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On 25th April, the fashion and technology worlds collided at a schools event where girls were encourage to create Wearable Technology. The event, held in celebration of International Girls in ICT Day, was hosted by social enterprise company Little Miss Geek , who aim to inspire upcoming generations of...

For the students of today, technology is highly captivating and engaging. It makes learning exciting, creates a buzz about lessons and work assignments and supports both you as a teacher and your students as learners. We encourage the use of technology in education, but ultimately understand that a good...

Part of the reason I enjoy my role here so much in the Education team at Microsoft is the opportunity I have to see how educators around the UK can use our solutions and technologies to help others find their own potential and build skills to help make for a better and improved way of life. Andrew Bettany...

After being based in and around Russell Square for the last 5 years during my time at ULCC, yesterday I found myself back in familiar surroundings for the Intellect Education Group seminar, which have their offices directly on Russell Square. With speakers including Lynne Sedgmore (157 Group), Clive...

The Imagine Cup, started in 2003,  is an annual competition sponsored and hosted by Microsoft to give young technologists in universities worldwide the chance to solve some of the world’s toughest challenges using Microsoft tools and technology. More than 325,000 register over 100 countries however...

Cost saving stories are being heard more and more throughout the schools of the UK, however it doesn’t stop there. We are now hearing dramatic cost saving stories from further education as Gerald Haigh, independent writer to Microsoft explains how ICT has benefited Walsall College . At the 12,000 student...

This blog post is definitely for the techies amongst you! Things are changing very rapidly in the way that ICT services can be delivered and used in education. Although most of the developments from major ICT providers aren’t specific to education, they are addressing the issues that education faces...

Earlier last week PC Pro ran an article stating that Windows 7 is “ already used on 1% of PCs ”. This was lifted from some Internet metrics measured by NetApplications. It’s easy to do – each time you visit a website, your browser tells the website what version it is, and what operating system it is...

I was in a training session on Friday, when we were joined by the Microsoft IT team – the clever chaps that keep our IT network running right across the business, seemingly in the face of all of the odds. I believe that the odds really are stacked heavily against keeping the IT system stable, because...

I’ve just finished scanning an excellent series of articles on TechNet , about what’s new in Windows 7. Whilst not every feature is critical for education, there are some areas which are answers to current challenges in education ICT. If you’re managing Information Security , then read What’s New in...

I’ve just finished reading the whitepaper about networking enhancements that are included within Windows 7, which are especially powerful when combined with Windows Server 2008 R2. Although I’m not the most technical person in the team, it made sense to me, and a couple of key features jumped out at...

You may recall me blogging the ‘Next-Gen PC’ competition last year , aimed at getting people to think outside of the (beige/black/silver) box for computer design. Well, the winners have been announced, and the amazing Napkin PC is the winner. It uses the metaphor of a paper napkin (“great ideas often...

A short snippet - the Windows XP version of the RM Asus minibook (also known as the Asus eeePC) was announced at BETT 2008, with availability scheduled for April. Well the RM website is now accepting orders for them. It comes with a decent specification - 8GB of storage and 1GB of RAM - meaning that...

At today's College Principals' Meeting, I came across a new word "ideation" - which a colleague used on one of his slides. I'm not sure if it's a 'real' world, or one that sounded good when it went on a slide. It reminded me of my first few months when I joined Microsoft - there were all kinds of acronyms...

2008 hasn't really started any better than 2007 finished - a laptop is stolen from the boot of a car, containing 600,000 personal data records - heaping data disaster upon data disaster . Reality says that laptops will be stolen, even when we think they are secure. I've had a laptop stolen from a hotel...

This isn't specific to education, and I'm sure that if you need to know things like this, you'll automatically be registered to our update and security blogs, but for the network managers out there, here's a quick note: Windows Update will automatically deploy Internet Explorer 7 next month, if you are...

We've been talking about it for quite some time - and the beta and trial versions of the new 2008 products have been floating around on the web. The official launch event for all of the products - Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008 - is happening on March 19th, and will be followed...

One for IT Managers: We've announced that Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista will be released in the Spring Term 2008 2008, which is good news for those who are waiting for this before doing widescale deployments of the new operating system across your college. In advance of that the Beta is available...

Over the years I've seen many "radical" designs for new PCs - I vividly remember being shown an Intel design for a PC that sat inside a leopard-print footstool, designed for the home (sadly, the design was a little premature then, because PCs were still consigned to the study/spare room). But few of...

There will be a number of sessions running on the 1 st and 3 rd Monday of every month, however look out for a number of specialist topics that will run on an ad-hoc basis. Check back here on a regular basis Monday sessions – 10.00am -10.45am · Windows Vista in Education – Monday 5 th November...

Steve Beswick, Microsoft UK's Education Director, was on stage yesterday at the Handheld Learning 2007 Conference in London, in the plenary "Technologies for Learning 2012". Steve looked at the world of work, home & education in 2012, and explored the impact of change, and technology, on each of...

Like last week's posting, on 10 ways to work more securely , was a handy way of reminding your staff about common sense steps that they can take to keep their own personal PCs secure, as well as contributing to the organisation security you're managing. Well, here's another list in a similar vein, that...

My colleague Michael Royster, in Microsoft Consulting Services, has just finished a briefing document on the approaches available to implementation, addressing the questions about thin client versus rich client, and provides excellent advice and insight into how you can plan for the most appropriate...

We have a series of Live meetings scheduled over the next few months to provide more information on the use of SharePoint in learning. My colleague Steven Audis, the Microsoft Education Technology Advisor in the UK, will be running them, and he's provided some more information on their content: "In these...

My colleague Michael Green wrote this article in his US university blog , and I thought it was worth repetition: " Determining which Vista to install is not as complicated as you might think. Vista Business contains most of what you are looking for out of an "everyday" work machine, including the capability...