Finally.. I got it! #Office365

Published Tuesday, 5 May, 2015 · Updated Saturday, 23 December, 2017

Yes! yes! yes! Finally.. I got it.. I got it.. I got it!! I got something that I looked for a long time. Yeah.. it’s free office365 account.

You know, I have joined many workshops titled “Introducing to Office365”, but I’ve never brought this account home (See my previous post, Office365 in KNGB Unair). And now, by this “Developing ICT Skill For Education Workshop” that held by SMK 1 Muhammadiyah Ngoro Jombang, I got it for free and had explored many features of it. And I got this account as Admin also.. So, I have a privilege to add another user account as teacher or student for free and do setting up their account! Do you want it? Please contact me..ha..ha..

They are Pak Thomas, Pak Andri Pradana and Pak Roni that guided us doing this. Oopps… Actually Pak Budi was the one who guiding me to create this account for the first time when I attended a similar workshop in Yogjakarta a few days ago. Then, it’s continued by this program in Jombang for 2 days, on 2nd to 3rd of May 2015.

There are so many features of office365 shared, starting from Ms Excel Online, OneDrive, PowerPoint, Sites, Yammer, PStory, AutoCollage and so on. All features were well presented by The Three Musketeers of Microsoft team from Ponorogo 😛
Around 50 teachers joined this program and created an office365 account.. successfully.

The first thing that we learnt was.. making a survey using Ms Excel online through OneDrive and sharing it to our Facebook group. Everybody created a survey and fill it, it’s guided by Pak Thomas. You know, creating a survey using Ms Excel online just like making a form through a GoogleDrive. That’s so simple, right? Yeaahh.. 😉

Then, Pak Andri Pradana delivered the 21th Century Learning material and guided us how to join the microsoft educator network. Microsoft Educator Network is one of the world’s largest educator social networks with over 4 million members including educators and school leaders in over 119 countries. By this global online community, we can share our resources and discover any collaborations and idea sharing for a better education.

So.. We signed in http://educatornetwork.com and did the self-assessment. The self-assessment is the first thing that we should do before doing the 21th century learning activities. It helps us to create a personalized learning plan that we can follow to master specific competencies and determine which courses we want to build into our plan and which are optional. There are 40-question assessment that we must complete in 40 minutes. And.. I did it!! Do you wanna know my self-assessment result? Hm..that’s secret!! 😛

Next.. One thing that I was really curious is about.. A Yammer!!! Yammer is just like a Facebook. It allows us to collaborate with others. I plan to use it to get connected with my students besides Edmodo and Facebook (the tools I’ve used for now). I think that Yammer is more comfortable..because it’s not as crowded as facebook 😉
But.. The weakness of Yammer is.. it cannot be used for student’s assessment, such as giving online quiz. I mean..a Yammer cannot do scoring automatically as I use Edmodo or Moodle. So, for doing assessment I prefer use Edmodo to Yammer 🙁
But once more.. it’s good for the students collaboration!

Then.. We learnt about Microsoft Photo Story!! Microsoft Photo Story 3 is an image presentation program which allows you to create photo presentations with animated photo albums. It’s so easy to use this program. You just have to select some images and customize them by adding a title, giving transition animation, insert an audio.. then publish it as .wmv file type. Here is my simple PhotoStory that I created for (at least) 20 minutes. (Coming soon. I got a trouble with my internet connection 🙁 )

You can download this Photo Story program for free here.. (It needs an office365 / Microsoft account.. 😉 )
Photo Story was done!!! Then, it’s time to create collages from our images..delivered by Pak Roni.

Microsoft AutoCollage is a webtool that allows us and our students to get creative with our images and combine them into a single collage. It’s so simple to use this program! You just point it to a folder of photos in your My Pictures section and it knits them together to produce an eye catching collage. Again.. The tool is also available on the Microsoft Educator’s Network 😉

Then..last but not least!! That is my presentation!! My presentation?? Yeah.. You would not believe that!!

You know.. I was here just as a trainee, but they (Microsoft team) forced me to deliver about Ms PowerPoint. So, what should I do?? Nope!! I didn’t have any choices.. So, the last time would be my time.. They wanted me to share about how to make an .apk from ppt (it’s one of my blog post topic ).

Actually.. I had no difficulties to share this application. But..the hardest thing was how to share it to the trainees that have minimum experience using this Ms Powerpoint application. That would be my challenge!!
So.. By guiding them to operate it slowly and patiently, everything ran well..alhamdulillah.. Even tough we didn’t have much time to run the .apk on mobile device.. 🙁

Completing my session.. The Microsoft team gave me a souvenir. It’s a powerbank with Microsoft in Education labeled. And I love it very much. Thanks so much, guys!

There are still many souvenirs provided for some teachers who joining this program. And to get these souvenirs.. They had to create a simple presentation in 10 minutes and demonstrate it. And..they did it! So, they might bring the souvenirs home also.

Well.. Microsoft gives many chances for teachers to enhance their skill using ICT for learning by following some competitions. Sway competition will be one of a short time competition held by Sampoerna University supported by Microsoft. You may join it by exploring The Sway and create your own 21th century learning activities 😀

Hm.. It would be something interesting! Are you interested to join it
?? Well..see you there!! 😉

Many thanks to Retno Kusumawati from FGTIKKNAS (Federasi Guru TIK dan KKPI Nasional), Rhendra Kusuma from Dinas Pendidikan Jombang and SMK 1 Muhammadiyah Ngoro for supporting and being this program real 😀