The Microsoft Education Team have traditionally used BETT London as an event to launch or announce new features coming to the Education solutions in Office365 and Windows 10. 2019 is no different and below are a few short videos that summarize some of the latest features you’ll want to know about for your classrooms:
There are a heap of cool new features in there and I do encourage you to check them out (hint: I watch them at 1.5x speed to get through them quicker!). All the other videos from BETT London can be seen here.
As many readers will have caught up on, Microsoft had a major education event yesterday with the key announcements of a new member of the Surface device family, Surface Laptop, and a new variation on Windows 10, called Windows 10 S.
At this stage, I’ve not got my head across all of the implications for schools from these announcements so I’ll just refer you to the official blog posts here:
For an independent view you can read Dr Joe Sweeney’s initial thoughts on his LinkedIn post here. Joe is an industry analyst for mobility, education and digital innovation and offers an outsiders view of these latest announcements from Microsoft.
If you’re a real device nut and want to see some very cool animations of the internals of the Surface Laptop then this video is for you:
If you’re an ICT Admin in a school and interested in how you can easily manage Win10 devices (including Win10 S) then this might be more for you:
Microsoft is clearly also pushing for affordable STEM resources to support teachers in preparing students for the jobs that “don’t exist yet” – lots of stats about this but some suggestions are that as many as 65% of students will be working in jobs not yet created … interesting stuff! Here’s a video around STEM engagement from Microsoft:
Related to this, of course, is Minecraft Education Edition and with a new release allowing you to integrate third party coding tools (such as Scratch by MIT and Tynker to teach computational thinking for students, this is a powerful addition to an already great product:
Whilst many schools in New Zealand and elsewhere around the world have already jumped into using the public preview of Microsoft Classroom, we learnt yesterday that this is now going to be discontinued and replaced with Teams for Education:
If you’re a school using Microsoft Classroom and wondering how you will be affected it’s worth reading the below:
1). End-of-support for the Northern Hemisphere school closing July 31, 2017 and for the Southern Hemisphere school closing January 31, 2018.
2). Class structures themselves will not showup in MS Teams. Various data component – files, calendars, OneNotes will be accessible through Office Groups.
3). Classroom experience in MS Teams is expected to be available before the dates mentioned in item#1 above in the respective regions.
Lastly, Mixed Reality gets a boost and focus in education with Pearson Education investing big in this area – have a look at the video below that shows Canberra Grammar School using HoloLens and Pearson Education immersive content:
With more affordable mixed reality devices coming from OEM partners such as Acer and others, schools will be able to utilize this more readily than being required to purchase the more expensive HoloLens.
Clearly a lot to process – exciting times for Microsoft and as I start to get hands on with some of these technologies I’ll be sure to post back thoughts here.
I’m always interested in the results of these types of surveys as they tend to be quite candid coming from teachers with strong opinions about what works and what does not work in their classrooms, especially when it comes to technology. NZ’s own www.educators.co.nz website picked up the results of this survey and published an article on it here.
The key findings identified included:
The biggest factor needed to successfully transform teaching and learning experiences was educator skill sets – particularly being trained to optimise tech in the classroom
1 in 3 respondents believed that they are currently unable to equip students with the skills needed to succeed in the future workplace within their current school curriculum and ways of teaching
The most important skills that educators rank as required for students included problem solving (71%), skilled communication (68%), collaboration with others (61%), digital media literacy (57%) and data analytics & visualisation (56%)
91% of respondents believe students will not be able to adopt to the changing workforce requirements and skills with low digital literacy
The last one is particularly challenging for schools and led to the release of a whitepaper in NZ by Microsoft’s Managing Director Barry Sheers entitled Youth, Technology & Disruption. This is a great read and lays out the key things for schools and teacher training institutes to be considering when it comes to equipping educators to be effective in the teaching of digital literacy/fluency skills.
“Technology cannot replace great teaching but it can make great teachers even better. We are inspired to work with educators, with students, with school leaders, on their journey to redefine learning in and out of the classroom.”
Technology is disrupting education in ways that students and educators could not have conceived, as recently as 10-15years ago. Increasingly, schools are exploring ways to enable their students to become Global Citizens and I love the vision statement from Shirley Boys High School:
Kiwi Soul. Global Vision.
Technology enables schools to facilitate global connections for students and one of those is the annual Microsoft Skype-a-thon which this year saw more than 10 million miles “traveled” by schools as they connected with each other through the powers of the internet and Skype. Anthony Salcito, the Vice President of World Wide Education, helped lead the charge with 24 hours of non-stop Skype calls to schools:
As an educator, I think this is a fantastic initiative for schools and classroom teachers to engage with and Microsoft have made it super easy to get started through the Skype in the Classroom resource page. One of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve shared with students is playing “Mystery Skype” – for the uninitiated this is:
Mystery Skype is an educational game, invented by teachers, played by two classrooms on Skype. The aim of the game is to guess the location of the other classroom by asking each other questions.
Another hugely successful chat was with an International School in Russia:
In terms of getting students engaged in learning, these Mystery Skype sessions were a verified success. Beyond that, however, there is other application for the use of Skype. In the past, it was often reasonably simple to arrange a field trip and take students to visit experts and enjoy quality place-based learning. This has become increasingly difficult with health and safety regulations improving, along with schools trying to reduce the costs associated with field trips and minimize time out of class.
It is here that Skype comes into it’s own, becoming the perfect vehicle for connecting students with subject matter experts. In my experience, inviting experts into schools to physically present to students is often logistically difficult. In a secondary school with timetables, asking a guest to come at a certain time on a certain day often makes it too complex and the students miss out on their expertise. However, I’ve found that outside experts are usually more than happy to sit down at their desk for 15-20 minutes to Skype with a class from the comfort of their home or office.
It was a great success in motivating students through their virtual engagement with a subject matter expert. I certainly encourage schools, teachers and even students to try and leverage the power of Skype to enable students to become Global Citizens.
