We have a few places left for the Education Partner Technology update on Dec 8. We only hold these events a couple of times a year so please take advantage of this session. The content will be very relevant for BETT as all of the topics below will be incorporated into our presentations at the show.
Come along to find out about the latest technologies that can be incorporated into solutions to provide a rich and dynamic teaching and learning experience.
AGENDA (subject to minor change)
09:30 Introduction & Welcome Bonami Meredith
09:45 Virtualisation Matt McSpirit
10:30 Business Intelligence Nick Umney & Shailan Chudasama
11:15 Break
11:30 Vista/Office Deployment Nick Umney
12:20 Surface - Introduction Mark A’Bear
12:30 Lunch: during lunch there will be an opportunity to see a demonstration of a Surface device in our presentation centre
14:15 Live@edu Matthew Fox
15:00 Software + Services Mark A’Bear
15:45 Wrap Up & Close Mark A’Bear
Target Audience
Date
Venue
Registration
UK Education Group Partner News
New one- and two-day hands-on technical training courses are taking place in London and Birmingham between January and March 2009. Courses range from a general overview of Microsoft Virtualisation Solutions through to more detailed in-depth technical training.
Event Title : 44CO098 - Server Virtualisation using Microsoft Server Hyper-V & Systems Center
Level 200 (intermediate)
1 day
Event Title : 44CO100 - Design, Implement, and Migrate a Virtual Environment using Windows Server Hyper-V and System Center - VMWare Experts
Level 300 (advanced)
2 days
Event Title : 44CO099 - Set Up, Migrate, and Maintain a Virtual Environment using Windows Server Hyper-V and System Center
To get more details and to register go to: https://training.partner.microsoft.com/plc/search.aspx?ssid=1DEA295996CF4143942CF252DE4E8A48&IsPLCSS=1
Challenges faced by today’s educational institutions typically lie in three main areas: efficiency, security, and accuracy. When it comes to building a Microsoft based e-learning platform, thousands of students, teachers, and parents’ accounts should be provisioned for tens or hundreds of your schools on an interrelated set of Microsoft application servers such as Active directory, SharePoint, Exchange, and Office Communication Server (OCS). In reality, these activities are painful. In such large-scale deployments of Microsoft Learning Gateway (MLG) or other connected e-learning solutions, manual provisioning becomes practically impossible.
Consider data incompleteness and inconsistency. And add the fact that mass provisioning is needed every new academic year and ongoing re-provisioning is needed through the year.
Build your Microsoft e-learning platform. Automate your most mission-critical provisioning and ongoing management activities. Rely on a secure, reliable, and scalable provisioning solution; ITWorx Education Catalyst Provisioning Suite.
ITWorx introduces Catalyst 2.0, the second release of its market- sweeping provisioning product, with a richer set of functions and capabilities to further expedite and facilitate your provisioning processes.
In this webinar you will learn how Catalyst can:
To Register go to: http://www.itworx.com/sec_contacts/webinar_registration
What is Home Access?
Microsoft will support Home Access with:
The Microsoft Home Access proposition includes the following:
Educational Materials
Safety and Technical Support
Office
Live Services and Funky Stuff
The Home Access Presentation with more information can be downloaded from the following SkyDrive location:
http://cid-2fbbe67743d5177d.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Home%20Access?uc=1
For more information on Home Access contact:
Clare Riley – clare.riley@microsoft.com
Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation are key technologies in Education. They represent the means to quickly and cost effectively develop rich UIs for students and educators, not to mention Microsoft surface. The course from Infusion is comprehensive and well worth considering.
Summary
This custom course is intended to provide application user interface designers with hands-on exposure to Microsoft Expression Blend 2.5, Microsoft’s newest tool for designing XAML-based UIs for Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation applications.
The course consists of both lecture and lab sessions so that application designers will have an opportunity to get hands-on experience with Blend and the processes involved in designing an application using this tool. In particular, this course will draw attention to the collaborative nature of Blend and the strategies that teams of both designers and developers can use when working together to build complex applications.
The materials in this course are intended for non-developers and the labs contain no coding exercises. However, a general understanding of application development processes is recommended.
Module Listing
Day 1:
1. Introduction
2. Design Environment
3. Graphics and Text
4. Layouts
Day 2:
5. Working with Controls
6. Styles and Templates
7. Animations
Day 3:
8. Working with Media
9. Working with Data
10. Testing and Integration
Goals:
1. Get an introduction to the large new toolset offered by Expression Blend.
2. Gain hands-on experience with Expression Blend that will make you immediately productive.
3. Learn how to bring your UIs to the next level by taking advantage of Silverlight and WPF features
4. Understand how Expression Blend ties into code components of a .NET 3.5 application.
To register for training please contact:
Neil Ray, Business Development Manager
nray@infusion.com
At first I thought it was a misprint – but no, it was correct.
Essex have issued their tender notice for the £1,000,000,000 (Billion pound!) contract for their Local Education Partnership (LEP) – which will be responsible for building and running their first waves of BSF schools and the Primary Capital Programme, with options for it to be extended to all of their BSF schools, new Acadamies and the full Primary Capital Programme.
For all BSF schools in Waves 4, 5 and 6, the contract covers construction, managed ICT services, facilities management (described as “soft” and “hard”, which I guess covers buildings management as well as services such as catering etc). And it seems to cover the same for the Primary Capital Programme (which has just had its first wave of funding announced). The potential additional components described are Waves 7, 8 and 9 of the Essex BSF programme, Academies, future Primary Capital Programme Design and Build projects, managed ICT services for secondary schools not in Wave 4, 5 and 6, managed ICT services for primary schools, other Children and Young Peoples services, build & run buildings delivering Local Authority services and school improvement related services. All for the next 15 years.
For all BSF schools in Waves 4, 5 and 6, the contract covers construction, managed ICT services, facilities management (described as “soft” and “hard”, which I guess covers buildings management as well as services such as catering etc). And it seems to cover the same for the Primary Capital Programme (which has just had its first wave of funding announced).
The potential additional components described are Waves 7, 8 and 9 of the Essex BSF programme, Academies, future Primary Capital Programme Design and Build projects, managed ICT services for secondary schools not in Wave 4, 5 and 6, managed ICT services for primary schools, other Children and Young Peoples services, build & run buildings delivering Local Authority services and school improvement related services. All for the next 15 years.
What this means is that if you are in an Essex school, the local authority is starting the process to find a partner to deliver all of the buildings and ICT services for all of the schools.
This same pattern is happening all across England, but this is the first £1BN contract announcement that I’ve seen.
If your business involves supplying ICT or supporting schools, it’s worth keeping up with these developments, as they could fundamentally change your role. You can see the full Essex tender notice here
Please don’t ask me what the acronym ESP stands for …….. I’ve scoured numerous web sites for the answer, so I won’t be answering Ray’s comment when he asks the question!
Microsoft® ESP™ is a visual simulation software development platform that extends immersive games-based technology to training, learning and decision support for commercial, government and academic organizations. The ESP™ team is offering a FREE technical training one-day events for Developers next month. We strongly encourage you to attend and learn about this exciting newer technology platform that have already begun to revolutionize the simulation and visualization markets. Complete details are below. Please register soon as capacity is limited. I look forward to seeing you there!
London, UK – November 19, 2008
Imperial War Museum London
Lambeth Road London SE1 6HZ United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)20 7416 5000
Map & Directions
Date & Time
Wednesday, November 19 @ 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM
Registration Information Click here
We invite you to join us for a day of developer-oriented technical sessions featuring Microsoft® ESP™. Microsoft® ESP™ is a visual simulation software development platform that extends immersive games-based technology to training, learning and decision support for commercial, government and academic organizations. Come and learn how this all-in-one visual simulation platform consisting of a simulation engine, development tools and rich content can help you quickly build affordable, extensible, high-quality simulation solutions that can tie in with external solutions and integrate with industry standard input/output devices and database-driven content. You will also learn about the Microsoft ESP SDK that consists of four primary systems, some of which contain their own additional SDKs for specific topics:
The sessions will allow you to:
These sessions will target Developers, Architects, technical managers and Web designers, be very much demonstration oriented, and will be delivered by seasoned developers with experience in Government and Public Sector. Seize this opportunity to immerse yourself in this exciting new technology! For more information about Microsoft ESP, visit: www.microsoft.com/esp or www.msdn.com/esp.
Who Should Attend
Developers, Architects, Web Designers and technical managers who wish to get an early look at the next advancement in Software Development.
What is the Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Index?
The CSAT Index is a benefit that gives Microsoft Partners access to market research services for surveying and measuring customer satisfaction with Partners’ services and solutions. The CSAT Index tool is delivered by TNS, a third party market research company.
How does CSAT work?
The CSAT Index survey is run during the following four survey periods:
Partners submit a list of customers who have agreed to participate in the CSAT survey. An email is sent to these customers inviting them to participate in an online survey which takes about 10-15 minutes to complete. Customers can choose to respond anonymously. TNS compiles the results using industry-proven methodology and the scorecard and analysis are reported on the CSAT portal, giving Partners valuable measurements of their customers’ satisfaction.
Partners have the flexibility to include optional questions in the survey as well as write their own questions. In addition, Partners can upload their Company logo to be displayed on the Survey and Invitations, choose whether they will send the survey invitation to their customers or have TNS send it on their behalf, and submit customer names at any time during the survey period. Survey invitations are prepared within 48 hours after the Partner completes the Survey Administration process and launches the survey.
In addition to receiving valuable feedback, Partners can earn Microsoft Partner Program Points based on the number of customer responses received and their NSAT scores.
CSAT Information: https://microsoft.prognostics.com/MSPortal/portal.aspx?ReturnUrl=https%3a%2f%2fmicrosoft.prognostics.com%2fMSPortal%2fdashboard%2fDefault.aspx
FAQ: https://microsoft.prognostics.com/MSPortal/resourcecenter/DocLanding.aspx?Type=440C6591-F497-4ded-8A99-EDEE700BFEF2
Survey Admin Guide: https://microsoft.prognostics.com/MSPortal/resourcecenter/DocLanding.aspx?Type=EC31F173-0CF1-4c57-90F5-BE1599A24426
By now, you’ve no doubt heard about the newly unveiled Azure Services Platform operating system for the cloud. What does it mean for delivering enterprise-class software as a subscription service? See what benefits Azure holds for corporate developers, and find out more about Azure Services, including Live Services and SQL Services.
Note from Ray:This is all effectively pre-release information - we haven't "launched" these services yet - at PDC we wanted to share as much as possible with developers, so that they could see the direction we are heading in, and build it into future roadmaps and development thinking. But it isn't a service that you should think of moving business-critical things onto - today it's a range of beta/experimental services that you can start developing on and for. It would be easy to just stay quiet until everything's done, and ready to launch, but that wouldn't be as helpful to you as the way we're approaching it. Bear that in mind as you read this.
The Azure™ Services Platform (Azure) is an internet-scale cloud services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers, which provides an operating system and a set of developer services that can be used individually or together. Azure’s flexible and interoperable platform can be used to build new applications to run from the cloud or enhance existing applications with cloud-based capabilities. Its open architecture gives developers the choice to build web applications, applications running on connected devices, PCs, servers, or hybrid solutions offering the best of online and on-premises.
Azure reduces the need for up-front technology purchases, and it enables developers to quickly and easily create applications running in the cloud by using their existing skills with the Microsoft Visual Studio development environment and the Microsoft .NET Framework. In addition to managed code languages supported by .NET, Azure will support more programming languages and development environments in the near future. Azure simplifies maintaining and operating applications by providing on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage web and connected applications. Infrastructure management is automated with a platform that is designed for high availability and dynamic scaling to match usage needs with the option of a pay-as-you-go pricing model. Azure provides an open, standards-based and interoperable environment with support for multiple internet protocols, including HTTP, REST, SOAP, and XML.
Microsoft also offers cloud applications ready for consumption by customers such as Windows Live™, Microsoft Dynamics™, and other Microsoft Online Services for business such as Microsoft Exchange Online and SharePoint® Online. The Azure Services Platform lets developers provide their own unique customer offerings by offering the foundational components of compute, storage, and building block services to author and compose applications in the cloud.
Windows® Azure is a cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Azure Services Platform. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage internet or cloud applications. Windows Azure supports a consistent development experience through its integration with Visual Studio. In the early stages of CTP, .NET managed applications built using Visual Studio will be supported. Windows Azure is an open platform that will support both Microsoft and non-Microsoft languages and environments. Windows Azure welcomes third party tools and languages such as Eclipse, Ruby, PHP, and Python.
Live Services is a set of building blocks within the Azure Services Platform for handling user data and application resources. Live Services provides developers with an easy on-ramp to build rich social applications and experiences, across a range of digital devices that can connect with one of the largest audiences on the Web.
There are two events coming up on 21st November, to launch Windows Small Business Server 2008 and Windows Essential Business Server 2008. Whilst neither of them are specifically for education partners, the two server products being launched are relevant for education – there’s a case study of Cornish schools using Small Business Server to reduce costs and provide remote access:
Schools in Cornwall Save Money by Using Business Server as a Learning Tool Primary schools in the United Kingdom are using the latest small business software to transform teaching and meet targets set by the government’s national education agenda. Six schools in the county of Cornwall have implemented Windows® Small Business Server 2003. By using cost-effective licensing models, professional standard applications, and easy integration with existing software, the schools have enhanced learning, reduced the costs of IT maintenance, and provided remote access to critical information.
Schools in Cornwall Save Money by Using Business Server as a Learning Tool
Primary schools in the United Kingdom are using the latest small business software to transform teaching and meet targets set by the government’s national education agenda. Six schools in the county of Cornwall have implemented Windows® Small Business Server 2003. By using cost-effective licensing models, professional standard applications, and easy integration with existing software, the schools have enhanced learning, reduced the costs of IT maintenance, and provided remote access to critical information.
This is a briefing event to introduce partners to our latest server operating systems and how Microsoft will be supporting you in selling them onto your customer base. The server operating systems we will be introducing you to are, Windows® Small Business Server 2008 (SBS 2008) and Windows® Essential Business Server 2008 (EBS 2008). Small Business Server 2008 will be covered in the morning and Essential Business Server 2008 in the afternoon.
Find out more, and register here