Meet Kevin, an undergrad at a large university in Oregon. Kevin lives on campus and uses his laptop everywhere from the library to his dorm, to the hallway outside the classroom. And he never goes anywhere without his smart phone, which he checks before, during, and after class. Kevin’s university provides Live@EDU for all its students and staff. With these great tools, he can do his homework, stay on top of his social life, and have non-stop access to all of his files. And the fact that it’s free? Bonus.
This semester, Kevin’s course load will help illustrate each of the tools within Live@EDU, their features, and the many ways the Microsoft Office Web Apps make life easier for both students and faculty.
PowerPoint is a presentation application that helps illustrate your ideas and inform your audience. The use of visual aids help guide your listeners through your arguments and frame the key messages. And with all the capabilities for creating custom presentations, PowerPoint is helpful in a variety of scenarios.
Kevin’s Class: Organizational Behaviour
Assignment: Create a live experiment on fellow classmates on the Observer-Expectancy Theory
Business classes used to be about reading textbooks and taking tests, but Kevin’s organizational behaviour professor likes to create the environment he's teaching. In order to make the content and concepts more interesting, classwork evolves around challenges, teamwork, and games.
In this particular challenge or project, Kevin has to work with a team to generate a live example of the Observer-Expectancy effect with the members of the class. In order to demonstrate the concept, the team will divide the class into the test group and the control group. The experiment will be executed using a series of photographs, and the control group will be told to record any details on what they see, and the test group will be told to record what they see, and note whether or not they see any animal shapes in the pictures.
The team will execute the experiment, compile and share the results, present the background information on the theory, and then provide a study guide for the class.
This is very different from traditional teaching approaches where the professor simply lectures the class. In order for the experiment to work, the professor must collaborate privately with each group in order to help them with their projects. This is where the Live@EDU workspace makes life easy.
The Microsoft PowerPoint Web App will be the tool of choice for this project. Here is how Kevin and his group use PowerPoint to prepare for their presentation.
For the experiment to work, the control and test groups need to be given separate sets of information. The team has decided to create separate presentations to explain the rules for each group, and then move to a new PowerPoint presentation to show the images.
How to Organize with PowerPoint Slides
PowerPoint presentations are created by adding and editing individual slides.
Slides can display text, graphics, or images, and create a great tool to begin organizing your thoughts.
Group projects require collaboration, and because the professor is working with each of the teams privately in effort to surprise the rest of the soon-to-be-subjects students, sharing files are a saving grace when executing a highly collaborative project. Instead of having to meet in person and dodge people’s work, sports, and social schedules, each of the team members can add their contribution to the presentation when they have time. The professor can view all the group progress and provide feedback from home. He can also see who made each contribution which helps him grade each team member individually.
How to Share and Collaborate
If you share the file, others will be able to view and/or edit your work from wherever they are. Sharing allows you to select who can access the files to view them, and who can contribute, or edit the files.
The experiment will occur around a series of images, and each member of the control and test group will be—in theory—looking for different things. Placing images into the slides is simple. The group will create a series of 6 images – one per slide, so each member of the audience can focus on it and make notes on what they see.
How to Add Images
Within the text space, you are able to add images and graphics. Click on the icon of what you would like to insert, and the PowerPoint Web App will load an Insert options menu box allowing you to select the image from your computer.
This is what Kevin’s group will use to display the images for the class experiment.
Once the control and test group have viewed the images, made their notes, and Kevin’s group has compiled the data and proven the theory that individuals will more likely see what they are told they will likely see—the Observer-Expectant theory—the team will illustrate some of the background. SmartArt diagrams will help display the characteristics, facts, and information behind the theory.
How to Add Notes
The notes section is below the slide area, and unlike the slide, this has unlimited space and can be an excellent resource for any supporting information you might need for your presentation. By typing in this section, all your information will be captured. When in presentation mode, your viewers will not see this content.
All the work Kevin’s team does is saved to the SkyDrive, so that everyone can work off the most recent version. This means that no one needs to email the file back and forth. And when it comes time to give the presentation, the team can run it directly off the Web through a browser—no need for the PowerPoint software to be installed on anyone’s computer. No longer does anyone have to worry about bringing the file to class—the file is always accessible with any internet connection.
How to View as a Slide Show from the Web
The Web App gives you an interface to edit your presentation and add content, and the Slide Show view provides the format to present your work without showing the editing functionality.
All of this is possible with the Microsoft PowerPoint Web App, and with this tool, the group can create a successful experiment to present to the class. The software version of PowerPoint is more powerful and has many more features and capabilities than its Web App counterpart. Here are some great functionalities of the software version:
To learn more about what you can do with the software version, click here.
Want to share this with your students? Click here to find this information in an email template you can send to others, or share the link directly.
OneNote gives you an effective solution to organize your notes and assignments and its built-in features create a revolutionary way to prepare for exams.
Kevin’s class: Modern Art History
Assignment: Exam on paintings of the first half of the 20th century
Each class, Kevin’s Modern Art History professor shows slides and gives in-depth lectures on each work of art, covering roughly 30 works across each unit. The upcoming exam will cover paintings from 1900 through 1950, including work from Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollack, and many other famous artists.
The exams are essay-driven, so the students need to know extensive details in order to write about all the pieces: dates, movements, artists, countries, title of work, and their unique story. With this depth of knowledge required, the OneNote Web App is Kevin’s key tool in exam preparation.
It’s time to get started:
The OneNote format makes taking, organizing, and reviewing notes simple. Kevin is starting with notes from each slide or work of art the professor has displayed, and he has quickly typed in facts, dates, and bits of information that relate to what he must learn. Once he has more time after class, he can organize his information using different sections and pages within OneNote.
Kevin can really leverage the sections and pages in creative ways to make the test preparation easier. For example, the testing environment will include only an image to prompt him for an essay, so Kevin can add can also add a section that only includes images so that he can quiz himself on what he knows.
How to Leverage Sections and Pages
Remember the days of three-ring binders? Applied to the OneNote format, the binder is a notebook, dividers are sections and sheets of paper are pages. The OneNote Web App brings you a far more modern, paperless, cloud-based means of organizing.
With the ability to create sections and pages, OneNote is your tool to sort and organize all your information in whichever way works best for you.
With the breadth of the internet, some simple searches will deliver digital versions of each of the slides Kevin needs to know for his exam. By saving images to his computer, he can add the images to the OneNote Notebook, and quiz himself on the information he must know with every piece of art. OneNote allows him to add images, tables, and links, making it easier to edit and manipulate the visual resources needed to study for an art history exam. When it comes time for them to assemble further research for term papers, he can add links to different online sources, create tables to organize information and data, or add clip art.
How to work with media
OneNote allows you to add images, clip art, links, and tables, as well as format your text, similar to using Microsoft Word.
Place your cursor in the document where you want to insert your content, then type your notes or click on Insert to select the type of media you plan to include.
All of the Office Web Apps offer the ability to access files, projects, and assignments wherever you have an internet connection. This becomes helpful if you leave your computer at home and jump into the computer lab to update an assignment, and also it’s extremely useful as a backup of all your data. Sharing is a great collaboration tool – Kevin can grant anyone access and specifically define who can view and edit his file. When it comes time to work in groups to develop a term presentation, his classmates can work off his notes in his OneNote notebook.
How to Share Your Work
The Web App interface lets you share your work with other users. Select ‘edit’ for those you want to contribute to your work, and select ‘view’ for those you would only like to access your files but should not have the permission to change them.
With lots of information on a page, it can be difficult to find what you’re looking for. Where the software version of OneNote offers a robust search tool to find text within an entire notebook, Kevin can still find what he needs using the browser. When updating information on Piet Mondrian, instead of scrolling and searching through the page, all he has to do is use the “Find” function available in his browser. This highlights the information on the page and he can quickly update the information much faster than scrolling and searching.
How to Search quickly
Where the OneNote version on your computer has a built-in interface for searching for content throughout the entire notebook, use the ‘Find’ function in your browser to search using the OneNote Web App.
With your cursor placed within the body of a page, press ‘Control+F’ or ‘Command+F’.
With all of these great capabilities within the Microsoft OneNote Web App, Kevin will be well prepared for his Modern Art History exam.
The Web Apps offer great functionality from the browser, but the software versions offer an even more powerful, complete experience. The software version of OneNote allows you to:
To learn more about the software version of Microsoft OneNote, click here.
Meet Kevin, an undergrad at a large university in Oregon. Kevin lives on campus and uses his laptop everywhere from the library to his dorm, to the hallway outside the classroom. And he never goes anywhere without his branded phone, which he checks before, during, and after class. Kevin’s university provides Live@EDU for all its students and staff. With these great tools, he can do his homework, stay on top of his social life, and have non-stop access to all of his files. And the fact that it’s free? Bonus.
Outlook Web App is a communication hub to manage your email, contacts, classwork, tasks, and busy schedule. You can access it from different devices* connected to the internet, so the information is at your fingertips as the day unfolds: new email, additional tasks, and assignment updates.
Kevin’s classes: His full course load – Environmental literature, Modern Art History, Organizational Behaviour, and Personal Finance.
Assignment: Everything from staying on top of homework to having a great social life.
Kevin needs to organize his busy life and keep track of everything. While organization isn't a natural instinct, Outlook makes it easy to streamline social tasks, connect with others, and email with the tool used by most businesses across the globe.
Here’s how Kevin manages his life with Outlook Web App:
It's 1:45 on a Thursday, and Modern Art History starts in a little less than an hour. Kevin just finished skimming the reading and there's enough time to check Facebook, return some emails, and start planning the barbeque this weekend. Email comes at you from all directions, and Kevin sorts his inbox by main categories in his life: school, friends at college, friends from home, and family. Outlook lets you create folders and email rules, which simplifies inbox organization. Also, the rich search capabilities within Outlook make lost messages a thing of the past. He can search by keyword, sender, date, or any other specific piece of information he needs to find.
How to Organize your Inbox
To create folders to organize your email, right-click on your Inbox, choose Create New Folder and enter the new folder name. You can automatically organize incoming messages by adding rules. A rule is an action that Microsoft Outlook automatically performs on sent or received e-mail messages, based on conditions that you specify, such as moving all messages from a specific person into a folder other than your Inbox.
Around 2:00 his Environmental Literature professor sends him a meeting request for an outline review, but Kevin wants to suggest a new time. He can see the free/busy options by viewing the two calendars side by side. Outlook Web App‘s scheduling abilities eliminate the back-and-forth hassle of planning meetings, and you can also share your calendar for viewing with users who are not on Outlook Web App, such as Gmail users. With a few simple clicks, the meeting is scheduled.
How to Set up a Meeting and Invite Others
To invite others to a meeting, open your calendar and select ‘New Meeting Request’ to create an invite to which others can respond. Once you add the recipient, the free/busy tool loads with possible dates and times. If you would like to mark a time off your calendar for yourself, create a new appointment.
With group projects, the people you work with need to be easily accessible in your contact list for a quick chat or email. The Organizational Behaviour project will be done in groups of four students. Kevin adds each of the students’ names into his contact list so they show up on his chat list, and auto-fill into his email address box.
How to Add a Contact
If you are adding contact information for someone who is not in your school’s address book system, go to Contacts, and then click on ‘New Contact’ to populate their information.
To add someone within your school, click on ‘Address Book’ and scroll or search for their name to avoid having to manually enter their information.
A moment later his neighbour across the hall sends him an email about the upcoming barbeque that weekend. Kevin sees that he is online, so instead of replying to the email, he sends a few quick chats—who is bringing the drinks, and would they be able to borrow the extra barbeque for Saturday? All the details are coordinated in seconds.
How to Chat with Someone
The coloured dots next to a person’s name indicate their availability—green means available to chat, red means they are busy, and yellow means they are away. In order to chat with someone, right click on their name, and a dialog box will prompt you to begin a chat.
While he's waiting on a response, Joseph sees some email he needs to return. Yes, mom, the alumni game is in a couple months, and thank you for the box of cleaning supplies she sent to his dorm. Smart lady, she knows guys wouldn't spend money on stuff like that.
How to Import other Email Accounts
Your Outlook Web App email can include up to five other connected accounts, such as Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo! Mail accounts. You will need to make sure that the other accounts have POP or IMAP enabled. From within Outlook Web App, click on Account > Connected Accounts > New to add each external email account. Find detailed steps on how to connect additional accounts here.
At 2:30 his phone dings with a reminder: class starts in 15 minutes. With his entire schedule, contacts and email accessible on his smart phone, Kevin is only rarely late for class.
How to Connect a Mobile Phone
To set up a mobile phone, click on ‘Options’ at the top of the email interface, and select ‘Phone’.
It's 2:37, and time to walk over to his Modern Art History class, now with a plan for the barbeque this weekend, a time to meet with his literature professor to review his outline, the contact info for his group project team added, and an email response to his mom.
All of this is possible with the Outlook Web App, but for more options, features, and customization, there is the software version of Outlook.
Some features of the software version includes:
*Supported Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari browsers are required
To learn more about the options available to you with the software version of Microsoft Outlook, click here.
Class/subject – Personal Finance / Maths or Business
Project/assignment: Spreadsheet analysis of typical consumer loan types and terms
Spreadsheets and data analysis are often stigmatized as being boring, but a few simple tricks could show you how to compute information that can truly revolutionize your life—or at least your wallet. Excel puts exceptional abilities at your fingertips. As the industry-leading tool for data analysis, Excel can help you do everything from planning a budget to running sophisticated formulas.
Kevin’s class: Finance
Assignment: Payment analysis on common loans to determine amount paid in interest over the life of the loan.
Understanding the types, terms, and repayment information on common consumer loans are not only a cornerstone component of the finance curriculum, but a powerful life skill. The Excel Web App will be the tool used to run the calculations on the project. And by learning a few simple tricks, the students will become informed financial decision-makers.
Each student will be given a profile of a consumer and issued a set of terms for a home loan, a car loan, and student loan. Every profile is different, and after the students have run their calculations, they will collaborate together to view and analyse all the scenarios across the class.
To do this, some core functionalities of Excel will be used:
For the finance class loan comparison project, the class will be both calculating and comparing data. The multiple tabs at the bottom of the sheet organize your work into Worksheets. Kevin and his classmates use one sheet to calculate payment information, another to compare the data from the other profiles, and a third Worksheet to create a chart of the information they have calculated.
How to Format via different worksheets
Spreadsheets open in a Workbook, and there are individual sheets known as Worksheets. Using multiple pages or worksheets allows you to manage lots of information, yet break out data by different categories.
The finance professor walks Kevin and his class through the use of the PMT function on her shared Excel Class Workbook. Sharing documents allows you to grant permission to others to either access or even edit each individual file. The professor uses it in a class setting so that all students have immediate access to the up-to-date file.
By displaying the information in class and demonstrating how it works, the students can open and review her sample from the shared file when preparing their homework. The students will be able to calculate the information necessary by understanding the syntax or the way to write functions. Kevin and his class will calculate the payment on a home loan, a car loan, and a school loan.
How to Write Formulas in Excel - PMT
To calculate the payment you need to know:
-the annual percentage rate (interest_rate)
-the number of monthly payments over the term of the loan (number_payments)
-the present value, or the total amount being loaned to you (PV)
The syntax of the function, or how you would write the function, is:
=PMT(interest_rate, number_payments, PV),
So, for a 30-year, $200,000 at 4.5%, the equation would look like: =PMT(.045/12,360,-200000)
Once the students have generated a payment for each of the home, car, and student loans, they are able to calculate how much they will be paying across the life of the loan by multiplying the payment by the number of payments. Once they subtract the principal, they are left with the amount of interest paid across the life of the loan. This calculation needs to be run on all the loans, and the best way to quickly do that is using Auto-fill. Auto-fill is a feature in Excel that lets you drag the formula over to other cells, automatically populating the content.
How to use Auto-fill
Because Excel is often used for sorting and analysing data, it’s common that the same formula will be used to assess different sets of data. If these equations fall within the same row you can use the cell-copy function and transfer it to rows to the right or left.
For the formula you would like to copy, hover your cursor over the lower-right corner. A cross or plus-sign will appear, and by clicking and dragging to either side, the formula is copied. It’s that easy.
By defining the amount of interest paid across each of the home loans, the car loan, and the student loans, it’s time to calculate the grand total. They can do this by using the SUM formula, a helpful shortcut any Excel user will implement time and again.
How to use the sum formula
Formulas run basic calculations on values in your worksheet. You can create a formula using constant numbers, or by using functions, which are short terms that run a specific type of formula.
Formulas all begin with the equals sign (=) before any other information. A common function is the sum function, which adds all the numbers in a given set of data. Imagine you had a list of cells with numbers in it. To add all the numbers, you would type the function
=SUM(B2:B9), and hit enter. The colon sign (:) tells the equation to add all the numbers within the two you specified. Excel is built with a formula nomenclature, so it will tell you if your function is notated incorrectly.
Kevin’s class must determine the best option for each of the profile from all the scenarios in the class. By sharing each of their files with their fellow students, they are able to immediately access the other profile breakdowns. Filtering the results by profile name and total amount paid in interest will instantly show the most ideal loan term.
How to Sort and Filter
The filter function allows you to select a set of data in a column, and sort or filter it in a handful of helpful ways: sort ascending or descending, or run specific filters whether your data are numbers or words/text.
Sorting and filtering are slightly different; when you sort, all of your data remains visible, however, if you filter, you will only view the information you have chosen to filter. To view all of your data, remove the filter.
You can also select two columns to sort together, for example, if you need to know the name of the profile with the lowest paid in interest.
Highlight the columns you would like to filter and select ‘Sort & Filter as Table’. You will be prompted to whether or not you included headers; check or uncheck the box as necessary. The content will be divided into columns. Click on the arrow above the column you wish to sort, and select the filtering option you choose. The corresponding column will be filtered along with it.
Excel also provides excellent options for graphs and charts. With the results of total amount paid in interest across each profile, Kevin and his class will use the data to create a graph. A bar graph is the correct option for the nature of the data they are creating, and by selecting the correct sets of data, Excel creates a bar graph automatically.
How to create a graph or diagram
The Excel Web App will help you automatically create charts and graphs with the data in your spreadsheet.
Select the populated cells in the columns you would like to chart, and with them selected, click on the type of chart you would like to have created. Note that certain data sets lend themselves to certain types of graphs and charts, but by clicking through them you can find the type that displays your information best.
By working through this example, the students have learned how Excel can quickly sort, analyze, and graph data, as well as serve as a pivotal tool in making financial decisions.
All of this is possible with the Microsoft Excel Web App, but more powerful capabilities are available in the software version. The software version of Excel allows you to:
To learn more, find helpful Excel resources here.
Word helps you showcase your writing and research from simple papers to complex documents. Writing papers is a common assignment in many classes, and Kevin’s Environmental Literature class is no different.
Kevin’s class: Environmental literature
Assignment: Mid-term paper - Compare and contrast A River Runs Through It and Walden Pond
After thoroughly reading and developing detailed notes, Kevin must compare and contrast the writers’ description and role of the natural environment across the two books.
In this case, he decides to compare A River Runs Through It, by Norman Maclean and Walden Pond, by Henry David Thoreau.
The writing process includes the stages of generating ideas, concept organization, writing and content composition, citing sources, proofreading, and editing.
Everyone approaches the writing process differently and Kevin starts his papers by beginning with loose notes and working to organize them into an outline of points he wants to make.
Developing ideas and brainstorming -
To begin mapping out your ideas, type in the document space – write freely without specifying formatting, or start with sections of paragraphs or lists that you can go back and organize later.
Once a general list of topics and ideas are recorded, Kevin can start organizing the information. The concept organization stage is where he begins to create an outline of the paper.
Concept organization - Word's formatting features make it simple to create bulleted or numbered lists, commonly used for outlines.
You can create simple lists, or build your paper right within the outline to keep things organized before you construct the final paper.
There’s a point in developing the paper where you want to focus on the craft of writing—getting every sentence to read with the perfect message, content and rhythm. And there’s the part of writing where you need to be highly exact in your format, and prepare the document to present and share with others. Word is designed around all these stages. Kevin prefers to begin with an outline, and then perfect the composition before spending time on the paragraph alignment or section header font treatments.
Writing and content composition –
Spend your time fleshing out the body of your work - the core points, the important messages, the theses, and then work to evolve each paragraph before worrying about the overall structure and presentation.
When you’re ready for finishing touches, formats, headers, lists, diagrams, etc. are there to help you create a polished final product.
Editing and collaborative editing are one of the greatest strengths of the Web Apps, and it’s the best way for the professor to provide feedback to his students as they are developing their papers. Kevin shares his outline with his professor, who can then provide tips and ideas directly on the paper—no emailing of the document required.
Edit and Collaborate with Others
Sharing your files lets others access your work. Set sharing permissions to ‘edit’ for contributors and ‘view’ for those you’d like to access your work. Never email a file again!
Word makes developing professional-looking documents faster to complete, simpler to produce, and easier to access wherever you are.
All of this is made possible with the Microsoft Word Web App, but the software version of Word provides more robust features and opportunities, including:
Learn more about all that you can do with Microsoft Word here.