Microsoft E2 Conference

Microsoft E² Education Exchange Conference

   On Wednesday I "attended" a webcast of the opening session of Day 2 of the E² conference in Toronto, Canada.  I had heard of this conference through Facebook of all places.  I was happily surprised to see that it was happening while I was on spring break so I thought "why not, don't have anything else to do" (of course, that's not really true but we will go with it!).   The agenda looked interesting for someone who is interested in integrating more technology into curriculum.  This post is a summary of what was on topic for this opening session.

Opening

   The session opened with Anthony Salcito the Vice President of Microsoft Education.  He led us through the progression of technology integration in education through the years.  He discussed four basic eras in this recent progression;

1.  Innovators- the pioneer teachers that first implemented technology into the classroom and through the startup of computer labs in schools.

2.  Broader Scope- where all students became digital with the increase of smartphones, tablets and many schools going to the 1-1 concept.

3.  Scale-back- a time when we realized we were teaching a lot of tech separate from other content and realize the two were not meshing well.  Time to take a step back and figure out how to get both aligned together.

and now we are in 4: using technology to drive learning outcomes, change of mindset to outcome based.

   Salcito used a great analogy to explain how we have envisioned education.  He compared education to the railroad.  Everyone moving in the same direction, at the same pace.  But where have railroads gone?  At one time the railroad was a huge industry.  But now they aren't as prominent.  Salcito pointed out that railroads were too focused on railroads and not on transportation.  Then along came planes, automobiles, ships, etc.  Other modes of transportation took the railroads thunder.  His point was we should look at education like transportation.  All modes are important and achieve the goal they just do it in different ways.  For education to be successful we need to move from a one mode fits all to allowing for different modes to achieve the same goal.  In my opinion that was a great analogy.  Using technology will allow these different modes to be explored and used successfully.

   Salcito also showed a quote, "Your students learn without you."  He pointed out that some teachers may take offense to that.  But he pointed out that today's students have so much access available at their fingertips they can learn anywhere at any time.  It will be our job to focus and direct students so they can use the technology in a constructive manner.  

He concluded his opening by stating we should “Empower Every Student on the Planet to Achieve More."

Engaging Students in Service Learning

   The next session was led by Craig Kielburger of We.org.  He started this student service oriented program back when he was still in school.  The program is now available in many countries and have adopted the theme WE ARE ONE.  Schools and students engaged in this program identify and search to solve real world problems such as bullying, lack of drinking water in underdeveloped countries, global warming and other projects where students can do service for others.  They follow up every year with a WE ARE ONE convention where students who have participated in the service projects are invited to this celebration.  Representatives from Queen of Heaven School presented a brief explanation of projects they had worked on in the year.

Empowering Students Through Minecraft

   The third session was about Empowering Students Through Minecraft hosted by Meenoo Rami who leads the team at Microsoft in charge of Minecraft Education.  This group has prepared lesson plans that go along with different content areas using the Minecraft application.  Students solve real world problems as they progress through the Minecraft game.  

Transforming Learning Using Emotion-Aware Devices

   The next session was hosted by Daniel McDuff as the spoke of using Emotion Aware Devices to assess whether students are understanding or struggling with information.  He gave an overview of facial recognition software that reads facial expressions and gestures and then analyzes the emotions detected.  The tests showed students who had enabled web cams that were fed into the system that read these nonverbal cues.  Teachers could then assess, by facial expression or gesture, whether the students were struggling with the information.  This would allow for reviewing the material or allowing the student to move on.  He did point out that this program would be great for students who are learning through distance learning where the teacher does not have as much one on one contact with the student.

The Best of OneNote

   My favorite session was next.  The use of OneNote.  I know that is on my computer but we have not been trained in how to use it so basically it just sits there waiting for me to have time to play and find out what is available.  Mike Tholfsen hosted this session by giving us his 10 favorite new things about One Note

1.  Stickers- Microsoft has added stickers that teachers can attach to student work.  They are even customizable!

2.  Class Notebooks work with most LMS's (including CANVAS which my school has purchased).  They can be integrated so information is easily transferred between the notebook and LMS.

3. Items such as videos, quizzes, SWAY, and SoundCloud can now be embedded into notebooks.

4.  Wiki tables are now customization and create auto-links to student pages so the teacher does not have to create links themselves to each page.

5.  Staff Notebooks are now available for meetings, PLC's, etc.  They can be created by administration and team leaders.

6.  Class Notebooks can be exported so students can have work that is in their portfolios.

7.  Learning tools on the web have been created to link subject to research.   The example he used for this was if a student was doing research on the Bay of Pigs and he had started a paper.  He could highlight the word "pigs" and take it to Bing and paste it in the search and Bing would know to only pull of info on the Bay of Pigs and not the animal.  Personally, I thought that was cool!

8.  Fun with Ink Application:  this app is available in the store that give students and teachers more ink choices when creating projects.  He featured rainbow ink that wrote words in a variety of colors.

9.  Reversible Ink:  this application would reverse what was written.  It is like rewinding a video.  He showcased this with math problems that if a student didn't understand the process, the teacher could back up and show again without having to erase and rewrite.

10.  Ink to Math; this app is awesome for math teachers and students.  This allows a problem to be written down.  If needed it can be copied and pasted into the tutorial and the tutorial would show the steps in completing the problem.  It also has a graphing option.

   A bonus app Tholsfen gave was called Write Ideas.  This app is still in the testing phase but when it is unveiled it will help students organize thoughts for writing.  It asks them questions about what they want the plot to be, etc.  Then after questions are answered it generates an outline to help the student get started writing.

   Tholsfen concluded by sharing how OneNote can pair co-teachers with students.  This is especially helpful with special education students that may not want a special ed teacher hovering over them in front of other students.  This application allows the teacher to see the students screen from a remote location and they can give prompts to help a struggling student through the OneNote application. 

    Salcito returned to close out the session.  At this point they were a bit behind so he started going through his final thoughts very quickly.  I had a little trouble keeping up with what he was saying.  Most of the people in the conference were veteran users of the Microsoft applications so he was breezing over the topics.  Here are a few things I could get.

1.  The "Surface" device will now have something called Mental Canvas where a 2D drawing can be created and it will turn it into a 3D.

2.  PowerPoint now has a quick start presentation available for many topics.  You can search a topic such as space exploration and a PPT presentation will be created with pictures and outline to help get students or teachers started.  It doesn't put in information but it comes formatted with appropriate background and gives suggestions on what type of information should be included.

3.  Educator Community for those teachers who want to learn more about how Microsoft has created apps and programs specifically for educators.

4.  Video Breakdown.  There is a new program that breaks down aspects of video.  You could do a search through your video file for a person and it will find the video and show you where it’s located within the video.  He pointed out that this would be great for review for students if they are trying to review a video that had been played in class but they didn't know the name of the video.  

   So, there you have it.  A rundown on the E2 conference.  I believe Mr. Salcito mentioned that the video would be archived on their site for about 90 after the conference if you are interested in watching it yourself.