The Hololens Is Here...

Your friendly EdTech department recently acquired a Microsoft Hololens virtual reality device. Basically, it's a Windows 10 computer that you wear on your head and use to interact with the real world.

Microsoft adds, "Windows 10 is the first platform to support holographic computing with APIs that enable gaze, gesture, voice, and environmental understanding on a self-contained device. With Windows 10, holograms are Universal Windows platform apps, and all Universal Windows apps can be made to work as holograms. Holograms in Windows 10 will lead to entirely new ways for us to communicate, create, and explore."

Liz Young enters augmented reality

We are interested in how this technology could be integrated into the educational realm.  As such, we will be actively seeking interested faculty and student partners to help develop applications for use at LC.  Some ideas we've had include virtual tours, virtual 3D modeling, and smart-classroom interactivity.  

If you are a student and are interested in earning a paycheck by developing for the Hololens, please contact Educational Technology at edtech@lclark.edu. 

Office 365 for Students and Faculty

Microsoft Office 365 greatly expands the ability of students and faculty to collaborate and share documents. Now students and faculty can get Office Online for free through Microsoft's Office 365 Education program. In addition, Lewis & Clark's Microsoft Campus Agreement permits students, staff and faculty to download full versions on up to 5 personally owned Mac or Windows computers. 

This is for personally owned machines only. If you have questions about Office on institutionally owned machines, please contact the Service Desk.

To get started:

1. Go to the Microsoft Office in Education website.
2. Click on the appropriate tab (Students or Teachers) and click the greet button, Get started for free.  You'll be prompted for your school email address. Once you enter it, you'll be sent an email with instructions on how to activate your Office 365 Education account.

Use Microsoft Office to Edit Documents Saved in Google Drive

As of today, Google has introduced a plugin for Microsoft Office allowing users to use Word, Excel, and PowerPoint to open their Office files stored in Drive. Previously, Google Docs allowed users to save Office Documents (as well as most other file formats) to Drive, but editing required users to convert the document to Google Drive format, which sometimes led to confusion and multiple versions of the same document.

• You may save files in Office directly to Google Drive by selecting File > Save As and selecting Google Drive as the destination.
• Using Microsoft Office to edit Office documents shared with you through Google Drive is now quicker and easier.
• Users who prefer Google Drive 

Google Docs opened using the Microsoft Office interface will still open in your browser, but should you want to add Office features to your Google Docs, you can download as a Microsoft Office document, open in an Office program. Microsoft Office integration does not yet extend to Office for Mac, nor is it a part of Office Online (which allows storage to Dropbox and Microsoft OneDrive), but the Microsoft Office desktop plugin should be a must-have for Office devotees.
Further Reading:

• Google Drive Blog: Introducing the Google Drive plug-in for Microsoft Office
• 5 Apps That Help Microsoft Office and Google Apps Play Nice Together