Microsoft : From Teams to Sway, new Microsoft Education features introduced at Bett 2018

More BETT Product Updates for Office 365

In the past few days, we've made some exciting Microsoft Education announcements for the #BETT2018 conference, including blogs from:

There always so many things to talk about, that we cannot always fit what we want into our bigger blogs. We have a set of new product updates below Sway, Forms, Learning Tools and OneNote, as well as more feature details for Teams. In the spirit of 'Too Much Is Never Enough!', we want to make sure we let all educators know about our additional improvements. Keep the feedback coming, and always feel free to reach out directly to @MicrosoftEDU

Sway

Something we hear frequently from teachers is a desire to share student learning experiences with parents. Sway has been a popular choice for many teachers making it easy and time efficient to share learning in the form of pictures, videos, documents, and more. We have listened to feedback and made some improvements that were made available very recently. Teachers now have the ability to brand their newsletters with school logo and branding color support and can track parent engagement with analytics. And the next newsletter will be that much easier with the new ability to create a custom Sway template.

Sway newsletter logos

Forms

Teachers use Microsoft Forms to create quizzes, polls, or surveys. They can quickly create a survey or quiz in just a few minutes, send to students to fill out on any device, and see the results in real time. Listening to millions of users' voices, and leveraging latest Microsoft technology, we improved Microsoft Forms to be more collaborative and productive, by adding the following top-requested capabilities. For the full #BETT2018 blog entry from the Forms team, go here.

Learning Tools

• Office Lens -Immersive Reader for Android
• Edge -Immersive Reader for Reading View and syllables and parts of speech for ePub and Reading View.
• Word Prediction - built-in word prediction for Windows 10, an inclusively designed operating system feature to help all learners with writing. Word prediction will work with all Windows apps, browsers, and more. Word prediction will be in the next updates for Windows 10, English to start.

Windows 10 Word prediction in Word Online

How to enable Word Prediction in the Windows 10 Settings

Teams

In addition to our recent announcement on January 12th , to support these outcomes, we've made the Teams mobile app more powerful, added new ways to bring more students into a classroom work and made it easier for teachers to use and manage classrooms in Teams.

• Assignments for iOS and Android
  With the addition of Assignments to the Teams mobile app, teachers and students can access more power and productivity on the go. From the General channel in any class, select Tabs, then Assignments. Using their iOS and Android apps, students can view upcoming assignments, receive new assignment notifications, and turn in their work-all from their mobile phone or tablet. Meanwhile, educators can create new assignments, review, and make edits to existing assignments. Every user will be able to use the search function to quickly find and navigate to individual assignments as well. Learn more about managing assignments on the Teams mobile app.

OneNote

We are excited to announce that Ink math assistant is coming to OneNote Online! When you handwrite an equation, this digital tutor will not only convert it to text, but also teach you the steps to solve it. From basic math to calculus, OneNote's Ink math assistant is everything you always wished a calculator could do.

Five steps to solve an equation in OneNote Online

1. Begin by writing your equation. For example: x+3=5 or x^2+3x+2=0
2. Next, select the equation and then, on the Draw tab, click the Math button.
3. Confirm that OneNote correctly recognized your equation.

Note: You can also use Ink to Math button to replace your ink selection with a typed equation.

1. From the drop-down menu in Math pane, select the option to Solve for x. OneNote will show the final solution to your equation.
2. Finally, from the second drop-down menu, chose one of the options to see steps for solving the equation.

Ink assistant for OneNote Online

Here is the recap of the other OneNote updates from the Office blog:

Four new sticker packs

Assignments and Grades in OneNote Online

We hope you enjoy these 'Extra credits' from Microsoft Education! Please keep the feedback coming, and never hesitate to reach out on Twitter to @MicrosoftEDU for feedback, or [e-mail] for support

Availability:

• Sway - All newsletter features are in the process of rolling out now
• Forms all features are in the process of rolling out globally now
• Dictation in Office will begin rolling out in our Office Insider program this month, and then to all Office 365 customers in coming months.
• Read Aloud for Outlook Desktop will be available to Office Insiders this month, and then will roll out to all Office 365 customers in coming months.
• Immersive Reader for Mac Word, iPhone Word, and Android Word will be available to our Office Insiders program this month, and then to all Office 365 customers in coming months.
• Immersive Reader for OneNote iOS will begin rolling out to Office 365 customers at the beginning of February 2018 and finish by March 2018.
• Immersive Reader languages for text-to-speech, syllables, and parts-of-speech languages will start to become available today and will continue to roll out through February 2018.
• Word Prediction in Windows 10- English support will roll out for free in the next major update of Windows 10
• Teams iOS and Android updates and Decimal Grading are available worldwide today. Assignment Analytics, Join Codes, and Reuse a Team as a Template will begin to roll out to Office 365 Education customers enrolled in our Teams for Education beta program today. These capabilities will move to worldwide production by Spring 2018.

• OneNote Online Math Assistant: Ink math assistant will be rolling out to Office 365 subscribers using OneNote Online in February and March.

• OneNote assignment and grade integration with Capita SIMS and PowerSchool assignment and grade integration will be available in February 2018. Assignment and Grade integration for OneNote for Windows 10, OneNote Online, and OneNote iPad will be available worldwide in February 2018.
• OneNote Desmos integration is available worldwide today to all Office 365 customers.
• OneNote Class Notebook Page Locking begins preview testing in February 2018 and will roll out worldwide in the coming months.

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