You might just know Office 365 as an e-mail system. But, believe me, it is so much more than that. Are you interested in being able to work easily from home, having the same access to all your documents as you do at school? Would you like to be able to easily share lots of information with staff, for example ensuring they always had the latest guidance to hand. Have you ever wished you could create professional looking presentations that are easy to share and can be viewed on any device? Are you worried about how you will meet GDPR compliance? Well, Office 365 might just be the answer you are looking for. Below is a quick summary of what you get with Office 365. And don't forget it is all FREE for schools!
OneDrive - Have you ever needed to work on a school document when you were at home? Are you fed up with copying files to and from memory sticks? Do you often collaborate with several colleagues on a report? Well, OneDrive is the answer. It is online file storage and sharing for each user, with unlimited storage. With OneDrive, your files are secure and available everywhere: home, school or on the move. Edit and co-author whether using a web browser, mobile apps, or desktop apps. Easily share files with colleagues, making collaboration a breeze. Even access files when offline using the OneDrive sync client. |
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OneNote - If you're not using OneNote already, then you're missing out. This is probably the greatest program in the whole Microsoft Office suite. Organise everything; typed notes, handwritten notes, pictures, videos, files, audio recording and more all in one place. Add extra notebooks, sections and pages to keep everything just as you like it. And you don't even have to worry about saving work as you go along - it all happens automatically. A OneNote app is available for all devices and you can also work online directly via a web browser. And if you are using an app, then you can work in OneNote while you are offline, and everything will sync once you connect to the web again. Trust me, it's great. Try it. |
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Learning Tools - Immersive Reader, Forms, Sway, and Office Mix - There is a whole bunch of apps and tools available within Office 365 which can be used both to help with learning, and to just generally create more engaging and accessible content that you can then easily share with others.
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E-mail and Calendars - OK, so you are already using this, but did you know:
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Skype for Business - Have you ever wanted to invite a subject expert to talk to your class, but they live too far away? Do you want to cut down on travel costs and time between different school sites for meetings? Then it might be time to give Skype for Business a whirl. Skype can give you instant messaging, video conferencing and screen sharing. See your colleagues status (presence information), so you know at a glance if they are available for a chat or quick meeting. Conversations are protected by strong authentication and encryption. The Skype for Business app is available for mobile, tablet, PC and Mac. |
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SharePoint - Does your school have to share certain information and documents with all staff? Do you need to control who has access? Do you need to let some people update information, while letting others only read it? If the answer to those questions is yes, then SharePoint is for you. You might like to think of SharePoint as being a shared staff folder, but on the web. Actually it is much more. With SharePoint show important visuals, news, and updates with a team or communication site. Discover, follow, and search for sites, files, and people across your company. And not forgetting that you can sync and store your files in the cloud so anyone can securely work with you. SharePoint integrates with the Microsoft Office apps allowing you to work and collaborate on documents from PC, Mac or mobile device. |
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Security and Compliance - Are you worried about GDPR compliance? Would you like to let your staff use their mobile phones to access e-mail, but you are worried about data security? Then you'll just love the Security and Compliance features that are built into Office 365. Just take a look at these features:
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Delve - Have you ever wanted to find all the documents around a particular subject? Or is there a member of staff you are about to have a meeting with, and you need to get up to speed on what have been working on recently? Delve can help. It intelligently discovers and organises information from across your whole school's Office 365, and then displays it to you making everything easy to find and understand. Find work by particular people or search on a keyword or subject. And you'll only ever see the content you have access to. Finding content has never been so easy. |
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Office Online - Create and edit Word, OneNote, PowerPoint, and Excel documents from a browser. And if you have a school EES agreement you get all the desktop and mobile apps as well, which you can download and install on up to 5 different devices per user. So you can start a document in on your computer at school, then finish editing and reviewing it on your iPad at home that evening. |
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Stream - Do you have lots of videos that would like to share securely with the rest of the school? Then you'll like Stream. Easily manage and share videos across your school. Group videos of similar content together in channels. Embed individual videos or channels into other Office 365 services such as SharePoint or Teams. Control who can see which videos, and feel safe in the knowledge that only people with a login for your school's Office 365 will be able to see the videos. |
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Planner - Take the chaos out of teamwork and get more done! Planner makes it easy for your team to create new plans, organize and assign tasks, share files, chat about what you’re working on, and get updates on progress. Each plan has its own board, where you can organize tasks into buckets. You can categorize tasks based on their status or on whom they’re assigned to. To update the status or change assignments, just drag and drop tasks between columns. |
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Teams - Do you feel a little overwhelmed by everything that Office 365 has to offer? Would you like to have just one application from which to work online and have access to everything you need to get your job done right there, in that one place. Then it's Teams to the rescue. Microsoft Teams is a chat-centred workspace in Office 365. It brings people, conversations, files, and tools into one place, so everyone has instant access to everything they need. Enjoy built-in access to SharePoint, OneNote, and Skype for Business.
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Class Notebook - If you have ever used OneNote, then you'll know what a great app it is for organising all your information, keeping all your notes in one easy to use place. Well, Class Notebook takes all that goodness and tailors it to the classroom. OneNote Class Notebooks have a personal workspace for every student, a content library for handouts, and a collaboration space for lessons and creative activities.
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