Deployment Guide: Microsoft Education Services and Tools

Back in April of this year at the companies big education focused event, Microsoft unveiled more tools to help educators be more effective in the classroom with their students and in collaboration with their colleagues.

We saw them launch Windows 10 S to provide a more secure operating system that only allowed users to install and run verified apps from the Windows Store. They also announced that Microsoft Teams would become a free addition to Office 365 for Education and that all of the desktop Office apps would be available as app downloads in the Windows Store.

The entire ecosystem of tools from Microsoft that are part of the education related offerings from the Redmond company have grown significantly. It is now time for IT Pros, System Admins, and likely teachers and other administrators in school systems to begin looking into these additions if they are already using Microsoft services or considering them for use in their own districts.

Whichever side you currently are on, Microsoft has some great resources available to help you understand the strength of their educational related services and today's resource will give you a better understanding of how to deploy these services within your organization.

The article, Microsoft Education Cloud Solution: End To End Guide For Deployment, appears on the official Microsoft Education New Zealand blog but don't let the coverage area fool you - this blog post is useful to anyone in education around the world.

It begin's with an entire list of all the education related services that fall under the heading of Microsoft Education:

-- Microsoft Intune for Education for simple set up, control, and management of the resources for your school including apps, devices, and settings

-- Office 365 for Education provides online apps for work from anywhere and desktop apps for advanced functionality, built for working together and available across devices, and it’s free for schools, teachers, and students

-- School Data Sync to help automate the process for importing and integrating School Information System (SIS) data that you can use with Office 365

-- OneNote Class Notebook to organize course content, create and deliver interactive lessons to some or all students, collaborate and provide private feedback to individual students, and connect with major LMS and SIS partners for assignment workflow

-- Microsoft Teams to bring conversations, content, and apps together in one place and create collaborate classrooms, connect in professional learning communities, and communicate with school staff

-- Learning Tools are moving beyond the OneNote desktop app and is now available in Office Lens, OneNote Online, Word Online, and Word desktop

-- Whiteboard to create interactive lessons on the big screen, share and collaborate real-time by connecting to Class Notebook and Classroom

-- Windows 10, version 1703 (Creators Update) which brings 3D for everyone and other new and updated Windows features

-- Minecraft: Education Edition which provides an open and immersive environment to promote creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving

In the remainder of the article written by Microsoft's Sam Mcneill, you will find a curated list of links to videos and other documents that will help you further understand these services and how to get started with them.

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But, wait...there's probably more so be sure to follow me on Twitter and Google+.

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