I’m still not used to the British summer. Here it is, time to head back to school already, and I’m still waiting for the summer weather. (Did I blink and miss it back in June?)
In honour of this exciting back-to-school time, Microsoft has released new, free education add-ins for Office, and over 20 new templates and how-to resources for teachers using Office in the classroom.
Here’s a bit about the add-ins, from our good friends at Office:
The Interactive Classroom Add-in for PowerPoint 2007 and 2010 and OneNote 2007 and 2010 provides real-time polling and interactive note-taking to foster interaction and collaboration between educators and students.
This add-in connects a teacher’s PowerPoint presentation to students’ OneNote notebooks. During a presentation, teachers can:
Students can answer and respond through their individual OneNote notebooks, hand-held clickers, or computers, and the results display in the presentation.
Students also get consolidated notes that match those of the instructor so they can keep track of what they need to learn.
The Mathematics Add-in for Word 2007 and 2010 and OneNote 2010 uses dynamic 3D graphs and charts to help educators illustrate complex maths problems and concepts. From algebra and pre-calculus to physics and statistics, teachers and students can unravel equations and visualize formulas through 2-D and 3-D graphs. The add-in helps students plot functions, calculate numerical results, and dynamically solve for "x".
Empowering students, teachers, and chemists to easily author documents in the language of chemistry is at the heart of the Chemistry Add-in for Word. The Chemistry Add-in for Word makes it easier for students, chemists and researchers to insert and modify chemical information, such as labels, formulas and 2D depictions, from within Microsoft Office Word. It harnesses the power of Chemical Markup Language (XML for chemistry), making it possible to not only author chemical content in Word, but also to include the data behind those structures. Put simply, the Chemistry Add-in for Word and Chemical Markup Language help to makes chemistry documents open, readable and easily accessible, not just to other humans, but to other technologies as well.
All of the add-ins can be downloaded from the Office Education site, along with the templates, how-to guides (including a great new one on OneNote) and many other resources.
Best of luck with the new school year!
With 20 teachers attending this year, it has been the most successful event we have held. We covered the idea of creating simple instruction videos we call Innovids, as a tool for professional development. But, not only did teachers create some great resources and explore some useful free tools, they also received training in delivering the CPD process for themselves, to apply to the use of technology in the classroom. It’s very easy for me to say how great an event this was, but I thought I would leave it to some of the teachers who attended to share their thoughts:-
Graham Eyre on his blog said
one the key things that I got out of the day was the number of free add-on’s and stand alone programmes created by Microsoft for educators. Some of these I have come across before but many were new to me. This was really refreshing as mentally I always categorise Microsoft as boring nuts and bolts. Read more >
Dan Roberts in his blog said
The main focus for the summer camp was to create these little quite sexy things called innovids – basically short nuggets of video tutorials that teachers and students can watch and then try out some of the ideas in their classrooms.You can see the current crop of excellent innovids here from last year’s campers and also some case studies that may be useful! http://www.youtube.com/user/innovativeteach Read more >
Niki Maddams who won our Innovid competition earlier this year said
During our time there myself and the other “happy campers” spent a large amount of time sharing and discussing ideas with each other and learning about lots of fantastic free tools from Microsoft. We spent the second day creating demo videos on how to use various Microsoft tools in the classroom. Read more >
But perhaps the most thought provoking post came from David Rogers, who also attended the Google Teacher Academy earlier in the summer.
At Microsoft we were there to work, create and explore the tools available. At Google I felt we were there to absorb information and then go out and spread the word. Both events were inspirational. Both events provided a wealth of simple, effective and cool ways in which to transform learning . I found that I got more out of the Microsoft experience as we were part of the culture of the organisation for two days. We were able to wander the building, use breakout and 60 minute rooms, sofa’s, grab a drink at will. The result was lots of conversations along the lines of ‘why are you doing it that way?’ or ‘Have you seen this?’ Being able to have unstructured time that was hand’s on allowed us to really explore the products. We even met with one of the programming team – arranging a face-to-face meeting through Twitter. Read more >
Thank you to all the teachers who attended Summer Camp. We will be publishing the new innovids shortly on on our Youtube channel and you can follow the development on twitter through the hash tag #mscamp .
Keep a look out for details of our next event, the UK Innovative Education Forum
Is it possible to develop an emotional attachment to a computer? I think so. I have had my Toshiba Portege M400 laptop since I joined Microsoft 4 years ago and we have had some great adventures together. We have travelled the world to various Innovative Educator Forums, presented to hundreds of teachers, seen three incarnations of Windows and Office, responded to thousand of emails, been introduced to Twitter and of course writing this blog. I now have most of those experiences stored ready to transfer to my new laptop.
But, a thought struck me, is it the same in schools? What learning experiences have the computers in school facilitated, is that captured in some way? What happens to all that work when the technology is replaced or the student leaves ? What happens to that ‘redundant’ technology?
I am interested in finding out two things, so your comments would be most welcome :-
Are any of you giving students when they leave, their e-portfolio? Documenting their whole school life, is this something that would be useful to them? I still have my Year 10 biology exercise book, it hasn’t been a lot of use, except to remind me of how awful my writing was and is! But, if life learning long learning is the goal for students, then having such a resource could contribute to that.
How are schools breathing life in to ‘old’ kit? My laptop is destined for a an Intern at Microsoft, it will serve exactly the purpose they need . Do you have any strategies that you would like to share, that utilise and extend the life of apparently redundant technology?
This will be the last post I write on my trusty old Toshiba, not a single blue screen in 4 years. Thanks old friend, its been a blast.