Microsoft UK Education - Software Licensing - Free Stuff

Look below for information on student purchases of software, and use of software at home for staff.

• More free training resources and materials for teachers
• Innovative Teachers Network
• Learning Essentials
• Sky Drive
• Maths add in for Word
• Microsoft Robotics Studio
• PhotoStory 3

As part of the Partners in Learning programme, we develop training and curriculum materials for teachers, which are then made available free of charge. It includes a range of professional development resources, curriculum and learning materials designed to support teachers in developing further skills, from ICT and using ICT in the delivery of their lessons to investigating new approaches to teaching and learning.

The Innovative Teachers Network is a secure, online portal where educators can come together to share classroom success based on high-quality professional learning resources and teacher-driven content. Within the community, teachers will have access to a library of resources including articles, tutorials, learning materials and samples of content made available free by Microsoft and its content partners. Members can use collaboration tools to engage in communities of practice and will be able to access a personal thinking and working space within the network, built easily with 'MySite' tools.

Visit the Innovative Teachers Network

A free add-on for Office, that contains a set of tools to help teachers and students. Things like curriculum templates, and toolbars for Word, PowerPoint and Excel to help students and teachers get started on projects and stay organised during them. Students get tools, templates and tutorials to help them get past "Blank Page Syndrome", language tools and templates, and tips and tutorials for managing projects and producing high-quality work.

Visit Microsoft Learning Essentials

Sky Drive is an online service that gives you 5GB of free storage on the Internet. The main thing I love about it is its simplicity - by simply dragging files onto SkyDrive, I can store them in my own personal folder, or share them with others (which is exactly what I do when I share presentations etc on this blog). No more memory sticks! It's much easier for staff and students to be able to transfer files between home and school, or between different computers on and off your school network.

Get access to your Skydrive here

Free Maths add in for Word, which helps students to write complex equations and adds graphing tools to the Word 2007 ribbon.

Download the Maths add in for Word for free from here

Get busy with robots in your D&T lessons, with the free Microsoft Robotics Studio. It's built by a team that are seeking new ways to engage students with the idea that programming is cool and valuable (and if current predictions come true, we're going to have a shortage of suitably skilled people in the workforce very soon!)

Download the Microsoft Robotics Studio for free from here

Try PhotoStory 3, which is free and brilliant. It helps you to co-ordinate images and music, and turn it into an impressive slideshow, with special effects, narration, titles, captions, and then publish them for viewing on a computer or TV.

Download PhotoStory 3 for free from here