to attend, places are strictly limited and Registrations are essential before Friday, 18 July. Click here to Register now! You can also find out more on the ShareThePoint Website here.
Date: Wednesday 23 July - 4-6pm
Venue: Microsoft New Zealand Ltd, Level 5/22 Viaduct Harbour Ave, Auckland 1010 Bing Maps
Click here to Register now!
We look forward to seeing you there!
Graduates from the Microsoft IT Academy’s ‘Microsoft Office Specialist’ course have earned special recognition from Hekia Parata, Education Minister, as well as digital skills to aid their future.
The nine students from Mana College in Porirua were presented with graduation certificates and congratulations from Parata in a Connect Smart Week event at Parliament.
“It was a privilege to present these very deserving students with their graduation certificates,” Parata says. “Programmes like this are a great way of making sure our kids are equipped to work in today’s modern workforce.”
The graduating Mana College students were Krystal Bishop, Tautahi Johnstone, Jammee Kirikino, Jayden Charteris, Naki Eriepa, Karina Kinvig, Chelsea Hawkins, Asilika Tuiwainunu and Carlos Graham.
Mana College is participating in a nationwide pilot programme of the Microsoft IT Academy, which is being run in conjunction with the Ministry of Education. It is the only participating school in the greater Wellington region, with a further nine schools throughout the country participating in the programme.
The aim of the Microsoft IT Academy is to improve digital literacy and equip students with skills for the modern workforce. The global initiative also encourages students to consider the technology sector as a career option.
The Microsoft IT Academy has 300 different courses, from basic computer literacy skills in software through to high-end skills preparing students to become IT professionals.
As a result of the programme, Mike Webster, Principal of Mana College, says there has been a strong increase in information technology literacy amongst students. To date more than 100 students have participated in the programme, which has now been adopted as part of their regular curriculum.
The pilot programme was established in early 2013, and Evan Blackman, Microsoft’s Education Sector Manager says the company is thrilled with its success both at Mana College and the other schools. Microsoft is looking forward to expanding the programme in the coming year.
“The IT Academy programme is designed to help lift employability for the modern workforce, as well as opening up pathways into technology-based careers,” he says.
“It provides the resources and content that allow schools to lead students through industry-recognised training and certification programmes.”
For more information on IT Academy, visit here.
*This article was originally posted by Catherine Murray on Educate Tech Day.
We are very excited to announce the NZ created, NCEA Hub app, which is only available in the Windows Store!
Find out more and download this fantastic app here!
Microsoft NZ and ShareThePoint bring you "Office 365 and SharePoint 4 Schools Essentials" - Register now!
DescriptionThis one-day intensive course is an introduction for people who are new to SharePoint 2013 and want to use it for staff intranets, classroom sites, class blog sites, document management and student-parent collaboration.
Please refer to the attached PDF Flyer on this blog post for more information!
Target AudienceTrainer, End User, Project Manager, Knowledge Manager, Help Desk.
When
Morning Only (9am - 12.30pm): for people who need the introduction to using SharePoint, and what is possible.Afternoon also (9am - 5.00pm): for people who need to be able to configure the site, and introduce new processes.
NOTE: This course for SCHOOLS who have already deployed, or are close to deploying, Office365. When registering, please specify whether you wish to attend the HALF DAY (morning only), or the FULL DAY.
Costs:
FREE places are limited to TWO per school. If registering more than TWO per school you will be required to pay $150+GST per person for the half-day session and $250 + GST per person for the Full day.
This course is also available as a private on-site course, where an instructor will come to your school and train up to 12 people in any or all of the modules listed. Please contact us for pricing.
Explore the Collaboration and Social features for staff and students to work together.
* Use My Site and Personal Profile* Use Discussion Boards for Collaboration* Add an Announcement or School Notice
Introduction to using lists, libraries and blog sites, for classroom collaboration. You will learn how to work with content, upload and view documents, and interact with a SharePoint site.
* Sort, Filter and Working with Content in Lists* Change Views on Lists and Libraries* Upload Documents* Create and Comment on Blog Sites
Make the most of tools you use daily and learn about integration points with SharePoint. Use OneNote and Lync along with other Office tools.
* OneNote* LYNC in Classrooms* Document Co-authoring* Export SharePoint Data* Integration with Outlook
Create a Staff Intranet and a classroom collaboration site.
* Modify a Site Collection * Create a Team Site for a Subject* Edit the Home Page A: Format Tab* Edit the Home Page B: Insert Tab* Inserting a Video* Changing the Site Icon* Changing Regional Settings
Use navigation to help people quickly and easily find the information they need.
* Navigation * Change the Quick Launch* Change the Top Link Bar (Global Navigation)
Create a school notices list, classroom list and contacts list as examples to manage information online and customise lists and views to meet your needs.
* Lists* Modify a List* Create a Pre-populated List* Create a Custom List* Delete a Column
Display your information such as school events, notices and documents on specific pages. Explore the use of SharePoint as a Knowledge Wiki.
* About Web Parts* Using Web Parts* Create a Page* Check In and Publish a Page* Create New Wiki Pages* Publishing Pages
Learn how to use SharePoint to effectively manage documents and images.
* Introducing Libraries * Working with Documents* Create a Document Library* Enable Document Versioning* Collect Feedback on a Document* Create a Picture Library
As of 7th July, Yammer Enterprise was made available to all academic institutions at no additional cost. Yammer basic was always available for free as an enterprise social network option but did not allow for granular management of this environment as many organisations require.
Yammer Enterprise is now free under Office 365 for Education A2, A3 & A4 plans! The Office 365 A2 plan is the free plan available for staff and students. Our Office 365 for Education offering was recently enhanced with additional no-cost Office application downloads for students through Student Advantage and will now include Yammer Enterprise. All existing Office 365 Education plan schools will receive licenses for Yammer Enterprise.
So what is Yammer Enterprise?
Yammer Enterprise is an enterprise social networking platform providing seamless, open sharing, and cross collaboration within your school. It is a transformational technology which has changed the way students and staff work. It promotes sharing ideas, thoughts, finding information and asking questions to innovate and collaborate. The possibilities for using Yammer in education are endless. Here just a few scenarios that might help get the ideas going:· Classroom/Teacher/Campus collaboration – teacher to student, student to student, mentoring, questions, announcements· Departmental collaboration – professor sharing, collaboration, information sharing· Projects – project information, graduate student projects, sharing of ideas· IT helpdesk – questions, information sharing· Research – sharing ideas, working cross teams, working with external parties securely· Alumni – Alumni collaboration, announcements, jobs· External collaboration with researchers, companies, other universities/schools.
If I have an existing Office 365 Education tenant what do I have to do to get Yammer Enterprise?
If you already have A2 or A3 academic skus enabled the ‘Yammer Enterprise’ license will just appear in your tenant. You do not have to order anything additional to make this work. You still have to activate Yammer within your Office 365 Education tenant. See steps here and Activation FAQ here.
In light of this announcement we'd encourage you to visit the official blog post and a number resources available below:· Microsoft in Education Blog - A view of the mobile Yammer applications available for iOS, Android, Windows and a handy FAQ· Yammer Enterprise Activation Guide – A good overview for IT administrators to help you through activating your Yammer network.· If you’re using SharePoint 2013 on premise you can integrate with Yammer Enterprise to provide an enhanced social experience with SharePoint 2013 SP1.· The Yammer app for SharePoint that was released in July embeds Yammer feeds into SharePoint sites (similar to the Yammer web part that is available for SharePoint 2010 & 2007). The Yammer app for SharePoint is available free of charge in the Office Store.· If you’d like to understand the Yammer Enterprise service compliance roadmap regarding security, compliance and privacy we can provide the list of plans for Yammer key standards and certifications.· Find out how other tertiary education institutions are using Yammer to improve engagement on the Yammer customer success web site.
If you have any other questions, please contact your IT Partner.
SharePoint in Education - your invitation!
Microsoft is hosting an afternoon get-together with a few presentations followed by networking and drinks. Although FREE to attend, places are strictly limited and Registrations are essential before Friday, 18 July. Click here to Register now! You can also find out more on the ShareThePoint Website here and the attached PDF Invite file of this blog!
Don't forget to register by Friday 18th July! We look forward to seeing you there!
Last month, we announced the customer preview of Office Mix, a tool designed to make it easier for teachers to incorporate online content into their lesson plans. Since then, we’ve been gathering feedback about what educators find most useful about the tool and how to make it even better, and we’re sharing what we’ve learned at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference in Atlanta this week. Overall, we were pleasantly surprised to see teachers using Office Mix in ways we hadn’t anticipated (for example, asking students to create their own mixes), and we noted some usage trends that will influence how we evolve the tool in the future.
This blog post was originally posted on the Office Blog. You can read it here.
The top request we’ve received from teachers is to make it easier to share mixes. In response, we created a public Gallery designed for sharing and discovering great lessons. Through the new public Gallery, you can upload your favourite mixes, make them available to others, and browse content created by others to spark ideas or share with your class.
We’ve heard from educators that finding relevant, useful content can be a challenge, and we hope the Gallery makes that just a little easier. Additionally, you can now embed Office Mix content, so it can show up on virtually any website.
We’ve also learned how teachers are incorporating Office Mix into their classrooms. Here are some of the ways we’ve heard about:
The list of content partners continues to grow (in addition to the partners we announced in May: Khan Academy and the CK-12 Foundation). University of Colorado’s PhET physical science simulations app is now available through Office Mix. An Office Mix math app from GeoGebra is expected to be available later this month. Check out www.geogebratube.org for advanced viewing of thousands of STEM education materials that will be freely available through GeoGebra in Office Mix.
Partners are already letting us know that they are excited about the opportunity to broaden their reach, allowing them to help more educators. “The goal of the CK-12 Foundation is to create, curate and allow customization of high quality, free content that we can then make available to all teachers globally. Our partnership with Office Mix has allowed us to provide teachers with a faster, simpler way to integrate this information into their PowerPoint lessons,” said Neeru Khosla, executive director of the CK-12 Foundation.
Here are a few of our favorite comments so far from teachers who have used Office Mix:
Brien Gorham, English Teacher at Forest Ridge School of the Sacred Heart
Helen Gooch, Microsoft Fellow and Master Trainer
Vicki Davis, full-time teacher and IT director for a small school in Camilla, Georgia and blogger at CoolCatTeacher.com
Once again, Sam McNeill, the Director of ICT at St Andrew’s College, has blown us away with his innovative and creative use of technology in the classroom. Sam runs the St Andrew's College "eLearning Stories" blog which provides a virtual “look through the classroom window” into the exciting eLearning happenings in the various classrooms around the fully-independent, co-educational school for pre-school to Year 13. Recently he blogged this original post (here), about some of the great work a Year 9 Math class is doing with OneNote and Surface. You can read it below!
This morning I was invited by Mr Ben Hilliam to sit in and observe one of his Year 9 Math classes. I was keen to do this as I knew the Maths Department had been experimenting with the combination of MS Onenote, a Microsoft Surface and a Miracast device to wirelessly broadcast the screen of the tablet through the classroom projector.
The following video is a screencast of Mr Hilliam’s first 6 minutes of the lesson. He is writing on the Surface Pro directly, and using MS OneNote to record his voice and handwriting in the background:
All students in this Year 9 class have read only access to this OneNote notebook so they can revise at anytime, and in this instance the lessons were being recorded for a student that was absent for the week. Once uploaded to YouTube, the link is inserted into the Notebook for student access.
What impressed me about this section of the lesson was the ease of the technology – it essentially existed in the background and in many ways, it was a direct substitute for the role of a whiteboard. Mr Hilliam was still asking students questions back and forward and they were still coming up and pointing to places on the graph on the projected image on the whiteboard to indicate their answers. The big difference however was that this was being recorded digitally for later revision.
Towards the end of last year we undertook training for a lot of 2014 Year 9 teachers and introduced them to the SAMR model. I recently came across a new poster for this:
Explaining the SAMR model through coffee
The teaching in this Year 9 Math class falls clearly in the augmentation range – the teaching is not obviously different however the technology operating in the background provides massive functional improvement. Students, both those absent and physically present in the class, can all revise the concepts being taught at anytime.
Here are some photos of the students at work practicing the concepts that had been taught:
A student reviewing the MS OneNote content recorded moments earlier by Mr Hilliam, and then practicing in his exercise book.
Students around the room making using of their laptops to review / rewind the concepts as taught and recorded from the start of the lesson
Whilst the phrase “ubiquitousness of technology” is over used, this lesson did demonstrate that when used effectively, the technology is not at the forefront of the lesson. It was not gimmicky or flashy, instead it provided functional improvement to what was already a great lesson.
I am excited to see how other curriculum areas make use of technology like this in their classrooms and will blog about these in the future. As the Director of ICT it’s important for me to support initiatives like this that trial how new technologies can be used in the classroom. On my recent trip to Edutech 2014 I trialled a MS Surface Pro 3, some of the only demonstration units outside of the USA, and was very impressed. I have pre-ordered one for our staff to trial once it is released and am interested to see at what point in the future touch screen devices like this may replace the traditional laptops given to staff.
Four University of Auckland students who designed an innovative social interaction app for mobile devices have been selected to compete in the Microsoft Imagine Cup World Finals in Seattle, USA, next month.
Hayden Do (19), Jason Wei (19), Chris Duan (30), and Derek Zhu (22) beat out more than 150 other teams from around the globe at the recent Imagine Cup World Semifinals with their app called ‘Meep’, which helps friends meet up by tracking their locations in real time.
After first impressing the judges to win one of the three top awards in the New Zealand Imagine Cup competition held in April, they will now compete for one of three $50,000 grand prizes. They are one of only 33 teams that made it to the worldwide finals and will compete against the top nine teams in the world in the innovation category.
The panel of judges will include Microsoft’s new CEO, Satya Nadella, as well as Code.org Co-Founder, Hadi Partovi, and Reddit General Manager, Erik Martin. One team will also have the opportunity to meet with Microsoft founder, Bill Gates.
Nigel Parker, Developer Experience Director for Microsoft New Zealand, says it is impressive to have seen teams of Kiwi students making it to the global finals of the Imagine Cup for several years running.
“Having been involved with the Imagine Cup for a number of years in New Zealand I am inspired by the students who passionately disrupt the technology landscape both locally and globally as a result of their fresh thinking and entrepreneurial spirit. New Zealand has punched above its weight placing in the top ten in the world four times in the last five years,” says Parker.
“We’ve seen a lot of Imagine Cup teams go on to do great things. For example, I was encouraged to see Vigil Monitoring, formed off the back of the winning New Zealand Imagine Cup team in 2012, win the Callahan Innovation Hi-Tech Pre-Commercialisation Company of the Year Award last month.”
This year Microsoft extended the reach of the local Imagine Cup competition by partnering with the University of Auckland to train and place 75 students in 22 companies to work over the summer.
“Of the students placed, 10 have secured ongoing employment and these students represented the majority of the students that made it through to our national finals of the Imagine Cup competition in April. This is aiding the connection between tertiary education providers and high-tech firms,” says Parker.
Imagine Cup is the world’s premier student technology competition. Students compete in teams of up to four people in the Games, Innovation or World Citizenship competitions to create an original technology project from start to finish. The teams create an idea, make a plan, build the project and then compete, giving them the opportunity to learn how to launch their business and bring ideas to market.
This year’s Imagine Cup World Finals will be hosted at the University of Washington during TechReady, the Microsoft Technical Conference, giving students the chance to meet with a broad range of people in the industry. The Meep Team will be accompanied by a mentor from Microsoft New Zealand.
Now in its 12th year, Imagine Cup inspires students around the world to innovate across all of Microsoft’s technology platforms. Microsoft worldwide student competition is a truly global competition with around 16,900 students in 11,700 teams submitting 7,500 projects worldwide. This year there were 73 entries in New Zealand from across the country.
The Imagine Cup World Final will be held in Seattle, Washington, USA from July 29 through to August 2. To see the full list of the World Finalists teams, visit the Imagine Cup blog here: https://www.imaginecup.com/Blog/Details/meet-the-imagine-cup-2014-world-finals-teams