We’ve been on a journey at Microsoft to empower every student to create the world of tomorrow through delivering technology that offers limitless learning. In classrooms around the world, we have seen the empowerment that comes with increased reading and language skills when students have personalized tools for learning. We’ve seen imaginative problem-solving skills come to life through coding and STEM. And, we’ve seen how new worlds can open up for students when their creativity is sparked with immersive 3D and mixed reality experiences. Teachers are some of our greatest heroes and we’re on a mission to save them time with integrated planning tools, a digital hub for collaboration for easily finding and distributing content, and rich data and analytics tools to measure each student’s progress and help them stay on track.

Of course, this technology can best serve our schools when delivered on the best devices. We believe these devices should offer innovative capabilities, while also helping schools make the most of class time with security and reliability they can trust. We’ve worked hard to offer more affordable, easy-to-manage devices so schools can stretch their budgets and set up a classroom in under an hour.

Today, Futuresource’s quarterly report validated the feedback we’ve been hearing from the education community in the last year. We’re excited to see the worldwide education market’s 15 percent growth year-over-year. It’s fantastic that more students than ever are able to learn with the latest technology.

We’re also particularly proud to see more and more schools choosing Windows.

In K-12 schools in the US in the last year, Windows device share grew 4.3 percent on devices under $300 and 8.2 percent on devices over $300, as more and more schools are choosing Windows over competitive offerings.

Globally, we also saw large sales increases in markets like India and Argentina, where hundreds of thousands of students will soon be unlocking limitless learning potential on new Windows devices.

On Windows PCs*, schools can get important features that help students learn like touch, inking, and 3D, on devices built to run Office – the productivity software most frequently used in today’s workplace with skills required on more than 80 percent of current job listings. This combination of affordability and functionality – on a platform students will never outgrow – makes Windows the most complete and powerful ecosystem for schools.

And schools have more amazing choices than ever before, with affordable Windows 10 PCs like the Lenovo N22 and HP Stream 11 offering industry-leading security, management, and creativity tools, without the compromises of our competitors. I love seeing how schools like Eltham High School in Australia are using Windows 10 devices and Office 365 to build students’ digital literacy skills and teach new ways to work.

We are seeing schools choose other Microsoft Education services to help their students succeed, including:

• On Windows, students can use software for the classroom like Minecraft: Education Edition which just reached more than 2 million licensees and in partnership with Hour of Code, has taught nearly 70 million people around the world the basics of coding.
• In just a few months since the new school year began, nearly 10 million new student notebooks have been created in OneNote and Teams for the classroom is helping more classrooms go paperless and give even the quietest students in the classroom a voice.
• For the majority of classrooms around the world who have students with learning differences, Learning Tools is built into our software for no additional charge, and we are seeing test scores increase by 10 percent in some early studies.
• We are also seeing educators use our software to build critical social and emotional skills for students – skills that will continue to grow in importance as future jobs require more collaboration and social savvy. Last week I joined our annual Skype-a-Thon and saw firsthand what 91 percent of teachers already know – that Skype is a powerful tool to teach compassion and empathy by connecting classrooms around the world to learn from one another.
• With the recently released Windows 10 Fall Creators Update and the release of affordable Windows Mixed Reality Headsets, we’re enabling all new ways for students and teachers to learn and teach. With Windows 10 and more immersive mixed reality experiences on a PC or headset, students can explore the surface of Mars or dissect the human body without ever leaving the classroom. The potential for mixed reality in education is endless, and we can’t wait to see what innovative educators like Doug Bergman will do next.

We are energized by the number of students who are embracing Microsoft Education technologies for limitless learning. Ultimately, our greatest goal is to empower students to reach their full potential. At Microsoft, it’s our greatest opportunity to help move our world forward and we are committed to delivering innovation for all students, everywhere.

*PC references are non-desktop form factors only.

Source: Windows Blog
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