The digital skills gap Technology advancements are now accelerating faster than our ability to adapt, leaving a huge gap in digital skills. A recent Microsoft study has revealed that 82 percent of UK jobs already require digital skills, and that 69 percent of leaders feel their organisation suffers from a digital skills gap, even though 59 percent of employees believe in the importance of developing their digital skills. The skills gap is only getting wider. By 2025, there are expected to be three million new tech jobs in the UK, and 60 percent of employers are expecting their reliance on adva ..read more

The past few months have been extremely busy for all of Education across the UK. With everyone taking part in remote or hybrid learning, it's important teachers and IT teams ensure they have the right settings in place so students and colleagues can easily access the lessons, resources, and information they need. It's also important to ensure we keep them and the data safe so they can learn in secure environments. We get some regular questions from teachers and IT teams that we have summarised below, plus you can get more tips in our Keeping students safe while using Teams for distance learnin ..read more

The ever-growing potential of chatbots in education is now being explored and evaluated across the sector. Given the accessibility of Power Apps, Power Virtual Agents and App Studio, it is no longer necessary to learn how to code to get started with creating your first chatbot in Microsoft Teams. Following our simulated hospital event at UCLan in May 2020, I built a selection of chatbots using Power Apps. These were developed with the primary purpose of increasing fidelity within online simulation for our health and social care students. I wanted to explore how to automate and standardise part ..read more

Exeter Cathedral School (ECS) was founded in 1179 as a choir school. Nowadays, the School is a co-educational day and boarding school which prides itself on being a nurturing and purposeful school for some 260 pupils. Earlier this year, after the Prime Minister's announcement that schools across the country were required to close, the School's management team met to prepare for remote learning for the first time in the School's 841-year history. We agreed on a three-phase approach. Phase 1: Help pupils, parents and staff navigate the three remaining days of the term. Phase 2: Provide immedia ..read more

The term podcast commonly refers to an audio recording, usually containing spoken word and presented as a digital audio file. Podcasts are an increasingly popular medium of educational content, and can often be leveraged to great effect in teaching and learning. More than ever, students are now accessing and engaging with learning through their own mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablets. One of the main benefits of using podcasts, are that they don't require the consumer of the content to be viewing a screen. This can often prove both flexible and convenient, particularly as the file ..read more

In this blog, we are going to share our two week journey on using Teams Live Events. We went from never using the platform to holding 66 live events in a single day by training key staff, who cascaded new skills to their colleagues, giving them the confidence to run a successful online live event. At Wilberforce Sixth Form College, we encourage staff to provide constructive feedback while collaborating. This environment means people can share what works or how something could work better. By encouraging staff to practice and develop their confidence, it enables them to share hints and tips wit ..read more

Virtual lessons are a great way to share content to your students, and other educators. It means your students are able to learn no matter where they are, or have the content to look back on a later date. Sometimes, having a lesson plan is the easiest part and recorded and uploading the lesson can be daunting. But we've got a step-by-step guide on how to record, upload, and share your presentations. We'll be doing this through PowerPoint and Microsoft Stream, which makes it easy to use and accessible, with transcripts and captions. Add narration and record your PowerPoint presentation   ..read more

We're entering a time when our children's education is becoming a blend of remote learning and classroom-based teaching. At Talk Think Do, we've been working with Explore Learning to use machine learning to improve educational outcomes. So what we can do with machine learning? We can first use it to understand an individual's learning needs. It can then be used to improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of teaching. Using technology to disrupt education Teachers often understand the complexity of their student’s parent's lives (often, they’re in the same boat!). Especially when remo ..read more

As a headteacher, I've become interested in the way we share information, work together, and prepare our students for their future at Cornerstone CE Primary. Digital technology is a big part of this and Teams has transformed how we communicate, collaborate, and learn as staff members and the school as a whole. Teams is built with intelligent security by design. As it's our one main online portal, once signed in, we can access everything we need. This means no longer do we have to remember multiple logins for different websites. Getting time back to support teachers As teachers, we often don't ..read more

At Cornerstone Public School, we decided to implement Teams across the whole school to make it easier for students and teachers to access the information they need, when and wherever they are. Having access to planning is a key aspect of teaching. In Teams, these documents can be accessed securely, while meeting GDPR guidelines. Giving your students' access to anywhere learning helps them gain confidence and digital skills, preparing them for their future. It’s easy to set your class up on Teams. Normally, your IT team will have added your students to a class group and you can then add this t ..read more