- [Students] This month on What's New in EDU.
(upbeat music)
- Good day everyone and welcome to another edition of,
What's New in EDU.
We're here to help you,
if you want great ideas for your classroom.
Updates or tips and tricks,
to supercharge learning then you're in the right spot.
It's more important than ever before,
to give teachers and students technology,
that can help the students.
To self direct their learning experiences a little bit more.
For example, Microsoft Learning Tools.
Now this tool has,
currently more than 10 million fans across the world,
and it's been shown to increase reading levels by up to 10%.
I sat down with Megan Lawrence,
to talk about the Inclusive Classroom.
Tell me a little bit about why this is important,
and what it is that you do.
- I am the Accessibility Technical Evangelist,
which means I talk to educators across the world,
about how technology can help us,
create inclusive learning environments,
to meet the needs of all of our students,
and for me personally, this is important,
because I have a moderate to severe anxiety disorder,
which many students are dealing with in the classroom today.
- What are some of the things,
that I might want to share with my educator friends?
- Okay I've got a couple of quick tips and tricks,
about the built in accessibility,
that's in the Microsoft products.
So, first of all, we want to help teachers,
create universal design learning environments
- Pause.
Question from the classroom.
What does that mean?
- [Voiceover] Universal Design for Learning.
Scientifically proven principles that guide,
the development of flexible learning environments,
that accommodate individual learning differences,
and give all students equal opportunities to learn.
- So, one way that teachers can create inclusive content,
is by always checking the accessibility of your documents.
You can do that across Office 365,
with the Accessibility Checker.
Also, if you're giving a lesson and using PowerPoint,
you can now turn on automatic closed captions.
So you can have the conversation in English down below.
So students can hear, as well as see what you're saying.
Now reading and writing is top of mind for everybody.
So here are a couple of things,
to help students improve reading comprehension.
One, we've got Read Aloud, as well as Grammar Tools in Edge,
along with Office 365.
The ease of access settings in Windows 10,
allows teachers, as well as students,
to personalize their computing environment.
Now we want to help students write in their preferred way,
so I'm very excited to announce,
that we have Word Prediction in Windows 10.
We also have Dictate,
which allows you to write with your voice.
And that's in Office 365 as well as Windows 10.
Now, not last, but certainly important,
is that we have Disability Answer Desk,
which is 24 hours IT Support,
for students with disabilities as well as their parents.
And for the teachers and IT administrators,
we've got the Enterprise disability answer desk.
We want to create an ecosystem,
to make sure that people are successful.
- It's amazing what the accessibility team is doing,
having resources to support
educators, parents, and school leaders with accessibility,
is a priority for us at Microsoft.
Now, let's talk events.
Toney Jackson.
Take it away.
- Thanks Mark. What's up everybody?
I'm Toney from New Jersey,
and as the school year is starting to wind down here,
I'm getting wound up about something big that's coming.
ISTE is just around the corner,
and as an educator, this is huge.
It'll be a place to learn best practices,
think of and solve problems, connect and collaborate,
with fellow educators, and really spark inspiration.
Now don't worry if you're not able to be there in person,
I'll be here to give you the inside scoop live,
along with some fellow MIEs.
Oh and if you haven't heard yet,
Hack the Classroom is back, sign up for that online.
You can remotely tune in,
or hopefully I'll see some of you there in person.
Now I've been told that pretty much,
all of this information is on the Microsoft EDU blog,
and all the social channels.
So go check them out.
Check out all the info on upcoming events there.
Alright, back to you Mark.
- Sweet and it's a wrap.
Thank you for joining us on this month's review of
What's New in EDU.
And thank you for all that you do,
each and every day to support and empower your students.
- [Students] See you next time.