Useful Microsoft posts #16

Here is an interesting short video from Microsoft in Education showing you how to use PowerPoint 2013 to create educational infographics and design communicative visuals. The tutorial particularly highlights two key processes: the use of Merge Shapes and Office Mix. The earlier provides students with five options to work on when designing shapes including: Union, Combine, Fragment, Intersect, and Substract. Each of these options is visually illustrated in the video. Office Mix is used to record slide narrations complete with video and digital annotations. For more web tools to use with students to create infographics, check out these resources.

After we have seen how to easily create educational posters using PowerPoint, today we are sharing with you another free handy tool from Microsoft called Office Mix. This is basically an add-in for PowerPoint that allows you to create and share interactive online lessons. You can record yourself talking through your lessons, add drawings and images to your slides, and embed interactive features such as quizzes and polls. Upon sharing your interactive slides with students, you will also get to see who watched it and get assessment reports on how they did on quizzes. You will even know which slide they spent more time staring at.

Here are some useful video tutorials from Microsoft in Education to help you learn more about how to use Office Mix in your class:

Office 365, the world’s most popular productivity solution, has been integrated with popular educational open source software such as Moodle and Open edX. Office’s open REST APIs make it possible for teachers and students to take advantage of Office’s rich authoring capabilities to create content, submit assignments, provide feedback, and manage class schedules, all within a single sign-on (SSO) experience enabled by Azure Active Directory.

Facebook Twitter Google+ Pinterest LinkedIn PocketWe know our students love world builders like Minecraft in the classroom but should we acknowledge them as powerful learning tools for the classroom? Here are some ways you can use World Builders to enrich and upgrade student learning experiences. Creative Writing When students create worlds they often feel a …

Docs.com is Microsoft's newest sharing platform. It was released at Aug 4, 2015. This new platform allows users to easily share documents regardless of whether they are Word, PowerPoint, Excel, PDF with importing available from your PC or even through OneDrive. It even supports Office Mix and Sway.

In this quick guide we'll take a look at how to get started with Docs.com and the educational opportunities.

Editor’s note: This piece was originally published on Gates Notes.

If you ever start feeling glum about the possibility of improving America’s schools, spend a little time with an amazing teacher. It is deeply inspiring. My conversation with Lyon reaffirmed my belief that we should be listening to educators like him, and acting on their ideas. It will make life better for thousands of teachers, and even more importantly, it will make schools better for millions of children.

Take a look at all the educator resources available on the Microsoft Virtual Academy page http://bit.ly/1MwJVfm an opportunity to stay current with education trends
Create an engaging and collaborative environment for your students with Imagine@MVA’s Educator Resources. In this section you’ll find great resources that help you light up technology in your classroom. You’ll discover how to infuse technology into your teaching and best of all, this will give you the opportunity to stay current with computer science trends so you can lead your students into the future.

Have you viewed the Hot Topics page on the Microsoft Educator Network lately? Loads of posts on the education topics of the day to read and comment on http://www.educatornetwork.com/HotTopics
Join the worldwide community of educators who are passionate about ensuring learners are prepared to thrive in the global economy.

Middle school students create their own 3D virtual worlds and learn lessons about communication, collaboration, and digital citizenship through the first-per...

At Microsoft, we believe providing quality education to the 1.4 billion students around the world is essential to the future of our society. Effective, immersive learning experiences inspire students to demonstrate creative thinking. The right technology can empower education, inspire learning anywhere, and unlock the potential of students, educators, and schools. To make this technology available worldwide we partner with education communities, delivering solutions, services and programs that enhance learning and school management.

Microsoft in education empowers educators to:

• Inspire students to create and demonstrate critical thinking
• Learn anytime, anywhere
• Prepare students for their futures
• Transform and modernize schools and college campuses