Microsoft Teams For Education: Are you on board yet?

Microsoft Teams in Office 365 Education is just into its second year since launching in June 2017 and is being touted as one of the best ways to further classroom engagement, strengthen professional learning communities and streamline staff communication.

 Microsoft Teams puts everyone on the same page, especially if they aren’t always in the same room. Microsoft Teams works off one central platform where everyone can see what everyone else is doing. You can upload and share any Office apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, SharePoint and Power BI) and also comment on others’ work. Teams is also a complete chat and online meetings solution allowing users to host video, audio and web conferences and chat with anyone inside or outside an organization.

Teams For Education

Educators have used Teams to transform the learning experience at schools. Its uses are many.

• Microsoft Teams allows any virtual student or collaborator to participate via webcast and encourages collaboration across classes.

• Teams Assignments helps develop a digital classroom. Content, conversations and assignments are all in one hub so students can sign in, get started and begin connecting with each other.

• Rubric grading is also being introduced into Teams. Your teachers can create, store and apply rubrics to assignments to make it easier for students to get feedback. Not only does this help students improve their work, but it is a consistent way for your teachers to grade.

• With Microsoft Forms, a teacher can quickly add a quiz for students to complete and return. Plus Teams allows educators to keep track of feedback and grades.

What’s New?

Microsoft Teams is the fastest growing business app in Microsoft history. It is currently being used in more than 325,000 organizations, 87 Fortune 100 companies and is available in 44 languages. It only makes sense that Microsoft will continue to expand this valuable tool.

• Page locking in OneNote assignments. The pages of the student will now automatically “lock” as read-only when the due date/time passes. The teacher can still edit and annotate these OneNote assignment pages with feedback.

• Mute all students. Educators can now pause students from posting in the conversation tab.

• Join codes. Teams allows administrators to create a simple code for members to join a class, PLC or staff team, making it easy for many people to join a team all at once. Display the code in ‘projector mode’ so that everyone in the room can see it.

• Reusing a team as a template. Teachers can reuse an existing team as a template when creating a new team, then customize what they want to copy over: channels, team setting, apps, and even users.

• Archive teams. Safely store a Class, PLC, or Staff team content in read-only mode. Easily reference archived teams while setting up a Teams experience for the next school year. 

Love Microsoft Teams for Education? Let us know how you use it in the comments below.

Professional Development 101

Professional Development is hardly one-size-fits-all because every one of your teachers has different needs that must be met. Tackle professional development in a new way by thinking outside of the box. Try these ideas, based on what districts across the United States are doing: 

• Unconferences
  An unconference is a grassroots conference where the content is provided by the attendees, not outside experts. Don’t think of them as unofficial events, rather bring unconferences in-house as the official professional development.

TIP: Have the MIEE and GoogleEIs at your institution do the talking, not the administrators. Have breakouts using Google Sheets and Google Hangouts.

• Personal Learning Community

Personal Learning Communities, or PLCs, are a group of teachers with a shared interest or mutual commitment. Administrators can choose the focus, like hybrid teaching models, and allow teachers to sign up for the PLCs they align with most.

TIP: Use Google Team Drive, to keep everyone in the loop. You can drop information in about each PLC and share with your team.

• Choice Boards

Choice Boards offer a menu of professional development options for teachers to pick and choose from; the amount would depend on your district. This method allows you to meet your teachers’ individual needs, instead of addressing them in a group setting.

TIP: Create a DIY bingo board with Google Sheets or Docs. Or, go old school and draw it up on a white board then use Microsoft Office Lens to digitize it. This app trims and enhances to make notes on whiteboards and blackboard readable on your mobile device.

• Personal Action Plans

Personal Action Plans allow individual teachers to set their own learning goals, including an action plan to achieve them.

TIP: Try Microsoft Sway. This digital storytelling app helps create professional, interactive designs with images, text, videos that can be easily shared with just a link.

• Peer Observation

With peer observation, your teachers take advantage of the best source of professional development available to them, each other. Teachers shadow then follow up with colleagues about applying what they’ve learned in their own classrooms. The best part is if they have questions, the answer is down the hall. 

TIP: Suggest Microsoft OneNote to take notes or draw up quick ideas. This tool has a variety of ingenious uses and each note is stored on a phone, pad or laptop and accessed from anywhere

Got some great professional development ideas? Share them with us and include which tech tools you used to knock it out of the park.

Go-To Tools for Presentations: When to Blog and When To PowerPoint

The goal of a presentation is to effectively convey information that allows the audience to remember what has been said. That being said, there are several options as to how to give a presentation, specifically for a final project. For students, presentations can be given as individuals or groups, or for educators in seminars. The best tool for the job depends on whether the presentation will be visual or verbal. 

When to Blog 

Blogs are definitely the ideal verbal tool for presentations. They are becoming increasingly popular for e-portfolios, offering students the opportunity to review, communicate, assess, archive and display their work - including blogging for projects and presentations. Google has a great Keyword Planner tool that allows the writer to enter seed keywords and receive a list of suggested search terms. Microsoft’s Windows Open Live Writer is another solid option.

There are several pros to using blogs in presentations:

• Blog writing is informal, unlike academic writing. This style takes the pressure off students and also allows them to speak their audiences’ language. Blog, or web log, style is typically relaxed, which makes it comfortable and easy for students.

• Blogs allow for comments. Students can get feedback from peers, educators and even parents about their blog.

• Blogs are published. The students’ work is online and can help educate others about their opinion.

• Blogs can easily be linked to social media. Blogs are almost made for social media. A student’s project can easily be shared or linked to the school’s social media account.

There are also some cons:

• A blog doesn’t allow the student to practice his or her speaking skills. In today’s world - where it is a struggle to compete with online and handheld distractions for students’ attention - there aren’t as many real-world opportunities for students to practice their speaking skills.

• Blogs aren’t conducive to group projects. It can be hard to track who-did-what if only one blog is uploaded. Presentations give an entire group the opportunity to participate, even those that aren’t the strongest writers.

When to PowerPoint

When the presentation goal is to be visual, the presentation needs to be done in PowerPoint. Microsoft’s presentation software allows users to create fluid, cinematic motion in one click. Slides can be duplicated, morphed together, moved, etc. 

There are definite pros to PowerPoint: 

• PowerPoint is the standard when it comes to professional settings. It’s been offered in Microsoft Office versions for more than a decade. It’s highly-recognizable.

• PowerPoint can improve presentations. The software’s ability to use animations and images is a definite plus. Even basic shapes can enhance data and help get the point across.

• PowerPoint slides can be easily distributed. The slides can be printed or emailed. They can be uploaded to the cloud or saved on a flash drive.

Yet, there are also some cons to PowerPoint:

• PowerPoint requires some time to learn. There are a lot of options, which can seem overwhelming to users. Also, novices could put too much information on slides, ruining the entire purpose of using PowerPoint – which should be to enhance a presentation. No one wants to sit and read slide-after-slide. 

• PowerPoint could be riddled with technical difficulties. The computer could stop working, power might be lost to the outlet or the overhead display doesn’t work right. These might seem like conditions that can be avoided, but you never know what can happen in a space that is unfamiliar.

Follow us @AreyJones for more great tech tips.

30 Educational Technology Tips in 30 Days

We all want to be more productive, rested, calm, collected, alert, and generally amazing. Here are 30 tech tips that can help you leave the month better than you found it.

1. Learn how to make SMART goals.

2. Drink your coffee from a spillproof mug. Trust us.

3. Work in 90-minute intervals.

4. Show your Chromebook (or laptop) some love.

5. Schedule breaks into your schedule to do something fun on purpose.

6. Add a calming picture to your desktop screen.

7. Then hang a pretty picture in your office, about 20 feet away. Looking up at every 20 minutes for twenty seconds can prevent eye fatigue.

8. Color-code your Google Calendar.

9. Silence notifications to minimize distractions.

10. Use Microsoft Word’s Gridline tool to keep your document in line.

11. Dedicate a set time each day to read and respond to emails, and stick to it.

12. Drive the above message home by adding a statement to your email signature like, “I check emails every morning and will respond by 10am.”

13. Follow these hashtags on social media.

14. Set an out-of-office message for after-hour emails that reminds senders you don’t take work home with you. Remember. Those who need to contact you for true emergencies will likely have your cell phone.

15. Create embedded links in a Google Doc by clicking CTRL+K and searching for the content within the pop-up menu. No more extra tabs!

16. Use Microsoft OneNote in your next meeting for amazing notetaking.

17. Organize your desktop files into folders.

18. Empty your trash.

19. Commit these quick keys to memory.

20. Schedule coffee with a friend via a calendar appointment, so you both remember.

21. Treat yourself to a new laptop or phone case. It will feel like a brand new machine at a fraction of the cost.

22. Organize your GDrive or Cloud files.

23. Follow Arey Jones on Facebook.

24. Add these tips to your OneNote vocabulary.

25. Put a seven-minute workout app on your phone and challenge yourself to do at least one circuit daily (here’s one to try)

26. Listen to an audiobook on your commute.

27. Sort and empty your Download folder.

28. Catch up on what’s new in Microsoft EDU.

29. Watch a TED talk.

30. Go absolutely tech-free for at least 30 minutes a day (when you are awake).

These are just a few ways to boost your productivity and get more out of life in general with (and without) technology. How many did you do? We'd love to know.

7 Microsoft PowerPoint Tricks For Every Day This Week

As a staple of the Microsoft Office suite, PowerPoint often gets a bad rap, mostly because it’s associated with speeches, presentations, and seminars--and they aren’t always the most exciting events (to put it mildly). Since it’s estimated that PowerPoint is a key software on over one billion computers worldwide, it’s safe to say slide-based presentations aren’t going anywhere.

The question, however, isn’t where PowerPoint can go; it’s what PowerPoint can do to make those presentations even better.

Here are our favorite Microsoft PowerPoint tips to make sure your presentation goes smoothly.

1. Launch your PowerPoint presentation with one click. To start your presentation off quickly and cleanly, all you need to do is save the file with a .PPS or .PPSX file extension and save it to your desktop. Instead of nervously launching from editing mode or from your email (for all the world to see), all you’ll do is double-click and get on with the show. (Keep your desktop free of embarrassing distractions for full professional effect).

2. State your case in black and white. PowerPoint presentations are meant to be an aid to your presentation--not necessarily be a word-for-word account of it. To keep them from being a distraction, press “B” or “W” on your keyboard to make the screen black or white. This will help your audience focus on you and what you are saying.

3. Doing a demo? Get a screenshot. If you need to replicate the feel of your computer screen while giving a presentation, use the PowerPoint Screenshot tool on the Insert tab. It will give you a thumbnail of each window you currently have open. Simply select, resize, and click--and it will automatically be inserted on your current slide.

4. Animate charts. Turn charts and graphs from boring to mindblowing with animation. Once you’ve set up the chart or graph as you need to, head to the Animations tab to turn on the Animations Pane. Pick an animated effect, add sound, adjust timing and, most importantly, change the “Group Chart” options from “As One Object” to “By Category.”

5. Employ Kiosk mode. For presentations that don’t require an active speaker, you can set the presentation to play in Kiosk mode, which will play it on a loop, no human required. You can also output the entire slide deck to a video format.

6. Duplicate without the CTRL C + V. Instead of quick keys to copy and paste reused elements, go one step lazier--hold the CTRL key while you click and drag on the element you want to multiply. Great for elements as well as entire slides.

7. Be zen with Venn. Venn diagrams are a useful visual aid, but they can be a pain to make--unless you know how to Merge Shapes. Simply layer your pre-created shapes as you want, head to the Drawing Tools, and select “Merge Shapes” from the menu. This feature also makes light work of inserting pictures and text into shapes and vice versa. 

There are so many ways to do more in Microsoft PowerPoint in less time. We can help you figure them out.