Month: November 2014

Scott Wieprecht: Office 365, The Final Frontier

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by Scott Wieprecht MIE Fellow, Expert Educator Columnist UK Office 365, like several other things, seems to be a ‘buzzword’ you can’t escape from these days. Whether you are working for a company, buying a new PC offering a free 12 month account, or visiting an educational blog, Office 365 has a big profile. Often, I find much more delight in finding hidden gems then opting for the most overt solution – however, with Office 365, I make an exception. There is a good reason why this solution get the publicity it does – because it is amazing, and there is nothing quite like it (despite the painful comparisons to other solutions).

Doug Bergman: The Value of and Need for Computer Science

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by Doug Bergman Expert Educator Columnist, USA How many times have you been using an app on your phone and it did not work quite like you wanted? How many times have you been with your friends and someone said, “They should make an app for that”? How many times have you complained about the location and functions of the buttons on your smartphone? How many times has the software program you are using not been able to do what you wanted—or worse –you just could not figure it out?  What options did you have? Stop using it. Try another program or buy another device. What you are experiencing is called being a consumer of technology.   It’s not a bad thing, in fact we need folks like that to use and buy the things that the “creators” make. That’s the difference: users vs creators. We need more creators.

Koen Timmers: From User to Creator, Introducing My App EduLync

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by Koen Timmers MIE Expert, Belgium For 14 years I’ve been teaching ICT (web design) at CVO Heusden-Zolder, Belgium. Since the beginning, I’ve been passionate about e-learning and decided to post all courseware and tutorials on my own website zelfstudie.be. Today, more than 18,000 members have access to nearly 9000 pages of courseware and external authors are publishing their own courseware to the public at large; it’s a digital educational library which is growing each day.

Guest Blog: Our Visit to Microsoft’s Danish Headquarters

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by Mette Hauch’s English Class Hellerup Skole, Denmark It all started a little over a month ago, after an ordinary English class when our English teacher, Mette, approached us saying something like, “Can I speak to you for a minute?” which, of course set off an alarm clock in at least half our heads. However it turned out to be something quite harmless, in fact even a little interesting. Mette wanted our help, for a translating project during English class. From then on we’d be working with some learning skills, translating them to “student language”, obviously an upgrade from the Lets Do It book- a far more motivational work alternative. By the end of the process, what we then thought would be about 2 weeks; we should’ve produced a film explaining the six skills at eye level with other students. The start was a bit slow; after all we had 44 pages of vast text in “adult” language to get through. As a side note, we’d started making our own examples, in the same format …

Kurt Söser: My Microsoft EduCast Experience

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by Kurt Söser, MIE Expert Columnist   First of all: Thanks to all the people and fellow teachers and friends who have joined the Microsoft Educator Webcast on Tuesday, 11th of November. I read a lot of familiar names and I am still thrilled by this event, although some small things went wrong… I was expecting that my presentation on Office Mix should be at the end of the Webinar, but instead I was placed second, so I could not rely on Tim’s presentation, but I think the audience got my ideas. So here is the recording of the Webcast and you can rewatch it. You just have to register (for free) and you can watch the Educast: Registration Page Microsoft Educast For those who want to get more infos on Office Mix, feel free to go to http://mix.office.com or rewatch this short Office Mix, which I created for the event: https://mix.office.com/embed/wulj8lqqk36e Another great thing that was mentioned in this Educast are the Bing lesson plans. I have not tried that lesson plans, so I will …

App of the Week- Microsoft Flashcard and Mobile’s Role in Literacy

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by Minnia Feng, MSEN Community Manager “Literacy is not a luxury, it is a right and a responsibility. If our world is to meet the challenges of the 21st century we must harness the energy and creativity of all our citizens.” Former President of the United States Bill Clinton made these remarks 20 years ago on International Literacy Day. The words were true then and are even truer now as the world faces more and more difficult challenges.

News Flash- Teachers, Check if You Can Get Office365 for Free! (U.S. only…for now)

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This post was reblogged from the Microsoft Office Blogs.  Microsoft Office has long been a staple in the teacher toolkit for communicating and collaborating with their classes. Today we’re thrilled to announce that we’ve made it easier for teachers to get Office on all their devices—while storing and sharing class material with students using OneDrive. Last week we were excited to share with you the next steps in bringing Office to everyone, on every device. The updated Office apps for iPhone and iPad and the upcoming Android and Windows 10 apps are full of great features to help students and teachers do more and achieve more. When combined with an Office 365 subscription and full Office, they can do even more and the experience can be incredibly impactful on classroom collaboration and learning outcomes. Millions of teachers and students are already eligible through their school to utilize the advanced editing and collaboration capabilities, unlimited OneDrive storage and Dropbox integration of an Office 365 subscription and may not realize it. So we’ve created a simple way …

Sir Ken Robinson! Reliving the 2014 Microsoft in Education School Leader Global Forum in Miami

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Our coverage continues with the amazing Sir Ken Robinson. He touched on the importance of unleashing creativity to not only education but humanity– with rising populations, this presents a challenge but also an opportunity to solve these problems, in which educational reform and fostering our imaginative powers plays an essential role. We captured some of his most memorable quotes below– questions for you are in bold, feel free to chime in in the comments section.

Tutorial Tuesdays: Flip Your Classroom by Using Office Mix!

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by Minnia Feng, MSEN Community Manager Another Quick Tip video for the week– this one shows how you can record voice, images, and notation in OfficeMix to make a truly 21st century lesson! It’s really simple and interactive for the students using it, as they are able to access multiple modalities to enhance the learning experience. How do you use Office Mix in the classroom? Leave your thoughts in the comments, and also let us know what other types of Quick Tip videos you’d like to see!

Live Blogging the 2014 Microsoft in Education Global Forum in Miami- Day 1

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Bringing you live updates from this gathering of school leaders in LATAM! [8:30am-] Keynote, Dr. Cathy Cavanaugh, Education Leader, Microsoft “We’re preparing students for a fast world, which is why we need to be fast and dynamic. [8:42am] Dr. Cavanaugh explains to us how research has shown that the learning journey consists of three steps that involve technology: Think (Digital Ink– thinking scaffolds, and inking is a way of processing that is happening in highly visual ways) Express (OneNote and Sway– express where they stand in their conceptual understanding Collaborate & Record (Office Mix, OneNote- students work together and their learning is captured) [9:15am] Alberto Cavalho, Superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools on how they transformed a school district during a recession: “Our goal- crack the code of eliminating the gaps, equitable and equal access to high quality educational programs, and in the process also bridge the digital divide, eradicate the digital deserts in the community, and by the way, do it all in the recession. If we can do it in Miami, maybe we can …