After more than a year of ongoing disruption and uncertainty due to COVID-19, some universities and colleges around the world are navigating a return to pre-pandemic routines, while also realizing that life on campus will never be the same. Though things will be different, the acceleration of the digital transformation that was already underway has led to positive advancements that can increase student engagement and highlight the value of higher education.
A new whitepaper, “Reimagining higher education as a student-centered experience” by Microsoft Education, explores some post-covid trends impacting higher education, and how technology can help address them. Let’s take a look at three of the top trends.
Microsoft Academic. Microsoft Academic. The Microsoft Student Partner program is a global group of on-campus ambassadors who are eager to help fellow students, lead in their local tech community, and develop technical and career skills for the future. They might find themselves organizing a hackathon to solve the world’s toughest problems, mentoring fellow students, or unlocking.
Trend 1: Students are becoming more diverse and so are their expectations of higher education’s role in their path to employment
- Shop for microsoft office home and student at Best Buy. Find low everyday prices and buy online for delivery or in-store pick-up. Publisher: Microsoft.
- In recent years, Microsoft has been offering students a deep discount to its products including Microsoft Office. With this discount students can get a mush cheaper version of the program and in some cases even be able to get it for free. In this article, we take a look at the Microsoft Office for Mac Student discount and how to access it.
Going forward, it will be critical for universities and colleges to help a diverse population of learners get the skills they need to be successful in the workforce. According to the OECD, the negative impact of COVID-19 on the worldwide job market has been 10 times greater than that of the global financial crisis of 2007-08. And for jobs that are available, employers report difficulty recruiting candidates with the necessary skills. At the same time, students are feeling less optimistic about their future job prospects— over half said they had lost confidence in the value of a university or college education and were worried about developing the skills they need.
“Today’s students and lifelong learners need skills to land jobs and meet evolving workforce trends—and these days, this means digital skills. Microsoft is committed to partnering with higher education institutions to provide the necessary skills, technology, and tools to help equip all learners with the skills they need to thrive in the 21st century.” – Brad Smith, President, Microsoft
As institutions race to keep up with a growing skills gap, they must also address important changes in student demographics. The traditional, “college-aged” student population is on the decline,i and adult learners are a growing demographic critical to closing the skills gap. Additionally, an important demographic for higher education is learners with disabilities. Representing 15 percent of the global population, or 1 billion people,ii persons with disabilities are less likely to have completed a bachelor’s degree or above, and face increased challenges finding employment as compared to those without a disability.iii For those able to attain a higher degree, their chances of being employed increase, demonstrating the importance of higher education in this population’s economic mobility.
To help higher education institutions provide customized career programs for all students, Microsoft announced Career Coach, a Microsoft Teams app that can help colleges and universities offer personalized guidance to students and assist them in identifying career goals aligned with their passions, interests, and strengths. It uses an artificial intelligence (AI)-based skill identifier and LinkedIn integration to align a student’s comprehensive profile with job market trends. Additionally, it helps them grow real-world skills and build connections with mentors and peers.
Trend 2: Harnessing data and leveraging AI will increasingly help institutions provide more personalized experiences and operate with greater agility
With greater competition for student admissions and a growing emphasis on the value and experiences students expect, a student-centric approach across the student lifecycle can help universities and colleges attract and engage more learners.
According to a new IDC paper, “Cultivate innovative AI-powered student engagement in hybrid learning for higher ed,” AI is playing a major role in transforming student engagement in higher education for early adopters of the technology.
Microsoft infuses AI in our products to empower all users—faculty, staff, and students—with apps and tools within Microsoft Teams that leverage data and AI. For example, Power Platform enables staff and faculty to quickly spin up apps, automations, and virtual chatbots, with no coding experience required.
When the pandemic began, Purdue University used Power Apps and Power BI to create a custom application to help faculty and university leaders gain real-time visibility into research program status, proactively manage issues, and make informed decisions about budget allocations.
“With our new app built on Power Apps and Power BI, we could catch and report mistakes in real time. Faculty reported more accurate projections and the university could immediately see system-wide impacts and make more informed decisions.” – Ken Sandel, Senior Director of Sponsored Program Services, Purdue University
Trend 3: The integration of technology with pedagogy will enable more flexible, engaging, and inclusive learning experiences
When higher education institutions unexpectedly moved classes online, many of them responded with surprising speed, scaling their infrastructure quickly to keep tens of thousands of students and faculty connected. Unfortunately, despite the excellent work and intense effort, there is no disputing that online classes are not a substitute for the campus experience. Soon, inequities that already existed were highlighted, limitations of virtual pedagogy were revealed, and student engagement declined.
Almost half of students say that the pandemic worsened their ability to stay engaged, and 60 percent of faculty report witnessing a drop in student engagement.
Before the pandemic, some colleges and universities were already modernizing the learning experience to create more student-centered experiences. These institutions fared exceptionally well despite the disruption. The article, “Reimagining higher education: The post-covid classroom,” explores how institutions like Florida State University (FSU) and University of New South Wales (UNSW) are integrating technology and pedagogy and demonstrating that technology can be accretive to the future of education.
As institutions continue their transformation, they need tools that offer more than just video conferencing or chat. Microsoft Teams for Education, included in the Microsoft 365 subscription, integrates with an institution’s learning management system and provides a hub for collaborative and engaging learning experiences inclusive of video conferencing, files, chat, apps, and more. Teams supports learners with comprehensive accessibility features including live captioning and translation, and empowers educators and leaders with built-in insights to better understand student engagement, discover trends, and identify at-risk students.
Throughout this evolution in higher education, Microsoft is honored to provide support with technology and skills offerings for institutions around the world. See our website and learn more about Microsoft’s position on these trends in Higher Education and how we address them in our new whitepaper, “Reimagining higher education as a student-centered experience.” In addition, all sessions from the online event, Higher Education Reimagined, are available on-demand. Sessions explored how to prepare today’s students for the workforce of the future, how to harness data to reimagine the student experience, and how the education community can embrace the shift to student-centered learning.
iHigher education enrollment: Inevitable decline or online opportunity? | McKinsey
2020-12-21 15:16:36 • Filed to: Software for Students • Proven solutions
The Microsoft Office suite of programs has become a must have for every student and teacher. But the regular license can often be expensive for most schools to provide for all students. In recent years, Microsoft has been offering students a deep discount to its products including Microsoft Office. With this discount students can get a mush cheaper version of the program and in some cases even be able to get it for free. In this article, we take a look at the Microsoft Office for Mac Student discount and how to access it. We will also share with you another very important program that very student should have.
- How to Get Microsoft Office for Mac Student Discount
- A Must-Have PDF Editor on Mac for Students
How to Get Adobe Acrobat Pro Mac Student Discount
Microsoft offers all students and teachers the online version of Microsoft Office for free along with 1TB of online storage. Some schools may even be eligible to get full Office apps installed on up to 5 Macs for free.
Accessing this very steep discount is very easy. All you have to do is enter a valid email address of the school and you are ready to download the Microsoft Office apps for your Mac. One of the greatest advantages of this discount is that there is nothing to pay for and it is not for a free trial program. All you have to do provide a valid email address and you are ready to go.
Steps to Get Microsoft Office Student Discount for macOS 10.15 Catalina
- Step 1: To gain access to this discount, go to Microsoft Office for Mac student website, and enter the email in the space provided before clicking 'Get Started'.
- Step 2: As long as the email is valid, Microsoft will guide you to download and install Office 365 Education on to your computer for free.
Must-Have PDF Editor for Student on Mac
While Microsoft Office 365 Education might give students access to all the Microsoft Office apps, you may not be able to use them to effectively edit PDF documents. For this, you need a premier PDF editor that allows you to fully edit PDF documents easily. But one that will also be able to give you as a student discount to allow you to afford the program. The only program that is effective enough to help you edit PDF documents and will also offer an attractive student discount is PDFelement.
Microsoft Word For Students
The PDFelement student discount is also very easy to access and apply. Anyone with a valid student EDU email is eligible to get a 50% discount off the regular license price. But not having an EDU email is not a barrier. If you are a student and you don't have an EDU email, all you have to do is contacts PDFelement support team and they will guide you on how to get the student discount.
The following are some of the main features:
- It is also the perfect PDF annotator, allowing users to easily add highlights, stamps and comments into the document or underline text.
- It has a powerful OCR function that is the ideal tool to help you convert scanned or image-rich PDFs into more easily editable formats. This OCR function supports various languages and is very easy to use.
- It is very easy to use with a user interface that shares many qualities with many word processing suites to make it easy to create and edit PDFs.
- It can be used to convert PDFs to a whole host of other document formats including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, TXT, images and EPUB.
- You can use its security features including text redaction, adding passwords or digital signatures to protect sensitive information on the document.
Tips for Getting Microsoft Office for Mac Student Discount
Like we mentioned before, Microsoft Office allows students to get access to Microsoft Office 365 Education for free. To maximize your chances of getting this steep discount, the following are just some of the things you can do:
- Ensure that you are using a valid student email to sign up for the free offer from Microsoft. Any other email will not work.
- If Microsoft asks you for more information regarding the email or any additional information to verify your student status, ensure that the information provided is accurate.
- You are also eligible to get the online version of Microsoft Office for free. This might be a better alterative if you don't want to install any software on your computer.
- Always ask the school for permission before installing any software on the computers they own. This will prevent a lot of problems later on. You may also only get to install 5 copies of the Office 365 Education software to install on 5 different computers.
Microsoft Student Careers
This generous offer from Microsoft Office combined with the 50% discount from PDFelement is a combination that should make document processing very easy.
Free Download or Buy PDFelement right now!
Free Download or Buy PDFelement right now!
Buy PDFelement right now!
Microsoft Student Free
Buy PDFelement right now!