Day 6 – A day to relax with some xBox music

Teaching and Learning with a Windows 8 Tablet
3/17/2013 

Welcome to Day 6 of working with a Microsoft Surface Pro Windows 8 tablet for educators.

Today is Sunday so I took the day off for the most part. I only used the Surface Pro to occasionally check email and Twitter feeds. The ASCD conference was going on this weekend in Chicago so I followed along monitoring the hashtag #ascd13 to keep up with the news there.

One of the features I really like on the Surface Pro (and other Windows 8 devices) is the ability to play xBox Music in the background while I browse the Internet.

 

The sound is fantastic and the variety of music available is liberating. An added bonus with xBox Music is that you can get a “slide show” of the artist currently playing.  

You can buy the xBox Music pass subscription service for $9.99 a month that offers millions of songs available to stream instantly. But for now I am listening to the ad sponsored music and will occasionally have to listen to commercials.
 

You do get some "nag" messages pushing the xBox Music pass and you can buy one if you do not want the ads. I still have a Zune pass that eliminates the commercials but I have not figured out how to merge it with my new outlook account. I just need to take some time to figure that out but it has not hit my priority to-do list yet.

The kickstand that flips out may seem like a very small detail but it is incredibly useful. The kickstand allows you to prop up the Surface Pro wherever there is a flat surface. When I place it on my TV stand I can plug the Surface Pro into the 3.5 mm AUX cable from the home stereo into the Surface headphone jack and listen to high-quality sound.  Very nice for some Sunday afternoon music appreciation time.
Until next time...

Keep on Learning,

Tom Grissom, PhD

 

Follow me on Twitter @tomgrissom

 

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