On Monday we took a look at School Information Sync - one of two new educational services unveiled by Microsoft. Today, we'll turn our attention to the second - Class Dashboard. The following text is an extract from a post on the main Microsoft in Education Blog.
Introducing Class Dashboardhttp://blogs.msdn.com/b/ukfe/archive/2015/06/29/introducing-microsoft-school-information-sync.aspx
Class Dashboard is an easy-to-use website that brings together familiar Office apps including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook in the context of the classroom. Teachers can get the most out of the tools they know and content they have, keep materials and classes organized and accessible, and engage students in new collaborative learning experiences to achieve better outcomes. Class Dashboard will be available to users of Office 365 Education at no additional cost.
With Class Dashboard teachers and students can stay organized and save time. Each class section has a OneNote Class Notebook, and class materials, notes, assignments and shared calendars will be stored online and in one place. Teachers and students can easily access class notebooks and documents from devices while at school or on the go. Teachers will be able to build rich assignments with documents, links, and online reference material, and collaborate with students using Office Online, web versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint accessible from a web browser. They'll be able to share assignments with students, track progress, give feedback and assign grades, quickly and in one place.
Engage your students in new ways
Class Dashboard will seamlessly connect with tools for interactive lessons and presentations, facilitate discussions and collaboration, and support feedback so teachers can enable students to learn in new ways. With OneNote Class Notebook, students will be able to show their creativity and collaborate in notes, drawings, and pictures.
"When we try new technology in our classes, the real test is whether teachers and students see the benefit. With Class Dashboard, the answer is yes!" said Kelly Arbuckle, Summer School Principal, Omaha, Nebraska. "Our teachers want to use their existing lessons and most of those are created with Microsoft Office products. With Class Dashboard teachers shared assignments with students in just a few clicks and gave feedback along the way. Our students liked the experience too! We're excited to be part of this customer preview program, and looking forward to trying Class Dashboard in more classrooms next school year."
There are many different technology tools available to educators, so we built Class Dashboard to easily integrate with solutions teachers already use in the classroom. Using existing Office 365 public APIs, technology partners can access the classes, documents and assignments used by Class Dashboard within their own products and services.
For decades, we've invested in tools that enable people to communicate, collaborate, and unleash their creativity. We provide productivity services and devices for the mobile and cloud world. Building on solutions like Sway, Office Mix and OneNote Class Notebook, Class Dashboard is the latest example of our ongoing commitment to redefining learning and empowering teachers and students. School Information Sync will help schools put powerful teaching tools into the hands of teachers and students more easily. We are excited to bring these new services alongside the Office tools teachers and students love and use.
To learn more about Class Dashboard or School Information Sync, please visit their product websites and sign up to stay in touch.
To learn more about how to use OneNote in your class, please visit onenoteineducation.com.
For more technical information, ISV partners can visit dev.office.com to start building applications that support single sign-on via Office 365, and call Office Graph APIs, which will be extended with School Information Sync.
SIS Partners can also begin planning to integrate with School Information Sync. Contact your local Microsoft partner representative to share your integration schema and test data.