Browse by Tags

As some of you may already be aware, the new add in for Microsoft Word 2007 and Microsoft Word 2010 is available now for free download. For those of you that aren’t already aware, the new add in for Microsoft Word 2007 and Microsoft Word 2010 is now available for free download! Also known as Chem4Word...

So the budget cuts have arrived – and the pressure is on to save money in schools. And ICT leaders in schools around the country are going to need to hone their skills to justify the investments they are bidding for. Since late 2009 I’ve been working to look at how ICT can help save schools...

At the end of November, Rich Lane the resident techie of the education team ran a couple of webinars. If you want to have a listen in, you can view the recordings below. Secrets of successful desktop virtualisation: The Optimised Desktop VDI is a hot topic at the moment but what actually is it? When...

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the free Virtualisation ebook . I'm still working my way through it on my Kindle - I've got to page 156 of 480, and am currently in the detail of desktop virtualisation. It's been really useful to help me understand some of the technical things I'd never understood about...

Let me make it absolutely clear - I am not a virtualisation expert. But I have heard enough network managers in schools, colleges and universities talking about their virtualisation projects to know that it's very important to their ICT infrastructure - whether that's reducing cost, cutting carbon emissions...

Am I the only one who gets bored with a document format after a few months, and then wants a completely different design? That PowerPoint that looked so smart last year looks a bit clichéd this term. A document which looked professional when you first published it, doesn’t look quite so good when it...

Sometimes we publish so much information on a subject, in so many different places, that it’s tricky to find the wood from the trees – and that problem is as big for me as it is for people outside of Microsoft. So I’m always happy to find a resource where somebody applies an editorial approach – making...

After Friday’s post about Mouse Mischief (a free add-in for PowerPoint that allows teachers to create interactive real-time quizzes for students), a colleague from over the pond dropped me a line to tell me about the “ Top Ten Tips for Mouse Mischief ” Guide, which is available to download from the Microsoft...

What happens when you want voting keypads for your students, but can’t afford the cost? Do you shop around to find suitable cheap voting keypads, or do you wait until you’ve saved enough money. Or do you look for alternative ways of achieving the same outcome? The reason that I ask those questions, is...

I’ve just got back from holiday (a week in Corfu, thanks very much for asking) and I’m just about to head off for a last few days (a long weekend camping in Dorset – which may be challenged by the weather!) . Which means I missed the teachers Summer Camp last week, run by Kristen and Stuart. It’s an...

Sorry, when I originally posted this blog post, it had the wrong URL for the downloads. I've now corrected the original, and here it is again, with the correct URLs. This happened because I was on holiday during the release, so had to pre-write the blog post, and then the download URL changed before...

If you’re still running Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) within your school, instead of being on a later version, then you’re probably doing it for a very good reason – especially as many websites are reducing or removing support for IE6 (for example Google and YouTube both dropped IE6 support this year). And...

The education products team in Seattle have been busy writing add-ins for Office 2007 and Office 2010. They’ve just released 2 free education add-ins, 20 new education templates, and how-to materials designed to help teachers both inside and outside the classroom. The new Interactive Classroom...

Do you remember a couple of weeks ago I mentioned WebMatrix , which gives you an easy way to install a bunch of web applications – like WordPress, Moodle and Joomla! – on a standard Microsoft platform (which means you can more easily fit into the rest of your ICT infrastructure). Well, I just read an...

I noticed last week that Scott Guthrie announced the release of the beta of WebMatrix . Basically, it’s an easy and free way to get started building Web sites on Windows. WebMatrix is a tool for building, customising and deploying your Web sites in one common, straightforward way. The idea is that WebMatrix...

Last week we ran a pair of Windows 7 Live Meetings " Deploying Windows 7 – Best Practice Deployment Methods to Save You Time and Money ". Over 200 people attended, but I’m guessing that there will be others who would have liked to attend and couldn’t make the time. So the Live Meeting is now...

Ben Nunney, who writes the UK Live@edu blog , has just finished updating the Live@edu Implementation Guide . It covers a wide range of advice and guidance that is helpful as you plan to move your email services to the free Live@edu service, based in our cloud datacentres in Dublin. ( This link will tell...

I’ve noticed that over time, I’m using Word less and less, and Windows Live Writer more and more. I guess it reflects two things: Most of the things I write are designed to be published on the web – often on this blog I love software that makes it really easy to publish on the web And that’s where Windows...

I’ve indexed all of the different product guides for the new Office 2010 applications. There are two separate documents for most of the products – the Overview version is a short two-page summary, and then there’s a detailed Product Guide which goes into much more detail. The Overview document is...

The team over at the Microsoft Education Labs have been busy over the last few weeks. If you’re new to it, Education Labs was created by the Microsoft Education Products Group to build and release new product prototypes and useful add-ons, specifically for education use. Following on from the Office...

The Microsoft Education Labs team have just launched the Office Add-in for Moodle (or should it be the Moodle Add-in for Office?). This launch builds upon the success of the availability of the Microsoft Live Services Plug-in for Moodle which launched last July.  The idea behind the add-in is simple...

I know it’s half-term, and therefore most teachers aren’t in school. But then, there’s more time to play with new stuff in half-term! So I thought I’d blog it anyway. There aren’t enough students studying computing subjects – this PC Pro article’s chart shows just how bad it is expect to get – and at...

When Microsoft Research sponsored a conference on Human-Computer interaction they produced a fantastic book called “Being Human” ( view PDF ) that looked into the future, and gives an idea of what human-computer interaction might look like in a decade. It doesn’t just look at it from a Microsoft perspective...

The Office 2010 Beta is available for free download from the Microsoft website , and it’s something that you could install on one of your school computers to see what’s in it, and how it helps your staff and students. Remember how sometimes you felt smug when you were running Windows 7 Beta at least...

European Safer Internet Day is coming up very soon – it’s two weeks today – and a wide range of organisations are encouraging all schools to run an activity to link in to the event. Whether that’s an assembly, a message in the school newsletter or a parents talk, there are a pile of resources waiting...