On Friday 11th June I had the privilege to attend Microsoft’s ‘Fun, Free Friday’ event; showcasing many different and free applications and how they can be used for learning. There were demos of no less than 30 products or schemes which are all available for free when used for education. The whole day was extremely fun, and it was great to see a number of new products, as well as some that I already had knowledge of.
Oh, and free stuff is always a huge bonus.
One of my favourite demos of the day was the Live @ edu demo, mostly because the University of Reading is switching over to this system next year; replacing ‘Prayer’ which is quite frankly, awful. In fact, next year i might actually send an email, rather than just reading them because i have to. Also, I’m really excited about calendar integration, which will make working in a team a whole lot easier.
Here’s the full list of demos:
- Bing Maps
- Photosynth
- Community Clips
- Worldwide Telescope
- Pivot
- DeepZoom
- Live @ edu
- SkyDrive and Live Sync
- Office Web Apps
- Windows Live Messenger
- Bing Translator
- Windows Live Writer
- Windows Live Photo Gallery
- Windows Live Movie Maker
- Songsmith
- Maths Worksheet Generator
- Photostory 3
- Office Moodle Add-In
- Autocollage
- Kodu
- DreamSpark
- Digital Literacy Curriculum
- Office Ribbon Hero
- Mouse Mischief
- Flashcards
- Internet Explorer Accelerators
- PPTPlex
- XNA Game Studio
- Innovids
- Partners in Learning Network
Look out for some more information about the demos later this week!