Surface Pro 4

I've been waiting...

Ever since I found out I had been selected to be a Microsoft Innovative Educator Surface Expert, I have been very excited about getting a Surface Pro 4 to play with.

It arrived today.
I had primed our wonderful receptionist to let me know as soon as it arrived at school and she called me at lunchtime today. So excited!

Luckily I had some time this afternoon to unpack the amazing box of goodies. Not only was there my new Surface Pro 4 and stylus, but a whole lot of extras:
A useful "how to use your kit" instruction sheet - I'll be working through this!

• Digital inking display board
• Brochures, posters and information sheets on the Surface Pro, as well as Think in Ink stickers. The posters also let you advertise workshops for Surface Pro.
• A lovely sticker for my Surface that says I am an MIE Surface Expert for 2016 - very nice :)
• Wireless Display Adapter - already using one of these, so it will be great to have another in my second classroom - save moving it from one place to another all the time! (Now all I need is another in my 3rd classroom and I'm all sorted).
• USB bracelet - great idea, unfortunately it's a bit big for me - It slips on and off my hand without undoing it, so maybe it will be on my desk not my wrist :( Need small wrist size ones as this is unfortunately not adjustable)
• A nice bright red keyboard - might take me a bit to get used to the colour but it's kind of cool.
• A Brenthaven BX2 Edge case. I tried attaching the pen by the string they sent but decided against it, but good to have that option, especially for students who lose things! I notice that this case is not available on the NZ Microsoft store yet, so it's fun to trial something you can't get here! My only comment at the moment is that the pen is on the wrong side! I have to take it off with my left hand - great for the left-handers out there though.

So... I managed to get some of my school accounts sorted - got Office365 up and running, downloading the awesome free software onto my Surface Pro 4 so I can do work while offline - this is a real bonus. The one thing I noticed in even in the first few minutes of use, was the keyboard, trackpad and stylus were a lot better than the Surface Pro 3. Really looking forward to using this.

Managed to lock myself out while trying to get my kids to see if Windows Hello would recognise their faces instead of mine! Took a fair bit of stress sorting that out as it kept asking for my PIN but had no way of entering it. Finally I pressed the Power and the up volume together - with the intention of doing a forced shutdown, but as soon as I touched both a screen appeared for me to put my PIN in - whew!

Next steps are to get used to the new stylus - I'm not sure about having the eraser at the top, I'll have to see how that goes.

Must install my OneNote Learning Tools and Staffpad tonight and hopefully get the rest up and running tomorrow.

I am also going to invest in a Bluetooth mouse - I find a mouse useful in a lot of situations, but don't want to lose the USB port. Thinking about adding more memory via card as well - will wait and see what I need once I am all set to go. Most of my work is online, but video and audio files for my music teaching takes a lot of space.

Lots to do - more blogging will have to wait.