Just a few hours ago Office 365 for education launched around the world so we thought it might be a good time to give you a quick tour of what you can expect to find. So, sit back and relax as my colleague Damon introduces you to Office 365!
Don’t forget that you can sign up for the 30-day trial absolutely free which will give you the chance to experience this first hand. Just head over to the new website at http://education.office365.com to get started.
Starting today, Microsoft Office 365 for education is available, providing the world’s best productivity, communications and collaboration experiences to schools at no cost.
“The cloud and online learning are key trends transforming education today. Office 365 for education delivers a holistic collaboration platform that will change the game,” said Anthony Salcito, vice president of worldwide education, Microsoft. “As schools face ever-tightening budgets and the pressure to innovate, we are offering enterprise quality technology for free that will modernize teaching practices and help prepare students for the jobs of tomorrow.”
At BETT 2011 we announced that Office 365 would be coming to our education customers – an upgrade for the current Live@edu service used by over 22M users worldwide. Over the last few months some of our early adopter customers, including University of Dundee, Westminster University and The Schools Network (formerly SSAT) have been deploying this upgraded service and they’re really happy with the results.
“The university selected Office 365 over Google Apps because it gives us a robust enterprise-class platform for developing a radical new approach to collaboration and communication that goes far beyond email” Tom Mortimer, Director, Information and Communication Services, University of Dundee
“The university selected Office 365 over Google Apps because it gives us a robust enterprise-class platform for developing a radical new approach to collaboration and communication that goes far beyond email”
Tom Mortimer, Director, Information and Communication Services, University of Dundee
As of right now education institutions can sign up for the Office 365 for education 30-day trial for free via the Office 365 website.
Office 365 allows schools to teach from virtually anywhere*, reach more students, teach software skills employers are looking for and provide enterprise-class tools that reduce IT costs.
Students can engage in ad-hoc instant messaging or video chats to collaborate on class projects in real time, regardless of where they are working or on what device. They can create documents with Office Web Apps that provide the same features as the desktop version of Microsoft Office, share class notes by synchronizing OneNote notebooks, and create digital portfolios.
Teachers can create curriculum, record lectures and publish them on online class sites in the cloud where students are able to view, open, produce, edit and share their homework. Office 365 provides new ways to extend classroom teaching time and distance learning, tutor students online, and whiteboard ideas.
Educational institutions and parents will get peace of mind knowing students’ content and personal data are protected and won’t be scanned for advertising purposes, thanks to a rich set of privacy, security and protection capabilities that adhere to federal laws.
School IT departments can save money and free up more critical time by counting on Microsoft to manage routine tasks such as applying server updates and software upgrades. With the influx of digital content, datacentre demands and lessened and with 25GB mailboxes, people won’t be forced to purge files.
*An appropriate device, Internet connection, supported browser and/or carrier network connectivity are required. Data charges may apply.
http://education.office365.com
Education institutions currently using the Microsoft Live@edu platform will be upgraded to Office 365 beginning this summer.
Originally posted on UK Education Cloud Blog
By Joe Belfiore
Three years ago I was lucky to join the Windows Phone team at a time when we were “resetting” our approach to mobile operating system software. We made big changes to our design, our approach to partners, and our platform. The result was Windows Phone 7.
Now it’s time to start telling you about the next exciting chapter of our story: Windows Phone 8. Officially announced this morning in San Francisco, it’s the most advanced mobile OS Microsoft has ever made and will arrive on new phones later this year.
Many of Windows Phone 8’s new capabilities come from a surprising source: Windows, the most successful and powerful operating system on the planet, and one used by more than a billion people. Yes, you read that right: Windows Phone 8 is based on the same core technologies that power Windows 8. As a result, Windows Phone 8 will unleash a new wave of features for consumers, developers, and businesses.
Today I’ll give you a high-level sneak peek at the Windows Phone 8 platform and tell you just some of what it’s going to make possible. I’ll also share some exciting news about apps and updates for current Windows Phone customers. This isn’t a full disclosure of everything in Windows Phone 8—look for a more complete tour of new features later.
If you’ve seen Windows 8, Microsoft’s groundbreaking new release for PCs and tablets, you’ve probably noticed it bears more than a passing resemblance to the look of Windows Phone. Here’s how the Windows 8 Start screen looks in the latest preview release.
With Windows Phone 8, the similarity is more than skin deep. We’ve based the next release of Windows Phone on the rock-solid technology core of Windows 8. It means Windows Phone and its bigger sibling will share common networking, security, media and web browser technology, and a common file system. That translates into better performance, more features, and new opportunities for app developers and hardware makers to innovate faster.
This new shared core—along with all the extra work we’ve done on top of it—opens up a new world of capabilities, which you don’t have to be a techie to appreciate. Here’s a taste:
We’re putting the finishing touches on Windows Phone 8 as I write this. It has a ton of great new consumer features that I can’t wait to tell you about in the months ahead. Today, however, I’m going to show off just one: the beautiful, flexible new Start screen.
As you can see, we’re making Windows Phone 8 even more personal, with a new palette of theme colors and three sizes of Live Tiles, all of which are under your control. We know Live Tiles are one of the things current owners really love about their Windows Phones, and we wanted to make them even more flexible and unique. This short video shows the new Start screen in action.
The new Start screen is so useful and emblematic of what Windows Phone is about that we want everybody to enjoy it. So we’ll be delivering it to existing phones as a software update sometime after Window Phone 8 is released. Let me repeat: If you currently own a Windows Phone 7.5 handset, Microsoft is planning to release an update with the new Windows Phone 8 Start screen. We’re calling it “Windows Phone 7.8.”
Some of you have been wondering, “Will we also get Windows Phone 8 as an update?” The answer, unfortunately, is no.
Windows Phone 8 is a generation shift in technology, which means that it will not run on existing hardware. BUT we care deeply about our existing customers and want to keep their phones fresh, so we’re providing the new Start screen in this new update.
Today we announced that the Windows Phone Marketplace officially hit 100,000 apps and games—a milestone we reached faster than Android, and a testament to the thousands of talented developers around the world who’ve supported us since launch. Together they deliver more than 200 new titles, on average, each day.
On behalf of everybody at Windows Phone, THANK YOU! We appreciate your effort and creativity and the value you bring to Windows Phone users.
To mark the milestone, today we’re announcing a new batch of marquee titles. The official Audible app for audiobooks arrives in Marketplace today. Official apps from Chase and PayPal are in the works. Gameloft has Windows Phone versions of Asphalt 7: Heat and N.O.V.A. 3 Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance on the way.
And Nokia is helping deliver the much-requested Zynga games Words with Friends and Draw Something to Windows Phone later this year. Check out Nokia Conversations today for more details about this and other new Windows Phone-related announcements today. (And don’t miss the fun new “100,000 Apps and Counting” mugs and other goodies in the official Windows Phone Gear Store!)
Since we’re talking about apps, I want to tell developers a little bit about what they can expect in Windows Phone 8. Some of the exciting changes on the way include:
This is just a taste. Later this summer, we’ll have much more for developers on the Windows Phone 8 Software Development Kit (SDK) and the new Visual Studio 11-based development tools. So stay tuned.
In Windows Phone 8, we’re also moving into the workplace in a big way, introducing a number of features and capabilities that companies and their IT departments demand. This is just one more benefit of sharing a common core with Windows 8. Some of the new business-friendly features include:
I get a lot of tweets asking, “When will my phone get Arabic? Farsi? Turkish?” They’re also the top feature requests on the Windows Phone Suggestion Box site.
I’m happy to tell you these languages are coming! In fact, Windows Phone 8 will support a total of 50 languages, or double the current geographic coverage. We’re also expanding Marketplace, our store for apps and games, to support app downloads in over 180 countries—nearly triple its current footprint.
Another area I know many of you care deeply about is Windows Phone software updates and how they’re delivered—something we’ve gotten a lot of feedback on over the last year. Today I’m excited to tell you that we’ve been working closely with our many partners to improve the update process for Windows Phone 8, and help get you our latest software more quickly and easily.
How? First, Windows Phone 8 updates will be delivered wirelessly over-the-air, so you don’t have to bother plugging your phone into your PC to update anymore. Second, we will support devices with updates for at least 18 months from device launch.
Finally, we’re working to create a program that gives registered enthusiasts early access to updates prior to broad availability—a little gift to our biggest fans and supporters. We think these three initiatives will help keep your phone fresher than ever before.
I know that’s a lot to digest—and look forward to. And I didn’t even mention actual phones yet!
We’re really excited about the strong line-up of hardware partners who are putting their support behind Windows Phone 8. The first wave of devices for Windows Phone 8 will come from Nokia, Huawei, Samsung, and HTC, all built on next-generation chips from Qualcomm.
Pottermore, the official Harry Potter website, was recently launched and attracted billions of page views in its first two weeks. The site is built on Windows Azure, an open cloud platform that lets users quickly build, deploy, and manage applications across a global network of Microsoft-managed data centers.
Harry Potter is one of the largest entertainment phenomenas of all time, so fans of all ages couldn't wait to experience the world-famous stories and social and interactive experiences that the site offered. Eagerly awaiting the launch of Pottermore, the website based on the popular Harry Potter stories, Brittany Talbot and her sister, Priscilla, raced to sign up when the site went live. "I like being able to go up there and do potions and spells and walk around where Harry was," Talbot said. "I read the first book in the first week because I was so excited."
The Pottermore website demonstrates the powerful platform that Windows Azure offers for even the most challenging development projects. The site currently features activities and text based on the storyline of the first "Harry Potter" novel, additional material from Rowling, and highly interactive elements such as the ability to make comments, earn house points, learn spells, mix potions, and duel with other fans.
A factor in favour of Windows Azure, is that it provided a platform as a service (PaaS), which means that Pottermore could simply move its application onto the Windows Azure platform without the burden of managing and maintaining virtual machines. Windows Azure provided a cloud-based testing environment that enabled Pottermore to test whether the site could scale up to meet massive demand. "Elasticity was critical," said Julian Thomas, chief technology officer at Pottermore. "We knew there were between 2 million and 20 million Harry Potter fans who were waiting to get on the site, and we had to be ready."
Working hand-in-hand with Microsoft, Pottermore had its new site up and running in just three months. On April 14, Pottermore launched the new site with just a single tweet @pottermore "we're opening to everyone."
"Literally within minutes, the traffic started to flood in," Thomas said. "The demand was just enormous, but the site continued to work properly, running on Windows Azure."
Visual Studio Achievements for student Windows Azure developers
There are many talented students working with Windows Azure, and we hope the Pottermore website will provide further inspiration for developers. As additional motivation for students and to bring some game to their code, Microsoft has released Visual Studio Achievements. The achievements of students talents and learning are recognised as they perform various coding feats. This unlocks achievements and earn badges which can be shared and displayed on social network profiles and web sites.
We recently announced an update to Visual Studio Achievements, adding 15 new achievements, all focused on Windows Azure development. The Visual Studio Achievements Extension includes fifteen new achievements, all focused on exercising features of Windows Azure. Using the extension, various achievements are unlocked based on your activity. When you unlock an achievement, Visual Studio lets you know visually with a pop-up. In addition, your Channel 9 profile is updated with any achievements you earn. So, head over to Channel9, sign up for an account and download the plugin.
There are 15 Azure achievements, such as publishing to Windows Azure from Visual Studio (Heading into the Cloud), using page blobs (Attack of the Blob), using SQL Azure (Database Darling) and configuring start up tasks (It’s My Party). Two of the achievements – Phone in the Cloud and Game in the Cloud – require use of Windows Azure toolkits.
If you’d like some step by step guidance on how to set up System Centre Configuration Manager 2012, you need look no further than this helpful eBook by Neil Hodgkinson.
Neil is a Network Administrator at Twynham School has been hard at work over the last few months writing the eBook. It is now available at no cost on his blog Technodge.
On Neil’s blog you will also find the start of his next series of eBooks, which is around the subject of application virtualisation using Microsoft App-V5.
You can download the eBooks at http://www.technodge.co.uk/nodge/technodge-ebooks/
So, in the earlier parts of this blog series we covered off your “traditional” ICT suite machine and how virtualisation has the power to improve your server system. We also touched on how you can also virtualise applications using the App-V framework to add further flexibility to your desktop deployment.
Thinking right back to the first article, where we were planning what to do the decision was made to deploy new laptops (kindly provided by Stone), to negate the need for classroom “teacher computers”. This did help in one way as it gave us a good quantity of legacy equipment. The problem was that now, although we had some “good specification” legacy, it was still legacy and the last thing we wanted was to have a split Windows XP/Windows 7 estate; after all, XP is coming to the end of its supported life.
“Consistency was one of the big changes I wanted to make – to unify the experience users had, no matter where on the system they were”.
The answer came from discussions though the TechNet Membership held by the Academy, and earlier “Beta” work that had been done. Because of these links with Microsoft, a test program for a new product called Windows Thin PC was accessible. This was previously known as Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs, when it was essentially a cut down version of Windows XP. The new version was based on Windows 7, ideal as it maintained the same look and feel and also contained all the same core features. These included, crucially; support for domain joining and group policy. It is cut down and limited in its capabilities so you cant use it as a true standalone operating system. Instead, it is designed to “connect” to something else, such as Citrix or Terminal Services.
Terminal Services, now called “Remote Desktop Services” (RDS) is not new technology. In fact, neither is Thin Client! Use of both of these in schools for anything other than Server Administration by techies is though. RDS has been a part of the Windows Server system since the NT days, when it was an extra install. Now, it is just a “role” that you can choose which has been the case since 2003. The Server 2008 R2 version though adds a whole heap of extra functionality, and changes the playing field in terms of deployment and scalability.
RDS is designed to be split out into its component parts and spread across a number of servers. Teamed with the virtualisation power of Hyper-V (see earlier article) you have something truly scalable. You split out the hosting (where all the programs run), from the web accessibility (yes, you can do that too, but more on that later) and the “brokering” (who connects where). Licensing is also handled as a separate role feature. In a typical deployment (this looks as shown) which is not too far from what we did. Leveraging Hyper-V for hosting the Remote Desktop Session Hosts (well in fact, pretty much all of the system) has two significant benefits. One of these is the snapshotting feature built into Hyper-V, which is an obvious backup route. The second is the way you can let Hyper-V manage the memory usage. Dynamic Memory Allocation is a killer feature, allowing the hosted OS to “claim” more RAM as it needs it, and release it when it doesn’t. This is ideal for a varying workload such as RDS.
Now we’ve done a quick overview, lets deep dive into some of the setup. The basic Windows Thin PC and Session Host bit is obvious from earlier posts. You can just let SCCM (System Centre Configuration Manager) deal with that. It will do the OS install and drop our basic application set on as well. Even the App-V “bubble” installations work on Remote Desktop Servers. There is a special App-V installation pack on the Microsoft Download Centre. When it comes to the power of App-V, this is even more attractive when on RDS,where your OS is 64 bit only. Of course you are separating the application from the OS, so compatibility and stability is much improved with frequently troublesome education applications!
The Session Host bit itself is essentially a desktop which will get provided to the user through the Remote Desktop Client on whatever hardware the user is connecting from. More than that, it can also do some clever things in the new version called Remote App. We will come back to that another time though, in the next instalment of this series of blogs.
If you have not yet read any of the previous posts from Stuart or would just like a recap, here they are -
Building School Networks for the Future - System Centre and Hyper-V
Building School Networks for the Future – Server Infrastructure ‘’System for the Future’’
Building School Networks for the Future – Deployment of Microsoft Windows 7
Midnight last night, the announcement made by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in LA that Microsoft are releasing our very own devises for Windows 8, the amazing looking Surface – a new family of computing devises.
Surface with Windows 8 will offer some exciting opportunities for education, and already there is a real buzz around the office, as everyone wants to get there hands on one!
At the moment, we don’t have a release date for the two models in the Surface family, Windows RT and Windows 8 Pro however, you can keep up to date with the information here or download the Windows Release Preview.
And if you are anything like me, you too will love the launch video!
All the contributions I make to the Microsoft education blogs lead me to interesting places and people. How else would I get into the backstage area of QPR's Loftus Road ground or visit a shiny academy to write a blog in my old home town of Barnsley, or have access to a Reception at the House of Commons?
That said, the recent post on Get Online@Home reminded me of one of my most thought provoking tasks, which was to interview earlier this year some of the adults whose lives were made better, and sometimes entirely changed, by the affordable refurbished computers made possible by the scheme (The brief case studies on the Get Online@home’ website are based on these interviews)
There was Robert, for example, a state pensioner, running a family of four, including ‘Blaze’, the German shepherd pup, with the aid of the internet to find bargains, trying for competition prizes, seeking advice about dog training. And then there was Heather, another state pensioner, finding that her new computer considerably eases the task of being full time carer of her teenage grandson.
‘I’d have been stuck for how to cope with him. I would have been struggling.’
There were others, all with similar stories, all providing a timely reminder that there are people in our country who really do struggle valiantly to make ends meet and do their best for their families. For them, access to the internet for money advice, bargain holidays, information on jobs and courses etc can make a real difference.
Schools, it strikes me, have a part to play here. There can’t be many communities these days that don’t have their share of cash-strapped families and so it shouldn’t be difficult to pass on, through the children, ideas on how internet access might help, together with information about ‘Get Online@home’ computers and laptops.
One family I talked to particularly brought into focus an issue that surely faces all schools, or soon will do.
Christina, mother of Bria, told me how she went to the parents’ induction meeting when her daughter was moving to secondary school.
“The teacher asked me did I have access to a computer, and if not could I get one. They explained about the school’s online learning gateway that would be the main source of information.”
Up to that point, Christina had resisted her daughter’s plea for a computer on grounds of cost. Now, she faced having Bria put at a disadvantage right from the start.
The answer came in the form of a ‘Get Online@home’ refurbished compute. It was set up in time for the new school term, and Bria was off to the same start as her classmates.
“I look on the learning gateway to see my homework tasks,” says Bria, “And I do research on the internet. We’ve been doing a project on the history of the local area.”
‘’There’s also a parent gateway’’ explains Christina. “They sent me a password so I can have access and keep in the loop.”
So, although it’s certainly true that students do better if they have a home PC, they also clearly benefit from the overall effect of internet access on the whole family. If parents can keep in touch with school, if a freelance trainer can find work, if the pressure on grandparent carers (there are 200 thousand of them) is eased, if single parents can save money with ‘Martin’s Money Tips’ (‘He’s my guru’, said one woman I interviewed) then the children will be more settled and more likely to succeed. For me, that makes ‘Get Online@Home’ worth its weight in gold plated laptops.
Windows Azure, Windows 8, Devices and Open Source - The Microsoft Cloud Day on June 22nd at the Vue Cinema in Fulham, London is a free conference for public sector developers where you can find out more about the latest innovations in Microsoft technology for the cloud and open source.
If you are building or considering building applications for the cloud, our one-day conference will provide invaluable insights and information on our latest innovations.
There are four tracks in the Microsoft Cloud Day agenda:
Registration for the Microsoft Cloud Day on June 22nd, 11:30-18:30 is free for developers and IT professionals from the Public Sector.
You can find out more and register to attend the Microsoft Cloud Day here:
http://azureconference2012.eventbrite.com/
Registration code for Public Sector developers and IT professionals: CG150SAMSMQ
This week’s roundup of posts -
Get started using OneNote
How to add a video to a PowerPoint presentation
Microsoft UK Education upcoming live webcasts
Kodu student activity: editing your world
Controlling access on your child’s Windows Phone
Supporting numeracy with Kinect Sports
Evidence that students do better with a PC at home
Virtualisation in your school: Installation