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Selasa, 30 September 2014
Day 12 – OneDrive: Your Hard Drive in the Cloud

Day 12 – OneDrive: Your Hard Drive in the Cloud

09/30/2014

30 Days with Office 365 for Educators - Day 12

With some of the necessary introductions out of the way it is now time to introduce some of the more innovative and game changing possibilities that Office 365 offers educators.

In previous posts we have discussed the Outlook Web App (OWA) for email and some of the basics for setting up Contacts. 

Email and Contacts are the foundation of Office 365 but it is the other cloud services where Office 365 really shines. Office 365 is so much more than email.

OneDrive is one of the services that can change the way you approach your teaching. Microsoft’s OneDrive now stands in the marquee position for its cloud strategy.  

Think of OneDrive as your hard drive in the Cloud.


OneDrive is an online storage space for your files. You can store Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote files to OneDrive just like you do your local hard drive. You can also store audio, pictures, video. and music files so this gives you great flexibility for educational use.

OneDrive was formerly called SkyDrive by Microsoft so if you are searching for information about Office 365 you may run across the SkyDrive name, just realize that OneDrive is the new name going forward.

Storing content in the cloud offers the possibility of being accessed from any Internet connected device. This ubiquitous access requires a shift in the computing paradigm we have become accustomed to over the years. This access also offers tremendous opportunity to change our teaching and learning workflows. It allows educators to do things that were very difficult to do before cloud computing technologies, if not impossible.

Here are just a few things to consider:

Storing files to OneDrive allows you to access your files from anywhere by signing into your Office 365 account. All you need is a computer (or mobile phone) with Internet access. This ability to have one central storage space for my files has changed my workflow more than any other. OneDrive has allowed me to become a digital nomad and have access to my files from anywhere I have an Internet connection. 

Accessing your files from anywhere is one thing but you can also selectively “Share” your files with others.

OneDrive allows the individual user to be in control of all files within their Office 365 account, including the ability to share with others. This sharing ability will be a game changer for new users of Office 365 and opens the door to increasing your teaching productivity and effectiveness when working with others.

But, with great power comes great responsibility.

ALWAYS SIGN-OUT of your Office 365 account when finished using it.

Users of Office 365 will need to use judgment about what to store in the cloud and what is acceptable to share with others via the cloud. Be sure to always protect confidential and private information. Not all data will be appropriate to store in the cloud and many IT departments offer on-premises servers to store and protect sensitive information.  Each organization will have policies and procedures to ensure data privacy.

Yesterday I wrote about new beginnings. As we convert faculty and staff to Office 365 new users will be given a blank slate with OneDrive. It will be up to new users how you organize their online storage space but I highly recommend that new users have some type of system in place.

I like keeping my information organized by academic year and I created a folder called AY20142015 to store ALL my work that I do for the Academic Year 2014-2015 inside this folder. I will make appropriate subfolders within the AY20142015 folder to further organize my work.

If you are interested in how I organize my work I created two YouTube videos some time ago explaining the benefit of organizing your folder structure by Academic Year. The YouTube videos are for my local hard drive but I use a similar system with OneDrive.

Organizing Files, Folders, and Backups (Tips and Tricks)
Part 1 of 2https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmQHFZ3pL-0&list=UUAkVWHTOjqjhlmEn742w2Aw

Organizing Files, Folders, and Backups (Tips and Tricks)
Part 2 of 2https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb5myf1y1vA&list=UUAkVWHTOjqjhlmEn742w2Aw

It will not take long at all to get many, many files stored on OneDrive. Some people say they can just do a search and find the file they want but what happens when you have two, three, or four or more years of files all mixed together?

Having a folder structure and naming convention will greatly enhance your productivity over the years.

Everything is best in the beginning.

Keep on Learning,

Tom Grissom, Ph.D.
@twitter


http://eiu.edu/itc
Senin, 29 September 2014
Day 11 – Things are always at their best in the beginning

Day 11 – Things are always at their best in the beginning

09/29/2014

30 Days with Office 365 for Educators – Day 11

This week the College of Education & Professional Studies faculty & staff will be migrated from our existing email system to the new Office 365. This is a wonderful opportunity to re-examine our teaching and learning workflows. Below is one of my favorite quotes from the French mathematician and philosopher, Pascal.

Things are always at their best in the beginning.
Blaise Pascal

Kudos to anyone who can remember the Pascal programming language.

The planning for this move began last Spring but has kicked into high-gear at the beginning of this semester for the EIU faculty and staff conversion. There has been a tremendous amount of prep work getting to this point. We have upgraded all CEPS Outlook Desktop Client users to Office 2013 from Office 2010 as recommended by our IT department.
There are some known issues with the current email system and not everything will matchup with Office 365. Information Technology Services have provided instructions for how to address the known issues.

This is an extremely busy week for technical staff as we finalize plans for the CEPS faculty and staff to convert on Wednesday and Thursday nights this week.

Times have changed in that we not only have to address the main Desktop/Laptop computers but also setup any mobile devices to authorized faculty/staff.

Phones and tablets will be accessing a new Office 365 server so end users will need to setup new email connection to the Office 365 servers once the migration is completed. Technical staff will be available the morning after the conversion date to assist.

Please be patient as the conversion process takes place this week and be sure that all CEPS PantherMail users have followed the advice of our ITS department regarding group contacts, notes, briefcase items, and messages larger than 25MB. 

In the coming posts I hope to move from some of the more basic conversion issues and begin discussing the new possibilities Office 365 will offer our faculty, staff, and students.

We are about to begin a new beginning...

Exciting times.

Keep on Learning,
Tom Grissom, Ph.D.

Twitter: @tomgrissom
http://eiu.edu/itc
Minggu, 28 September 2014
Top 5 Apps

Top 5 Apps

Don't have time to get to your laptop?  Install these Apps to connect to all your Bond work and resources on your mobile device!

As a busy student you may want to transition your workflow from a laptop to a tablet or mobile.  These top 5 Apps will make your life easier



Blackboard - Connect to iLearn to not only keep up to date with assignment submissions, view subject resources but access all BlackBoard's features on a mobile device.







Mediasite - review recorded lectures by streaming them on your device


Lynda.com - Ridiculously good!  Free access to all Lynda.com has to offer - great training resource to supplement your learning or get you up to speed with every type of software under the sun





Bond App - see where computers are available, the handy campus map plus more!









Office 365 - Word, Excel, PowerPoint
Keep writing that uni paper from your bedside table, view/save or print lecture slides on the go.  

1 TB of free cloud storage on OneDrive

Full free access to all Office 365 Apps by signing in using your Bond student email: firstname.lastname@student.bond.edu.au
Jumat, 26 September 2014
Day 10 – Office 365 HELP

Day 10 – Office 365 HELP

09/26/2014

30 Days with Office 365 for Educators – Day 10

We live in a world of constant change. This is particularly true in the field of educational technology where there are continual updates and improvements on both the hardware and software side of things.

Most users of technology look to their technical people for answers, and rightly so. It takes a great deal of technical expertise to keep a modern organization running smoothly. What others often overlook is that the technical folks are learning right along with other faculty and staff. Becoming proficient with using Help to find answers is a critical skill for teachers and students. 

Office 365 is brand new to all of us here at EIU. I have used many other systems and a lot of that prior knowledge will translate to this new system, but not all of it. There is a learning curve for any new system and this is one of the reasons I started this “30 Days with Office 365” series so I could help document the processes and issues I have had as a new user. If you are reading this blog you have hopefully learned a few new things along with me on this journey.

One of the things most faculty strive to instill in their students is the will of learning how to learn. Technical staff must be continual learners, we need to be able to stay one step ahead of our user base. This is not a magical exercise but rather one of constant learning, and re-learning.

I encourage others to be their own problem solvers as technical support is not always immediately available. This is not because I do not want to help, I do, but I am not always around and it is frankly better when you do not have to depend upon others for every little problem. I approach teaching the same way, I want to empower my students to be problem solvers and own their learning.

Here are a few strategies to help you begin to get yourself unstuck from whatever has you baffled. Try these basic steps first before contacting technical support staff.

1) 
Nearly all programs today have a help feature. Newsfeeds in Office 365 was a topic that was new to me so I thought I would share some of the steps I went through myself to get a better grasp on this topic. To access Help in Office 365 simply click on the question mark (?) located in the upper-right corner of the browser next to the Gear icon and select Help from the pull-down menu.


The Help information you will be given is “context sensitive” meaning that if you are on the Newsfeed page you will receive help about how to use the Newsfeed feature. If you are on the Calendar page you will receive information about the Calendar feature when you click on the ? and then select Help, and so on... 


As bad as I hate to admit it, reading the Help files will often quickly answer a question I have about a particular feature. Sometimes videos are even embedded within the help system that you can watch to get more familiar with a task.

There is a saying in the tech community known as RTFM - “Read the Fine Manual” that is often mentioned tongue-in-cheek when we begin looking for answers. Help is often just a click away in Office 365.

Most people, myself included, go to the manual as a last resort. Online help systems have greatly improved over the years but technical documentation still suffers from the bad reputation of being long-winded and confusing. That is why most people prefer just to go to an expert that knows the answer. Alas, experts are not always immediately available so you will need to take charge of your learning and press forward with problem solving.

2)
If reading the HELP section does not answer my question I will next go to Google or Bing and do a search for my particular issue. Google and Bing are your friends. 

3) 
If it is an issue that I think that someone else may have already made a video tutorial of I will go to YouTube and search for the particular issue using keywords like, Office 365 Newsfeeds Documents.

4)
If none of the above strategies work then I will send out a message to my Professional Learning Network (PLN) on Twitter to see if anyone in my PLN has a solution. If you carefully groom your PLN with experts from diverse backgrounds you will be amazed by how helpful Twitter can be.

5)
Finally, I will seek out the expertise of someone that I know to be an expert, either F2F or send a detailed email describing the situation.

Notice that in the examples above I begin with myself by using the built-in Help System, next I go to Google or Bing and do a Search, then I go to YouTube, and finally as a last resort I go to my PLN or ask an expert for help. I want to exhaust as many possibilities myself before I take the valuable time away from a colleague.

Having said that, there comes a point to where it is better to seek help than to waste your time fumbling for answers. You have to use your judgement and common sense to know when to seek additional help. 

Office 365 and Cloud computing are new paradigms for all of us and major adjustments will need to be made regarding the new and exciting possibilities that this new form of computing offers. I am finding that sometimes we have to throw away the old paradigms of computing and embrace the new with Office 365. There are many new features in Office 365 to explore. 

Keep on Learning,
Tom Grissom, Ph.D.

Twitter: @tomgrissom

http://eiu.edu/itc
Kamis, 25 September 2014
Day 9 – Newsfeeds: Aggregating Content for You

Day 9 – Newsfeeds: Aggregating Content for You

09/25/2014

30 Days with Office 365 for Educators – Day 9

An Office 365 Newsfeed is one way of receiving updates about content and news from others. Instead of going out to a blog or to a personal contact every time you want to see what is new, you can simply “Follow” people and items you are interested about receiving updates in the form of a Newsfeed.

In Office 365 you can use Newsfeeds to follow a person, document, site, or tag.


When you follow a person, document, site, or tag you will receive the latest aggregated updates and activities in the associated newsfeed as a stream similar to a Facebook update.



Educational uses for Newsfeeds include following a document that is “living”, that is, a document that may change in the future. Following a document that may change allows for you to be alerted when changes do occur.

For example, a professor uses a Syllabus in a Word Document that is shared with the class with viewing privileges. Sometimes the best laid plans change and the professor may need to adjust the due dates for an assignment. If you are following that document in a newsfeed you will be notified when the professor makes any change to that document.

I think one of the more useful ways to use a Newsfeed is to follow a blog (site) that is active within the Office 365 community. I have used RSS feeds for years to follow blogs and podcasts so this should also be beneficial within Office 365.

Another case, you can follow tags. Think of how tags are used in Twitter. If you make a unique tag for the class you teach in Office 365 others can create a Newsfeed to follow that particular tag. I think I am going to start using the tag #eiuitc so that other faculty, staff, and students can follow or search for information regarding what we share here at the Instructional Technology Center.

If you create a unique class tag you may want to also put the year in the tag name. For example EDU2022-001-FA14 this represents the Course Number, Section Number, and Semester. You could also include your last name but tags should be short, unique, and easy to remember.

You can also follow individuals in a Newsfeed but unless you work closely with them I think it would get overwhelming with the amount of updates that would be produced. You may also get many updates that you do not care about so there is always a balance of maintaining a manageable amount of updates.

I just received my university Office 365 account a couple of weeks ago so I am still exploring the possibilities of Newsfeeds and how they can be used for teaching and learning. I am sure I will find new uses in the coming months.

Keep in mind that much of what you post in Office 365 is searchable and discover-able. 

Office 365 was designed with sharing and collaboration in mind.

There are many social media aspects to Office 365 so always maintain a professional appearance. Since the Office 365 for Education service will have a mixture of faculty, staff, and students you will want to project a positive digital footprint at all times.

How do you use Office 365 Newsfeeds for teaching and learning?

Keep on Learning,
Tom Grissom, Ph.D.

Twitter: @tomgrissom


http://eiu.edu/itc
Rabu, 24 September 2014
Day 8 – Scheduling Assistant: Stop Playing Calendar Tag

Day 8 – Scheduling Assistant: Stop Playing Calendar Tag

09/24/2014

30 Days with Office 365 for Educators – Day 8

If you have been following along with this Office 365 blog series you should start to see a pattern emerge. In previous posts I have talked about using the Office Web App, People, and Calendar and they all rely upon Contacts in Office 365.

Having one organizational directory greatly helps with all kinds of communication tasks. Office 365 utilizes this contact information as a launching point for other services like email, calendaring, audio/video conferencing, and instant messaging to name a few.

I devoted one post to the “About Me” feature in Office 365 and mentioned that this is your online business card. It needs to be kept up-to-date as this information is the way other Office 365 users come to know you online.

You can easily search the Office 365 directory within each service to find matches within the directory. For example, I need to send an email to Bob Jones. Within the Office Web App I can simply begin typing his name while my cursor is in the To: field and search the directory. If there is more than one Bob Jones you can look at their “About Me” information to determine the correct recipient.

The same thing holds true for Calendars. If you begin typing a name in the “Attendees” field for a new event you can search the directory to find the individual(s) you want to schedule an appointment with. When you schedule the appointment or meeting the Attendees will receive a confirmation email if you so choose.

To fully experience the power of digital calendars it is important for other users in the organization to also go digital. If you often work with a group of individuals it really helps if you can get buy-in from others to use their digital calendar. If others do not use the digital calendar then you will not be able to rely upon their free and busy time and will have to resort to the time consuming old-fashioned calendar tag method.

If however, others you regularly correspond with do use a digital calendar there is a fantastic feature that will save you vast amounts of time when coordinating with others. This is true for both face-to-face (F2F) and online meetings.

Scheduling Assistant

The Scheduling Assistant is built into Office 365 is a time saver. When you setup an appointment or a meeting and invite others using your calendar you will see an option called Scheduling Assistant.



It may not seem like much but simply being able to see the busy times on a co-worker(s) schedule is a huge time saver. Below you can see a meeting I am in process of setting up with another individual. On the left you see my calendar and on the right you see the calendar of the individual I am wanting to schedule an appointment with.


You can clearly see that we do indeed have some common time to meet when we are both free. I simply pick an open time and Save the appointment information and an email is sent to the other individual. The other person can either Accept or Decline the invitation.


Keep on Learning,
Tom Grissom, Ph.D.

@tomgrissom

http://eiu.edu/itc
Selasa, 23 September 2014
Day 7 – Calendar

Day 7 – Calendar

09/23/2014

30 Days with Office 365 for Educators – Day 7

Calendars are often under-utilized in organizations. Many still prefer to keep a hardcopy calendar in a physical notebook. Breaking this habit, like any habit, takes time and determination. But most of all, you need to have a reason to go digital.



The biggest reason to use a digital calendar, besides keeping organized, has to do with the scheduling and collaboration possibilities within Office 365. When you need to schedule a meeting with another person (or group of people) you often begin the process of calendar tag...

“Will this date and time work for you? No, how about this date and time, etc….”

If you set free and busy times on your calendar others will at least know times when you are available. You can mark your calendar entries private so others do not see the details if you prefer. There are also sharing features available if you work with a group of individuals that need to know your schedule, or for you to know theirs.


If you begin to take advantage of the digital possibilities for online communication within Office 365 your calendar will become an important tool for your productivity. This is not readily apparent when you begin using Office 365 but the more you use it for communication the more valuable your calendar will become. 

You can setup and invite people to a meeting just like you would an appointment. The meetings can be face-to-face (F2F) or 100 percent online. Because you can use the Office 365 directory to search for invitees Office 365 makes it easier to schedule meetings. Office 365 even has a handy Scheduling Assistant that will bring up the free and busy times of people you are trying to invite to a meeting to help you find an open time.

There are many options to discover when using a digital calendar. The link below is an overview about Office 365 Calendar with more detailed information.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-suite-help/calendar-overview-HA102824447.aspx

I will be posting additional information in upcoming posts about some new and exciting communication possibilities. Stay tuned.

Keep on Learning,
Tom Grissom, Ph.D.

@tomgrissom


http://eiu.edu/itc
Senin, 22 September 2014
Day 6 – People, OWA Contacts

Day 6 – People, OWA Contacts

09/22/2014

30 Days with Office 365 for Educators – Day 6

As you begin to explore Office 365 you may have heard others talk about “OWA” (pronounced Oh Wuh), this is the technical slang term for the Office Web App. The Office Web App is much improved and for the majority of people will offer most of the features you need without connecting to the individual Desktop Outlook Client for basic email services.

The advantage of OWA is that everything is browser based. This means you can access your email (and other Office 365 apps) from any computer with an Internet connection. You can also access ALL of your Contact information once signed into Office 365.

Contacts are accessed from the People menu available from the blue bar at the top of the browser window.


Contacts are one of the features that can be very helpful for busy educators. If you take the time to organize individual contacts and group contacts upfront you are setting yourself up to take advantage of some time saving features in Office 365. If you are migrating from another email system your contacts may be pulled in automatically depending upon the technical setup and conversion process. 

I recommend adding individual contacts for the people that you regularly correspond with. There are many features in Office 365 to help make you become more productive when corresponding with others such as Instant Messaging, Lync for video conferencing, SharePoint, Yammer for social media, and calendar scheduling.



Adding a contact record is easy and helps with future correspondence with individuals in the future.


Sending out bulk emails to your class is made much easier if you setup a Group Contact List. 

Give some thought to your naming convention as your Contact List is sorted alphabetically. Group contacts are intermixed with individual contacts. I like to put the semester and year first, followed by class name, and finally teacher name. Example: (Fall 2014 – 3rd Hour Science Class – Grissom) 

If your school has standard course numbers you may want to use the course/section number first for your Group Contact name so it is alphabetized by course. Example: (EDU2022-001 FA2014 Grissom) The choice is up to you but having a system will help keep things straight over time. Because you will be using your contact list over time, you will need to periodically update and delete old entries that are no longer needed.

Putting the semester and year in the contact name will help you in the future as you teach the same class next year but with a different group of students. Using this convention all the Fall courses you teach will be under the letter F in your Contact List. Also notice that the individual contact is represented by a single person icon and the Group Contact is represented by 3 person icon. See an example below from a demo account I setup (click to enlarge image, press BACK to return):



You do not have to use my system as it certainly is not the only way to do this. Feel free to vary to fit your needs accordingly. Getting an organized system up front however will pay big dividends down the road.

If you are setting up a new Office 365 account take some time to organize your contacts, it will make future Office 365 communications much easier.


Keep on Learning,
Tom Grissom, Ph.D.

@tomgrissom

http://eiu.edu/itc
Jumat, 19 September 2014
Day 5 – About Me: View and Edit Your Office 365 Profile

Day 5 – About Me: View and Edit Your Office 365 Profile

09/19/2014

30 Days with Office 365 for Educators – Day 5

When others receive an email or other correspondence from you within Office 365 the recipients will see your account profile picture. Office 365 users are encouraged to select a photo and to personalize account information rather than leave a blank image.

Think of your profile page as your electronic business card. Because many of us are increasingly working online your profile should represent who you are professionally and communicate your specialties and interests.

When you get your new account it is important to customize the “About Me” page as this is the source for your photo and contact information others will see within Office 365. It is also important to keep it up-to-date. 

(Click on image below to enlarge, press BACK to Return to this page)


You are encouraged to select a photo that is representative of yourself as a professional. Remember, other Office 365 users will see this photo and begin to associate it with you when you have online correspondence so select something appropriate and professional. Some people are more camera shy than others and prefer to use a picture of their children/grandchildren (with parental permission), pets, or hobbies/interests.

Because some are camera shy and/or concerned with privacy issues many choose to use an “avatar” that is a personification as their About Me photo. Below is a link to an older 2011 article that offers advice about what to consider when selecting an avatar profile picture.

Avatar: Putting Your Best Face Forward

https://about.yammer.com/yammer-blog/avatar/

The other nice thing about an avatar is that it can shave off a few years and pounds from your physique if strategically selected! 

When you work with someone exclusively online we tend to imagine what they look like in real life and are often surprised by our preconceptions if we ever do get the chance to meet face-to-face. For workers that correspond with you exclusively online your profile photo is the only representation they may have of you. 

Another thing to consider about avatar use is that you may be unrecognizable to others in your organization. The article above mentions someone standing in a lunch line at the company and had no idea the person standing next to them was someone they regularly corresponded with online but did not recognize them.

Do give some thought about how you want to be represented online and choose your profile picture accordingly.

I have found different recommendations about the size to use for your Office 365 profile picture. Many recommend 100 x 100 pixels but I found this a bit small so I made my Office 365 avatar image 300 x 300 pixels.  It is also recommended to use either the .jpg or .png format for profile images.

View and Edit your Profile:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-server-help/view-and-edit-your-profile-HA102785967.aspx?CTT=1

I have also found recommendations that the profile picture cannot be larger than 30KB in size for Lync Online:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/communicator-help/prepare-a-picture-for-lync-online-HA102145819.aspx

To change your Office 365 photo simply click on the photo image located in the upper-right corner next to the Gear icon. Next select “About Me” then select “Edit your profile” You will see an option to “Change your photo” From there you can browse to select your About Me profile picture of your choice using the recommendations above.


(Click on image above to enlarge, press BACK to Return to this page)

You can additionally fill in your other contact information including phone and fax numbers, direct reports, etc...

Some of the About Me information is being pulled from your organizations directory information and therefore you cannot change it. This was true for me in that I cannot change my first name that others see in my About Me profile. I was one of those individuals named after their father but go by my middle name.

I cannot change my directory official name so what I did was put my name as Gary (Tom) Grissom, Ph.D. under the About Me description field so others looking for me will see it there and recognize that this account as mine.

The About Me page is an important page to setup for new users of Office 365. Be sure to take some time and fill in the information so others will be able recognize your presence online in the way you want to be represented.

Keep on Learning,
Tom Grissom, Ph.D.

@tomgrissom
http://eiu.edu/itc
Kamis, 18 September 2014
Day 4 - Outlook Web App Reading Pane

Day 4 - Outlook Web App Reading Pane

09/18/2014

30 Days with Office 365 for Educators - Day 4

One of the first questions I get from many new Office 365 users is how they can change the view of the Reading Pane. This may seem like a minor detail but people are creatures of habit. If you have been using an email program that has had the reading pane at the bottom, you may not like the default choice of having the reading pane to the right side of the screen for new Office 365 accounts.

Personally it doesn’t really bother me one way or the other but for some this is a big deal. Fortunately, this is an easy change.
First, make sure you are in the Outlook Web App. By default new accounts will have the email message contents displayed to the right.
If you want to change the Outlook Web App reading pane to the bottom, click on the Gear icon, select Display Settings. Under Display Settings select Reading Pane and under Layout select “Show reading pane at bottom”

Finally, if you want the reading pane at the bottom for all your email be sure to check the box at the bottom of the screen that says “Apply to All Folders” and make sure you click OK to lock in the changes.

That’s it, easy.

Keep on Learning,
Tom Grissom, Ph.D.
@tomgrissom

http://eiu.edu/itc 
Rabu, 17 September 2014
Day 3 – Outlook Web App for Email

Day 3 – Outlook Web App for Email

09/17/2014

30 Days with Office 365 for Educators – Day 3

For most of us email is a routine part of our day.

Office 365 offers the Outlook Web App as the default way to access email. I mentioned yesterday that many users of Office 365 will change the default Start Screen to log in directly to Outlook because we spend so much of our time there. Just remember that Office 365 is so much more than email.


The term Outlook can get confusing as it is used by Microsoft in different ways.  There is the outlook.com website that is used to serve the free Office Online products for individuals using a Microsoft account. There is also a full version of the Outlook Client that is part of the familiar Microsoft Office Suite of applications.

The full Outlook Client requires installation on individual computers and additional setup to use with Office 365. The Outlook Client offers a full-featured set of functions for power users that are not available in the web app. While you can use the Outlook Client to connect to your Office 365 account the Outlook Client is beyond the scope of this blog post. Perhaps in later posts I will have more to say about the full-featured Outlook Client and Office 365.

For this post I will concentrate on the Outlook Web App to keep things simple. When you select the Outlook icon in Office 365 you will be taken to the Outlook Web App.
Simple can be good. The Outlook Web App, as the name implies, requires an Internet connection and a modern browser to utilize, that's it. The main benefit of this approach is that it allows you to easily be a “digital nomad” and use any computer that is connected to the Internet to log in to your Office 365 account. Once logged in you use the Outlook Web App interface to access your email.

Relying upon the cloud also reduces support costs because IT personnel do not have to individually install and manage a client on every single computer. This is a major reason why cloud computing services like Office 365 are gaining traction in many organizations, including EIU.

The Outlook Web App does not require any special client software to be loaded on the computer you use. Simply log in to your Office 365 account, select Outlook, and you are using your email. The downside is that if you do not have Internet access you cannot get to your email unlike the full-featured Outlook Client that stores a local copy of emails to the PC.


Office 365 comes with a 99.9% uptime guarantee so it is rare that you will run into a problem accessing Office 365. When downtime does occur it is usually short-lived.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/business/office-365-for-businesssupport-options-FX103843554.aspx

Because you are using Office 365 in the cloud it is important that you get in the habit of ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS SIGNING OUT OF YOUR ACCOUNT when you are finished. Always Sign Out and close the browser. This is particularly important at the university where faculty, staff, and students often use shared classroom/lab computers.



To Sign Out of your Office 365 account select the picture icon located in the upper-right corner of the blue task bar and select Sign Out.

Keep on Learning,

Tom Grissom, Ph.D.
@tomgrissom

http://eiu.edu/itc
Selasa, 16 September 2014
Day 2 - Setting the Office 365 Start Screen

Day 2 - Setting the Office 365 Start Screen

09/16/2014

30 Days with Office 365 for Educators - Day 2

Yesterday, I mentioned that I had asked some students about how they were currently using Office 365. To my surprise the vast majority were only using Office 365 for email.

Office 365 is so much more than email!

I think I know why many students think of Office 365 as email and it has to do with the default choice for the Office 365 Start Screen when you first login. Fortunately, users have the ability to set the default Office 365 Start Screen for the way they prefer to work.

When a new account is created there is an option to display the main Office 365 Start Screen for two weeks. After two weeks it will change to go directly to the Outlook Web App for email based upon your organizations Office 365 Site Administrator settings. Since many of our students were not here over the summer they may have missed the introductory Office 365 Start Screen.

If you are using Office 365 solely for email then selecting Outlook as the default Start Screen makes a lot sense and avoids an extra mouse-click to get to the Outlook Web App. However, if you stay in the Outlook Web App for email all day long you may never get to discover the many other features Office 365 offers.

I recommend setting the default Start Screen to the Office 365 home page and not using Outlook as the default for new users. I would keep the Office 365 Start Screen as the default at least until you feel comfortable with navigating to the other features of Office 365. If you prefer going straight to Outlook as your default Start Screen later that is fine as long as you are aware of the other possibilities that Office 365 offers.

Below is an image of the Office 365 Home Page Start Screen:
(click on images to enlarge, press BACK to return to this page)


The Office 365 home page clearly displays many of the other features of Office 365 including: Outlook, Calendar, People, Newsfeed, OneDrive, Sites, Tasks, Word Online, Excel Online, PowerPoint Online, and OneNote Online.

To change the opening Start Screen of Office 365 go to the Gear icon in the upper-right corner, select Office 365 Settings. 

Next go to the Start Screen option and you will be given a pull-down Menu with the choices for your preferred Office 365 Start Screen at login. Be sure to SAVE when you have made your selection.


Note: There are alternative ways to get to the other Office 365 features (blue bar across the top) even when using the Outlook Web App but these are not as in-your-face as the Office 365 Start Screen. Once familiar with the features you can easily change back to the Outlook Start Screen as your default if you prefer.


Another tip, if you do use Outlook as the default Office 365 Start Screen you can click on the Office 365 logo located in the upper-left corner of the blue bar and you will go to the Office 365 Start Screen.

I generally do not customize my apps much but there are a few settings that will help your workflow and are worth changing to improve your productivity. There is always a time period of adjustment and discovery for any new app so take some time to explore.

Keep on Learning,

Tom Grissom, Ph.D.
@tomgrissom

http://eiu.edu/itc
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