Assessment for Learning with Lync Online!

As a technical guy, I spend most of my days talking to customers about how they can deploy Office 365 for education, or answering questions about what the service can do. In this guest post, our resident star Mandeep Atwal talks about how schools are actually using Lync Online in the classroom.

Today’s workforce and workplace is mobile. In order to prepare students to succeed, we need to encourage and enable them to become mobile learners and active participants beyond the walls of the classroom. They can and they want to learn in different places, not only in the real-world, but also in virtual environments or a combination of both. Blended learning combines the traditional face-to-face classroom with online instruction. Office 365 for education is a great way to prepare your students to succeed in all types of environments.

How are schools using Office 365 for education?

With Lync you can connect with others through instant messaging (IM), video and audio calls, and online meetings. Oakswood Junior have used Lync to set up an online numeracy support group. Making use of Lync students are using the chat feature to provide support to one another on homework issues. Lync can be accessed by students at home and in school and teachers are using the status tool feature as an ‘Assessment for Learning’ strategy to monitor progress. Hence, if students set their status to red they require assistance, if they show green they know the answer and are available to help others and if they display amber they are still working on the learning activity.

Check out this two minute innovid tutorial below to see how easy it is to start teaching in the cloud with Lync Online:

Office 365 for education is free for students and staff, and you can sign up for a free trial online, today!

You can read more from Mandeep over on the UK Teachers blog.

How are you using Office 365 for education in the classroom?

Get in touch in the comments with your story and tips for using Office 365 for education in the classroom – we’d love to hear from you!