On Track with Microsoft EDU: Ignite Your Path

Microsoft Ignite, Microsoft's time to share exciting news and announcements, happened this past week. If your anything like me, it was a waterfall of information that I felt like I couldn't keep up with and sort through.

It is midterms so I will keep this short and to the point. Let's help you digest this huge event and get you some amazing tools for your toolbelt!

Connect: Senior Program Manager in Microsoft Engineering

Meet Max Fritz , one of the best and brightest people at Microsoft. He was one of the first people that I met in my last role in higher education and he helped me to dream big with the tools that I had available. In Microsoft Engineering, he brings products to the user so that they can accomplish their goals. He has worked on projects like Virtual rounding using Microsoft Teams and Better Together: Microsoft 365 and Your LMS, which are both impactful to higher education's success. Watch my interview with him where we discuss the best things for higher education that came from Microsoft Ignite this week.

Explore: News from Microsoft Ignite Relevant for Academics

• Microsoft Ignite 2022 Book of News: This is a big ebook, but will give you detailed information on all of the announcements that happened at Microsoft Ignite.
• Max's favorite announcement, Microsoft Designer - Stunning designs in a flash: This tool gives you the ability to use DALL-E text-to-image AI capabilities to design a slide or image for a slide in a very simple interface. As a citizen designer with no design experience, I know I will get a lot of value in a tool like this. Get on the waitlist for the beta, you won't regret it!
• Max's top three take-a-ways for higher education:

1. Microsoft Teams Premium: read more in this short announcement about advanced virtual appointments which can be leveraged for office hours for instructors, meeting guides which can help preset all of what needs to happen for a class or departmental meeting, and advanced webinars for institutions looking to scale their virtual presence for events. While Teams Premium comes at a cost, I think there are interesting ways education can leverage some of these solutions in how we think bigger and broader for the future.
2. Microsoft Presenter+ Wireless Presentation Remote Control: this all-in-one remote could be very handy at the front of a classroom for a faculty member who is walking around a physical classroom while their students are in a hybrid learning environment. I used to have a remote like this for my Powerpoints and loved the ability to do more than just click forward; this will be a staple in my bag of tools.
3. Microsoft and Meta partner to deliver immersive experiences for the future of work and play: This newly announced partnership, just before Ignite, puts Microsoft in an interesting position to offer more in the realm of devices and digital twins in the metaverse. Higher education should certainly keep a close eye on the metaverse and how this could impact the future of online and hybrid education.

Here are two extra areas that I wanted to highlight:

1. Microsoft Create: This site just unveiled to give you a place to start with all of the design tools at your fingertips.
2. The learning continues even after Microsoft Ignite: Learn Live: Post-Ignite 2022 - Events | Microsoft Learn, Microsoft Learn: Build skills that open doors in your career, Microsoft Virtual Training Days and Microsoft Events.

Plan: Upcoming Higher Education Events with Microsoft this Fall

Economics and Computation: Predoctoral Researchers - Microsoft Research?(Applications due by October 17, 2022): The program is a full-time two-year appointment in Cambridge, MA or New York City, NY.?Predocs work alongside MSR economists on cutting-edge research, providing coding, data analysis, or similar support, gaining valuable skills to help them become successful graduate students, while building critical connections for future research projects.?

Research Summit 2022?(October 18-20, 2022): Join us as the global research community gathers to share progress and spark conversations around advances that could empower people in new ways and positively impact our world. This year, we convene to explore some of the most pressing questions facing our research community – ultimately, how might we advance the frontiers of research while ensuring that new technologies have the broadest possible benefit for humanity?

Microsoft Research-IISc AI Seminar Series?(October 28, 2022): The seminar series will feature speakers who are leaders in their areas. It will cover a wide variety of topics at the research frontier of AI: from applications and societal impact to theoretical foundations, from deep learning to cognitive science, from computer vision to NLP.?

Microsoft Education Test Fests?(November 1-2, November 8-9): You’re invited to join Microsoft Education Test Fests for two upcoming FREE trainings, FREE practice tests, and FREE certifications. Join us on November 1-2 for?Microsoft Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900)?to get foundational-level?knowledge of Microsoft Azure cloud services and cloud computing concepts. Join us on November 8-9 for?Microsoft AI Fundamentals (AI-900)?to gain knowledge?of common Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) workloads and how to implement?them on Azure.?

Integrating cloud-powered research to advance outcomes in academic medical centers?(November 17, 2022): The faster you get results and the easier you can collaborate with other experts; the more lives can be saved. Researchers in academic medical centers around the world are using Microsoft Azure to accelerate research and share findings faster. This cloud platform provides flexible tools and frameworks in multiple programming languages, allowing academic medical centers and researchers to achieve agile results to drive innovation for patient impact.