Microsoft for Education

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The following content has been circulated by Microsoft for Education and added to by our team of PDST Digital Technologies advisors.

Brief Description

Office 365 Education is a collection of services that allows teachers to collaborate, share resources and schoolwork with your students and fellow teachers. It's available for free to teachers and students. It has several built-in features that allow for effective distance learning.

Getting Started

Students and educators at eligible institutions can sign up for Office 365 Education for free, allowing access to tools including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Microsoft Teams, plus additional classroom tools. All you need is a valid school email address. To get started with Office 365 for Education, go to the following link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-ie/education/products/office

Once teachers and students have been set up with Office 365 for Education accounts, teachers can create a Team for each of their classes. This will allow teachers to communicate, share resources, assign work and offer feedback to students. As well as being able to submit work, students also have the ability to communicate and collaborate with each other.

Quick Start Videos: Setting up with Microsoft Teams

Each class should have it’s own Team. This will allow teachers to communicate effectively with their separate classes. For information on how to create a team, assign work and provide feedback click on the videos below for an overview in this area. More resources in each area can also be found below.

Creating a new Team

Creating Assignments in Teams

Providing Feedback in Teams

Tools for Distance Learning

Get online resources with Microsoft Ireland Remote Learning and Learning Continuity Home

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is the digital hub that teachers and school leaders need. It brings conversations, content, and apps together in one place, streamlining workflow for administrators and allowing teachers to create vibrant, personalized learning environments. Teams supports teacher-to-teacher collaboration as well as class collaboration and communication. In short, it is the one tool that can help with educators' administrative and classroom tasks, saving teachers time and teaching students future ready skills.

Features of MS Teams:

Create a class team that allows communication between teachers and students
Set assignments that incorporate various assessment methods such as MS Forms, MS Word, MS OneNote, MS PowerPoint, attach media and other websites
Share a multitude of resources such as websites, videos and images
Use the assignments to assign, mark and provided detailed feedback to students
Use insights to track assignments and students use of MS Teams
Schedule meetings for video call with your class or subject department
Support synchronous & asynchronous remote hybrid learning

Resources for using MS Teams

Start using MS Teams today with Back to School with MS TEAMS or Introduction to MS TEAMS

Family and Guardian Guide to MS Teams

Helpful checklist for parents/guardians to support students on MS Teams

Teacher Guide to MS Teams

Teacher Checklist for MS Teams

Student Guide to MS Teams

Student Guide to MS Teams Booklet

Student Checklist for MS Teams

MS Forms:

Use Microsoft Forms to assess your students, collect feedback from parents, and collaborate with other educators.

Features of MS Forms:

Create surveys, quizzes, and polls, and easily see results as they come in.
Share quizzes with your students using any web browser, even on mobile devices.
Create formative assessments using branching.
Use built-in analytics to evaluate your students' quiz results.
Create assessments as a team by sharing a quiz draft with other educators.
Export data, such as quiz results, to Excel for additional analysis or grading.

Start creating forms and quizzes today with the Microsoft Forms Quick Start Guide.

MS OneNote:

With Microsoft OneNote, educators can create digital notebooks across subjects and levels. OneNote Class Notebook provides a platform for educators to prepare instructional materials and collaborate with students in an organized manner.

Features of MS OneNote:

Use as built in Whiteboard with the use of digital ink
Share content with students
Embed images, videos and links into your notebook
Use accessibility features such as Immersive Reader, Picture Dictionary, Translate & Dictate to support SEN students
Solve math equations with Math Assistant in OneNote
Insert audio to provide feedback to students
Organise students work with their individual notebook
Use the collaboration space to enable group work between students

Get started today with MS OneNote

MS PowerPoint:

PowerPoint is a presentation application that creates a slideshow of important information, charts, and images to display during your class. Recent advances in PowerPoint include subtitling on slides, presentation coach, and other enhanced interactive features.

Features of MS PowerPoint:

Design ideas to make your presentation more visually appealing
Translation feature to support EAL students
Embedded images, links, and videos to ensure multimedia presentations
Presenter Coach helps you prepare in private to give more effective presentation
Use the online version to allow collaboration/group work for your students
Record your screen to make easy training or how to videos for your class ideal for revision or asynchronous lessons
Present with real-time captions or subtitles in PowerPoint.
Learn how to use the "Record Slide Show" feature in PowerPoint to create revision opportunities for your class

Get started today with MS PowerPoint

MS Word:

Use Microsoft Word for the best word processing and document creation. Collaborate for free with an online version of Microsoft Word or harness the power of the desktop app for real-time collaboration. Do more with Word: transform documents to web pages, get real time translation, add dimension with 3D models, read and review writing with ease and take writing from good to great!

Get started today with MS Word

Flip

Empower every voice in your classroom by recording and sharing short videos. Flip is a video discussion platform that can be used by students of all ages. Flip allows educators to spark discussions by posting Topics to a classroom, school, professional learning community, or public Flip. Students record, view, and respond to each other through short videos.

Get started today with Flip

Access courses and other training materials like those highlighted below via the Microsoft Educator Centre