Microsoft Tips

As an MIE Expert I am lucky to attend some amazing sessisons with other MIEs and with Microsoft staff. We had a Microsoft Teacher Talk in Christchurch where we were given an overview of Microsoft products and the chance to throw some ideas around.
Having used most of these products for a while, I didn't take copious amounts of notes, but as always there were a few tips that I found really useful and wanted to share with others, so here they are.

OneNote - I use this all the time, but am always learning something new.

• You can pull text out of an image by right clicking on the image and right at the bottom there is "Select Text from Image". I didn't see it there when I had the Onetastic addin disabled, so you may need to download and enable it to have this option.
• Use the Learning Tools Dictate feature to scribe audio from a video. Run the video on YouTube while recording and it will write the text for you.
• If you right click an image and "Set Picture as Background" you can annotate it without it moving around.
• Don't forget to use the Audio recording for feedback. You can annotate at the same time and it links the audio to the annotations. If you are having problems with work on multiple pages, go to File>Options>Advanced>Printout and untick the "Printouts on Multiple Pages" box.
• Remind students to copy their written work before they highlight or make changes, then you can see the progression.
• In the Class Notebook you can distribute sections and pages to a small group within your class.
• You can add a Teacher only section to an aleady made Class Notebook. Under Class Notebook go to Manage Notebooks, choose your note book and Enable Teacher-Only Section.
• Use OneNote for Teacher Appraisal.
• Only comment for improvement is it would be nice to have the full functionality of the Word spell check within OneNote.

OfficeMix - I haven't used this yet, but some of my colleagues have, with good success. Keen to have a closer look when I get some time.

• Download this  into Powerpoint - not available for Mac yet.
• If you write in the notes section of your Powerpoint, these will come up when you record, so you can read them while you record.
• If you want to take a small section of a video, you can do a Screen Record into your powerpoint, or you can right click and save it as a short clip for later use.
• When you upload to OfficeMix make sure you save the settings for students to sign in, then you will get analytics.

Snip   - I use this all the time, and love it!

• Download and have it sitting on the side or top of your screen for easy use.
• Use it to create little snips to explain short concepts.
• Great for annotation of screen clippings.
• Use the whiteboard to draw on then save.
• The library in Snip saves all your snips for quick access.

Sway - love this alternative for presentations

• Great for collaboration of Authors.
• You can share and enable students to duplicate your Sway so they can add to it. Share>More Options> Duplicate.
• Drag and drop photos in to make a quick newsletter for parents and community.
• Good for portfolios. Can show the before and after of art work with the slider.
• Use like a blog for a school trip, share with parents so they can keep updated.
• You can use this offline, download the app from the store.
• It is Mac friendly, but one teacher mentioned that students couldn't edit on their phones.

Classroom and Teacher Dashboard - a quick discussion was had about both of these, although no-one was using in any depth. Definitely in the beta stage where we are experimenting and seeing what works. It was good to hear that Microsoft have been working with KAMAR to get these linked together.

Tasks - This looks good to use when planning a group event such as Prizegiving or a production. Good to be able to allocate tasks to staff. It would be good to be able to allocate tasks to more than one person.

Forms - I have done a couple of surveys and quizzes using Forms - so far so good.

• You can now add points to questions.
• You can turn the link into a QR code which I like.
• Great for surveying the community.
• Good visuals - yu can see it updating if you do it live.
• You can export as a spreadsheet.
• You can delete a particular student response, if you have set the survey for students to sign in.
• A few things that are still needed - the ability to co-author, to duplicate and to stop people voting more than once.

Educator Community - I have learnt so much on this site!

• Plenty of Courses and Resources.
• Loving the new layout and look.
• The 21st Century Learning Design Pathway comes with it's own OneNote which has rubrics to code your activities to see how well you are using tehnology.
• There are webinars to watch.
• It's a good idea to use your home email to sign up, this makes it easier if you change schools. 

I ran a quick session on using StaffPad - an amazing app for SurfacePro that is a great tool for teaching music. 

Overall, a great session and I have a few more tips and tricks to add to my bag. I am keen to give OfficeMix a go - that will be a holiday project.