Technology and contingency planning in UK Education

In light of the spread of Covid-19 around the world, I thought I'd bring together the resources that customers have been finding helpful for them to build contingency plans, particularly focused on remote learning in the event of individuals, groups or schools not being able to attend school in the normal way. 

 If you are already using Office 365 for Education, Teams is included and is the simplest way to establish remote learning.

 Class Teams can quickly be created, enabling learning to continue irrespective of location. You can have discussions, share files, issue and assess homework, and have voice and video calls 1:1 or in groups. Teams works on desktop, tablet, phone, and web browser - so students can access from any device.

 Using Microsoft Teams for Remote Learning

• This blog post is designed to help customers who want to quickly get started in delivering remote learning. It links to a series of webinars (previous and upcoming instances are available here) to help educators and IT admins learn what they need.
• We have documentation for getting started with Remote Learning here.
• In response to customer demand, we have created a Microsoft Team to bring customers together to share best practice and learn from each other. Please complete this form if you'd like to join.

For schools that do not yet have Office 365 for Education, or have not fully deployed for Students:

• Office 365 A1 is available to Education customers at no cost (always has been) - you can sign up here
• The Office 365 setup guide is available here

  The Microsoft Educator Community has training for educators. 

There is a lot of training available, but I'd particularly highlight:

• Transform Learning in Teams - is a 1 hour course that is a good place to start
• Crafting a Collaborative learning environment with Class Teams - is also an hour and is a good follow on.

 In addition to everything above, this post by Jared Spataro talks about our commitment to customers during Covid-19. It's not Education specific, but gives a good overview of the technology offers we have to support customers, and our approach to business continuity to ensure our services continue to run during times of increased demand, as well as talks about how we're making Teams available to support individuals and organisations who may need to work remotely.