Click here to watch the most recent webinar in the series.
Throughout the past year, the Microsoft Education on-demand webinar series, Teaching Happiness, has been exploring the role of educators in preparing students for success after high school graduation.
The
ongoing series produced by Microsoft Education and featuring prominent experts
looks beyond helping students get into college and land jobs and examines the
skills that empower student to lead happy and fulfilling lives. We take a close
look at building social and emotional learning skills in students and how to
use free
tech tools and other Microsoft Education resources to encourage communication,
collaboration, creative thinking and problem solving.
Some
of the topics we’ve explored so far in the series include:
Developing Grit, how teachers can help students develop grit and perseverance through extended learning challenges and tap into student passions to increase student agency.
The Power of Free Play, how building relationships in the classroom is critical, why bringing emotions into the learning process is a good idea, and how allowing tolerable stress into a child’s life can contribute to success.
Modern Mindfulness, the benefits associated with practicing mindfulness during the school day and tips for introducing it to children of all ages.
To kick off the new year, Microsoft Education’s own Mark
Sparvell sat down with best-selling author Shawn Achor to record a special,
two-part series discussing happiness as a precursor to success and how to
improve social and emotional learning in the classroom.
In the second part, Mark and Shawn are joined by Schaumburg, Ill. school superintendent Andy DuRoss to discuss how implementing Happiness Advantage principles can help students become happier and more productive and can improve school culture and climate.
You can find the entire Teaching Happiness series here.
Photography has taken her all over the world – to six of the seven continents, from Western Australia to Sumatra to the Galapagos. It’s even brought her face to face with the wildlife she so loves to capture on camera – sometimes, too close, as when a bear charged her in Alaska.
One of her favorite places is Indonesia, where she had a close encounter – in a good way – with whale sharks.
“I was swimming alone with five or six of them at a time for hours. And it was just unbelievable,” she says. “It was really wonderful though, because I got this one shot. With my background in mathematics, I’ve always been really drawn to pattern and light. I noticed that light was defracting around my body. And I could control these lines and I wanted the lines to meet the spots of the whale sharks. And I got this one shot where everything lined up and I looked at it in my accommodation that night and I just started crying. I was like, ‘Yes, this is it.’”
Award-winning whale shark photo. (Photo by Kristi Odom)
That photo ended up winning a Nature’s Best Photography award and the Smithsonian exhibited it for a year starting October 2017.
“Here I am, this shy, introverted person that all of a sudden had an image that’s seen in a museum that has almost 10 million visitors a year,” Odom says.
Now the introvert goes to conferences and speaks in front of thousands. She leads conservation-focused workshops. (This year, those will be in Bolivia, Kenya and New Zealand). Besides the Smithsonian, she’s had an image up in Times Square, on display at conferences like CES and Photoplus, and in various publications including Forbes, Outside magazine, People.com, Rollingstone.com, ABC news and Nikon.com. She’s also received more than 60 international photography awards, including two Nature’s Best Photography awards, 26 Fearless Photography Awards and over 30 awards from Wedding and Portrait Photographers International, earning the title of Master of WPPI.
And now she’s expanded her skillset by opening a new branch of her company, thanks to faster processors and graphics cards in laptops.
“I’ve just started doing video work over the last year and a half, and that’s because of the technology that’s now available. Currently my workstation is the ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo, and this laptop opens up so many possibilities,” she says. “I don’t need a big desktop to do my video editing. I can do it on the road, and I can have my timeline down at the bottom and yet have all this space to see the quality of my video. I can edit it and I don’t have to toggle back and forth between screens. Having a bigger area to be able to look at my photos and look at my videos and have everything else on this second monitor, it’s a game changer for creators on the road.”
For Odom, the second 4K monitor housed just above the keyboard makes video editing on the road “extremely accessible and doable.”
Two years ago, we announced an ambitious goal to become the leading enterprise cloud for B2B startups in the world. Called Microsoft for Startups, we launched a founder-first program that delivers the technology, go-to-market and community benefits needed to catalyze startup success.
Since then, the industry has seen tremendous growth among B2B tech startups. According to PitchBook, venture capitalists bet $30 billion on enterprise startups in 2019, surpassing consumer tech funding for the first time in a decade.
Microsoft for Startups has witnessed that momentum firsthand. Thousands of startups from more than 140 countries have connected their game-changing solutions to our enterprise customers. Startups active in our program are on pace to close more than $1 billion in new sales opportunities over the next year alone.
To celebrate tomorrow’s hyper-scale companies, we are expanding member benefits to include:
GitHub Enterprise: Starting today, all new and current startups in the program will receive access to GitHub Enterprise. GitHub Enterprise extends the flexibility and functionality of GitHub with features that simplify account administration and provide additional security, compliance and deployment controls as teams scale.
Microsoft Power Platform: In the coming months, all new and current startups will also receive access to Microsoft Power Platform which empowers organizations to analyze data, build solutions, automate processes and create virtual agents.
What lies ahead for Microsoft for Startups?
Like the early-stage founders we support, there are big things in the pipeline.
We are committed to:
– Listening to the needs of startup communities around the world and employing these insights to guide our program experience from events and education, to unique vertical tracks such as our Quantum or Autonomous Driving
– Extending our reach even deeper into communities of under-estimated founders and ensuring diverse voices are heard and championed.
– Providing open access to distribution channels including our commercial marketplaces (Azure Marketplace and AppSource), cloud solution providers (CSP), and our enterprise sales force, all positioned to empower startups with unparalleled growth opportunities.
But don’t take our word for it.
Here are a few of the incredible startups and organizations we’re working with. We’re so happy to call them partners and to be a part of their continued success.
“Element AI has progressed from a startup to an AI solutions provider that is helping organizations operationalize AI to drive business impact, led by fundamental research teams that are connected to the best academic ecosystems. We joined the Microsoft for Startups program to accelerate the commercialization of our AI products and solutions with customers around the world.”
– Omar Dhalla, Senior Vice President at Element AI
“Eagle Genomics now sells together with Microsoft — a relationship that has doubled the size of our platform business in the past year and cemented a major deal with Unilever.”
– Anthony Finbow: Chief Executive Officer, Eagle Genomics
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“Through the Microsoft for Startups program, we were able to connect with Microsoft’s vast partner ecosystem. We recently forged a global alliance with Arrow Electronics which allows us to deliver our IoT solutions to over 200,000 leading manufacturers and service providers.”
– Ron Rock, Microshare CEO and cofounder
“TechStars is the worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed, and our Global Network Partners — including Microsoft — are an important part of our network. Microsoft adds powerful industry expertise by offering hands-on mentorship, business development opportunities and access to resources that help accelerate our global startups across 150 countries. Microsoft for Startups provides a streamlined path for B2B startups to connect with the world’s leading enterprise companies and we congratulate them on their two-year anniversary.”
– Max Mead, SVP of Business Development
“Clobotics is headquartered in both Shanghai and Seattle, and our solution is aimed at Fortune 1000 enterprises The Microsoft for Startups program was instrumental in connecting us with global customers including Walmart, P&G and Coca-Cola.”
We all feel rusty returning to work after an absence, whether it’s maternity leave, a sabbatical or vacation. No matter the reason for being away, the return to work can be challenging.
From something as simple as remembering passwords and procedures, to meeting new colleagues, slipping back into a familiar rhythm of work takes time, and it can take a while for the cobwebs and nerves to clear.
Daniela Ekholm, like many returning employees, faced the challenge of finding her feet after returning to work. A business controller at Microsoft Finland, she bid farewell to her colleagues before going on maternity leave for 12 months.
While maternity, vacation and sick leave regulations differ from country to country, the feeling of anxiety when returning to work after a long absence is one that transcends borders. Returning to work can see a decrease in family and leisure time, while other reasons for trepidation can include a loss of confidence, or discovering that things have drastically changed in your absence.
While these feelings are natural, it’s also possible to view the return to work as an opportunity to approach things with a fresh, re-energized mindset – something that Daniela herself found out when she eventually stepped back through the doors of Microsoft’s Helsinki office.
A new colleague
Two weeks into her return, Daniela was informed that as part of Microsoft’s broader digital transformation, artificial intelligence (AI) would drastically enhance her day-to-day work. The news was, understandably, a surprise.
When I came back and the AI system was introduced, I was scared about it taking over my job, but also excited. Scared because almost a quarter of my work – the data, the formulas, the calculations – would be automated, but also excited at the opportunities it could provide.
Daniela’s reaction is a common one seen in employees dealing with the introduction of new technology. AI in particular, is often stigmatized as a tool that will cause disruption, but when introduced and implemented properly, it can transform the way people work, bolstering their existing skills and abilities, as opposed to purely taking over tasks.
Prior to AI’s introduction, Daniela’s role was centered around budgets and sales forecasting. It was an intense process, that saw her and her team focused on sales forecasts, often for three straight weeks, leaving no time for anything else.
“Our work involved lots of data gathering, copy and pasting into various reports, crazy amounts of Excel formulas and so on. It was very time consuming. Now, thanks to AI, the data we need is pulled in automatically – it’s much faster. The biggest benefit was how it gave me so much extra time to spend on other things that have a business impact.”
Freed from crunching numbers and creating forecasts, Daniela could focus on other things, including training sessions to help progress her existing role. “Finally, I was able to refresh my soft skills, which helped me improve the way I communicated my findings to other colleagues. Not only that, but the extra time that AI provided also meant that I could join meetings I previously didn’t have time for, strengthening my working relationships.”
A nurturing environment
Technology like AI doesn’t always guarantee a positive change. A large part of successful integration comes down to the culture of a workplace. A company with a culture that doesn’t support workers in using technology to augment their skills, or give them room to tackle challenges in new ways, is unlikely to see major benefits from adopting new technology. The responsibility to foster the right environment falls to the leadership.
“In many ways, a leader’s day-to-day life is more protected from these major shifts than those of many employees,” says Lynda Gratton, Professor of Management Practice at London Business School, in the MIT Sloan Review.
The complexity of a leader’s work makes positive augmentation rather than replacement the most likely outcome of technological innovation.
For Daniela, her manager’s support helped contribute to her smooth return: “My manager’s guidance was amazing, and there’s so much training and support available at Microsoft. Workplace culture is key, and I think Microsoft’s cultural transformation is the reason that the introduction and implementation of AI went so smoothly. It doesn’t matter how good new technology is – if you don’t have the right culture and leadership, you’re not going to be successful.”
A flexible future
Beyond technology, supporting the flexible needs of working professionals goes a long way in achieving a healthy work-life balance.
Since returning to work, Daniela has collaborated with her team – which is distributed across Europe – remotely. Using technology has given Daniela more time for personal development, as well as the flexibility to spend more time with her family.
“The members of my team are basically everywhere and that’s the great thing about the technology we have – you can live and work wherever you like, and you don’t have to move.”
Daniela is continuing her development at Microsoft, while discovering the adventures of balancing her professional and personal life: “AI is a tool that makes me better. It’s like a sparring partner, a foundation for me to improve and build upon.”
“Now that I’m a mother, I’m even more grateful for AI – I don’t have the same hectic peaks I had before. Flexible working means it’s easy for me to pick up my child from daycare too. I’m very happy and thankful for my work-life balance.”
A new season of You Can in :90 is here to show you how to further transform your classroom with Office 365 Education, a free resource for students and educators at eligible institutions. This latest video series offers quick tips on using Microsoft Education tools that can help take your teaching to the next level.
This latest playlist spotlights ways to help you and your colleagues collaborate with ease, save time when grading, and make your classroom more inclusive. Check it all out and be sure to read the other blogs You Can in 90 series here.
You can document the world around you with Office Lens!
Office Lens for iOS and Android now includes all the features you love from Immersive Reader, the powerful and popular learning tool that improves the readability of content. You can take photos of text anywhere and Office Lens will clean up the image and isolate the words, limiting distracting surroundings. Through Immersive Reader you can then change font size, highlight parts of speech, have the document read-aloud and so much more. You can even change the language of the text to any of the 60+ languages available. These accessibility features will help personalize learning for your students and empower them to succeed. Get Office Lens today and share this useful resource with your fellow teachers and students.
If you wanted to transfer a printed
spreadsheet into Excel, you’d have to deal with time consuming re-formatting
and entering all that information. No more. By using the Microsoft Excel app on
iOS or Android, you can now easily take a photo of the spreadsheet and the app
will handle transferring it over into an editable Excel document. This helpful
feature will save you time and make sharing and updating tables easier than
ever.
You can cultivate strong communication skills with Live Presentations in Powerpoint!
Microsoft PowerPoint presentations in your classroom are now more accessible and engaging thanks to Live Presentations. Students can use their personal devices to watch a presentation as it follows along with the teacher or student delivering it. The presenter’s actual spoken words will appear as text next to the slide so students can see as well as hear the important information. And of course, Microsoft aims to create an inclusive learning environment so that text can be translated instantly to the student’s preferred language. Presentations Live will also give users the ability to send emoji feedback as the lesson is happening so the teacher can see what their classroom is enjoying or when questions might arise. Check out more information about Live Presentations here.
Microsoft is proud to offer opportunities for teachers to connect and grow in a professional learning community. The Microsoft Educator Center is a digital hub where you can find content designed to improve your teaching and share resources with other teachers across the world. You can earn and share badges, build your transcript and grow your expertise. What you learn from the courses and quizzes on the hub can help translate into student success in your classroom. Check out the many resources on the Microsoft Education Center here.
You can assign and grade in Microsoft Teams with these 6 Tips!
Assigning and grading projects takes lots of
organization and time. But with Microsoft Teams, there’s a streamlined process
taking you from the start to the very end of an assignment. You can now assign
a project, see which students have viewed it or turned it in, leave feedback,
and score all in one place. You don’t even need to open up new browsers. Inside
Microsoft Teams you are able to read and score a student’s assignment and then
with one click move on to the next one, keeping you efficient and organized. Microsoft
Teams can reduce the time and chaos surrounding grading and increase success in
you and your students.
Immersive Reader is changing the way students and teachers are able to learn and communicate. And Microsoft is so happy to see that other companies are noticing and incorporating this beneficial learning tool into their products. Wakelet, Buncee, and Merge are just a few of the platforms where you can now engage with Immersive Reader. This tool helps improve the readability of content and support students and teachers with diverse learning needs, leading to more effective and personalized learning. We eagerly await all the other third-party platforms and products that will include Immersive Reader in the future! See more free Learning Tools available in Office 365 here.
You can create free screen recording in your browser with Microsoft Stream!
Microsoft Stream allows you to record and share videos with other members of your school community. You can choose exactly what to record and have the option to annotate the video. After recording, you can trim and edit with a variety of editing tools to make sure the video looks exactly the way you want. Microsoft Stream is web-based and makes sharing important information easier than ever. Give it a try!
You can use these four keyboard shortcuts in Windows 10!
There are many tips and tricks for Windows that can save you valuable time. In this video you’ll learn the keyboard shortcuts that will pull up the emoji keyboard, allow you to see more in a frame, take you to the Windows Ink workplace, and capture and add a screenshot right to your clipboard. For a full list of keyboard shortcuts that can make your Windows experience more efficient, check out this article.
Grading assignments usually takes a significant amount of time but with Microsoft Teams, you can be more efficient while still giving students the meaningful feedback they need. Through Microsoft Teams you can leave useful comments and feedback on student work without needing to open up any other applications. And you can easily see important information about a student assignment, like when it was viewed and turned in. You’ll also be able to work through assignments more quickly by using Rubric Grading. Just select the appropriate level of achievement that an assignment met, and the tool will calibrate points and help you assign the right grade to it. With all these Microsoft Teams features, you’ll be able to accurately and quickly get through your grading in no time.
By incorporating Microsoft Teams into your classroom, each student can access information in the style and language that is most conducive to each learner’s needs. Through Immersive Reader in Microsoft Teams, you can use the read-aloud feature for chat messages, posts and assignments and see the words highlighted as they are spoken. Students can access Immersive Reader, a powerful and popular learning tool that improves the readability of content, through their account and customize the text size, spacing and fonts. Explore Immersive Reader’s many features and share this resource with your students to create a more inclusive and accessible classroom.
Collaborating with your fellow teachers is such an important
part of growing professionally. We’ve made it easy to schedule and start
meetings right within the Microsoft Teams for Education app. During the meeting
you can deepen collaboration by recording the conversation, sharing notes and
sending files to the participants. Just remember Office 365 Education is free for
teachers and school leaders. All you have to do is sign
up here.
While most students would never plagiarize work, intentionally or unintentionally, it’s nice to have the option of checking. In Microsoft Teams for Education, your students will turn in their assignments to be checked through Turnitin. When reviewing student work, Turnitin will show you a percentage match between what students wrote and other sources online. You can click and see more about the report and send comments to students all within your Microsoft Teams app. Learn more about using Turnitin with Microsoft Teams here.
Looking for all of the You Can in :90 videos? Take a look at the full YouTube playlist here.
Have your own ideas for a You Can in :90 how-to video? Share them with us on Twitter directly by tagging @MicrosoftEDU.
Students and educators at eligible institutions can sign up for Office 365 Education for free, which will give you access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and now Microsoft Teams, plus additional classroom tools. All you need is a valid school email address. It’s not a trial—so get started today. And stay up to date with everything related to Microsoft EDU, including exciting events, quick tips and easy to use resources, by signing up for the Microsoft Educator Center monthly newsletter.
Among the most common and powerful attack vectors we have seen are those that exploit the daily tradeoff users make between security and productivity. Often, this can be as simple as a document hiding an exploit or a malicious link.
As an industry, we’re used to thinking of security and productivity in tension with each other. Security teams focus on blocking capabilities and reducing access to limit risk; users create workarounds or ignore policies to get their jobs done. Organizations may respond to increasing security threats by layering multiple security point solutions on top of each other, often increasing the complexity security teams manage while encouraging users to look for even more workarounds.
We don’t think this has to be the case.
Today, we‘re announcing two new Microsoft 365 capabilities that will help organizations stay both secure and productive at the same time. The power of these capabilities comes from the seamless integration between Windows 10, Office 365 ProPlus, and Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP). We previously gave a “sneak peak” at Ignite and are excited to share publicly now.
Safe Documents is now available in public preview, rolling out over the next few days
With Safe Documents, we’re bringing the power of the Intelligent Security Graph down to the desktop to verify that documents are safe at the endpoint itself.
Although Protected View helps secure documents originating outside the organization, too often users would exit this sandbox without great consideration and leave their networks vulnerable. Bringing a minimal trust approach to the Office 365 ProPlus clients, Safe Documents automatically checks the document against known risks and threat profiles before allowing to open. Users are not asked to decide on their own whether a document can be trusted; they can simply focus on the work to be done. This seamless connection between the desktop and the cloud both simplifies the user workflow and helps to keep the network more secure.
Application Guard integration with Office 365 ProPlus is significantly expanding its private preview
With Application Guard, we created a micro-VM based on the same technology that powers the Azure cloud and brought it down to the desktop. We first introduced Application Guard in Edge, bringing hardware-level containerization to the browser.
Now integrated with Office 365 ProPlus, Application Guard provides an upgrade to Protected View that helps desktop users to stay safer and more productive with container-based isolation for Office applications. Application Guard’s enforcement—with a new instance of Windows 10 and separate copy of the kernel—completely blocks access to memory, local storage, installed applications, corporate network endpoints, or any other resources of interest to the attacker.
That means Office users will be able to open an untrusted Word, Excel, or PowerPoint file in a virtualized container. Users can stay productive—make edits, print, and save changes—all while protected with hardware-level security. If the untrusted file is malicious, the attack is contained while user data and identity remains untouched. When a user wants to trust a document to save on the network or start collaborating in real-time, Safe Documents will first check to help ensure the document is safe.
Moreover, both Safe Documents and Application Guard connect to the Microsoft Security Center, providing admins with advanced visibility and response capabilities including alerts, logs, confirmation the attack was contained, and the ability to see and act on similar threats across the enterprise.
Truly Microsoft 365 capabilities
With these new capabilities, we brought together some of the best of Windows 10, Office 365 ProPlus, and Microsoft Defender ATP to help organizations stay both secure and productive. This integration also means that organizations can deploy these features with the change of a setting and manage with existing tools. And with every malicious attack contained, the entire Intelligent Security Graph becomes stronger, benefiting everyone.
Both Safe Documents and Application Guard will be available to customers with Microsoft 365 E5 and E5 Security. We encourage customers to start testing Safe Documents in their environment as it comes available (initially available for tenants in the U.S., U.K., and European Union), and to learn more about Safe Documents and Application Guard.
The highly anticipated XLOOKUP function in Excel is generally available for all users across Windows, Mac, and Excel on the web. XLOOKUP is the successor to the iconic VLOOKUP function, which has been one of the most used functions in Excel.
XLOOKUP helps users find what they need more efficiently with fewer limitations, from being able to look up a value vertically and horizontally (and to the left!) to supporting column insertions and deletions and more.
Previously, we released XLOOKUP to Office Insiders and received lots of excitement and feedback on the feature. While you can still perform VLOOKUP functions, we encourage you to try XLOOKUP for better and faster results. For more information on XLOOKUP, read our help article and our previous announcement of XLOOKUP’s Office Insiders release.
The U.S. Air Force is breaking the glass as a leader in harnessing the power of cloud, rapidly rolling out modern services to enable airmen to advance the mission through more effective collaboration. As part of their digital transformation journey to achieve global access, persistence, and awareness for the 21st century, the U.S. Air Force is deploying targeted workloads that allow airmen to focus on their missions rather than spending time managing IT infrastructure.
Mission focus and efficiency
A key part of their digital transformation strategy is leveraging the technology industry’s capabilities for cloud infrastructure, allowing the U.S. Air Force to re-tool and refocus their resources. As part of our collaboration with the U.S. Air Force, we’re deeply aligned on a joint mission to drive IT enhancements that enable airmen to be more efficient and effective. Building out the capabilities for this targeted mission focus started with planning for how the organization will manage their data in the future, deploying core functions such as Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive and other capabilities delivered through the Microsoft 365 suite of productivity applications.
Improved total cost of ownership
The rapid deployment of cloud tools at this scale is made possible by the U.S. Air Force’s leadership in building the multi-cloud factory Cloud One, a migration center of excellence designed as a foundation for future innovation. Leapfrogging more traditional cloud migration strategies with a Platform as a service (PaaS)-first approach and secure systems boundary, Cloud One enables the U.S. Air Force to rapidly transform legacy systems into modern apps and exploit the agility, scale and global presence afforded by the cloud.
William Marion, U.S. Air Force Deputy Chief Information Officer, says that Cloud One is the U.S. Air Force’s “path to the cloud, but further it is fundamental to the Digital Air Force and the future of Multi-Domain Operations. It enables our teams to achieve unprecedented cost efficiencies and productivity through automation, agile software development at scale, and a streamlined process for moving applications to production.”
Cloud One has recalibrated what internal teams expect from a cloud migration, providing all the foundational cloud capabilities including networking, monitoring, access control and identity. In addition, apps deployed to Azure Government inherit the platform’s security controls by design, further reducing operational costs and freeing up resources to focus on the mission.
Focus on security and compliance
The U.S. Air Force understands the importance of a dynamic, foundational risk management framework that can react quickly to cyber-attacks and changes in the threat landscape. With Microsoft 365 Government and Azure Government, they can obtain the scale and performance of modern cloud tools while maintaining compliance with the strict compliance requirements of the Department of Defense (DoD), including DoD Impact Level 5.
Next-generation collaboration
One of the primary goals of the U.S. Air Force is to empower airmen to collaborate and execute their missions with modern technology best practices. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Enterprise IT and Cyber Infrastructure Division (AFLCMC/HNI) at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts has planned, tested and started deployment of Microsoft Teams to improve project management and teamwork. With geographically separated organizations, Teams will streamline collaboration and communication between airmen across the globe.
The massive scale of this U.S. Air Force organization – wide rollout requires massive change management – so we’ve developed a joint plan with focused training, deployment and service adoption to drive mission-focused use cases. The plan includes learning events with modern modalities, creating consumable resources to enable airmen to learn more about how Teams can work for their unit. This includes product immersion events, ask-me-anything events, and video content so airmen can learn efficiently from wherever they are in the world.
These advances in productivity, cloud acceleration, and collaboration are a result of ongoing teamwork across the 16th Air Force, the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, and the Defense Information Systems Agency. As thought leaders and innovators, these organization have planned, built and deployed modern IT experiences at massive scale using Microsoft 365 Government and Azure Government, enabling airmen to continue to fly, fight and win in air, space and cyberspace.
Gaming can take you on epic
adventures, forge life-long friendships, and offer opportunities for creativity
and fun each time you play. However, it’s important to be aware of the safety
tools and settings available when gaming online.
At Xbox, we believe that gaming
should be inclusive of all, accessible to all, and safe for all. One way in
which we pursue this mission is by empowering a community of players, the Xbox
Ambassadors, to
share their Xbox expertise and connect with fellow gamers and to help make gaming
fun for everyone.
In support of global Safer Internet Day 2020, we gathered the top five tips from the Xbox Ambassadors’ community to help you stay safe while gaming online. Here are a few safety tips to keep in mind.
Safety Tip #1: Use Family Settings for Child and Teen Accounts
“The Microsoft family account offers many ways to customize the gaming experience to fit with your and your child’s online needs. From the weekly email detailing activity, to protections against unwanted purchases, family settings on Xbox is a great tool in any parents’ arsenal.” — Pandy Yato, Xbox Ambassador
“The best
feature is the reporting Microsoft provides. It tells you what your child has
been up to on both Xbox and PC, including which games and applications they
have used and for how long.” — ONI
Assassin, Xbox Ambassador
“Use family settings on Xbox and privacy settings available, and
consider playing some games together with your child.” — oO HyPeR C Oo, Xbox Ambassador
“For
parents, it’s important that they know exactly what their child is playing and
who they are playing with. It’s also important to educate children about being
smart online and to set time limits/ground rules when it comes to gaming. This
will help give children a better balance in their daily life.” — MissDeusGeek, Xbox Ambassador
“Check the age ratings on games. Age ratings
are there to help make sure you can enjoy games without seeing or hearing
things that may upset or disturb you. Here’s a handy link: Age Ratings” — oO HyPeR C Oo, Xbox Ambassador
“Staying
safe while playing games online is absolutely important. The best way to stay
safe, in my opinion, is to set your privacy and security settings to the
highest level, and do not give out any personal details to anyone online.” — MissDeusGeek, Xbox Ambassador
“Privacy settings can help keep you
safe online. You can limit what others see and whether to allow others to
communicate with you or not. Also, keep your personal information safe and
private — do not share it with others. Your personal information is valuable to
fraudsters and scammers.” — oO HyPeR C Oo, Xbox Ambassador
“Fishing is
fun, but phishing leads to problems. While some people may enjoy fishing,
phishing is where an unwelcome person tries to gain access to your account by
pretending to be a person in a position of authority (e.g. pretending to be a
Microsoft employee). Remember, Microsoft will never ask for your password. To
help prevent phishing, consider adding two-factor authentication (2FA) to your account to prevent
malicious activity.” — ONI Assassin, Xbox
Ambassador
“Keep your Wi-Fi secure. Wi-Fi is an easy way to access your private information. Use a VPN when gaming on the go on open networks. Keep your home Wi-Fi password secure and create a guest network that limits access to other computers on your network.” — FourNinjaToads, Xbox Ambassador
“Don’t believe everything you hear or read on the Internet. If it sounds too good to be true, especially when it comes to in-game purchases, competitions, and perks such as in-game items (e.g. skins, weapons etc.), it most likely is.” — MissDeusGeek, Xbox Ambassador
Safety Tips #4: Take Breaks
“This is an important tip, which most people forget: take regular breaks. Safety isn’t just limited to your online presence, but also your physical health. Take a few minutes to stretch and step away from gaming.”— ONI Assassin, Xbox Ambassador
“Limiting screen time can help, it gives your eyes time to rest (eye strain is a real thing) and be sure to grab a bite to eat, have a drink, and spend some time with loved ones. Your games are going nowhere and those who are the closest to you matter (trust me).” — oO HyPeR C Oo, Xbox Ambassador
Safety Tip #5: Have Fun in the way That is Right for You
“If you don’t feel comfortable
talking to strangers while playing together, you don’t have to. Many games now
have in game features to allow you to communicate with team members without
having to ‘voice chat,’ for example.” — MissDeusGeek,
Xbox Ambassador
“If you come across a message or player that breaks the community standards for Xbox, do not hesitate to report and/or block them. This will prevent them contacting you further and from matching with them in the future. Here’s a handy link: block/mute/report other players.” — oO HyPeR C Oo, Xbox Ambassador
Putting “Tips” into Action
Safer Internet Day aims to create a safer
and better internet where everyone is empowered to use technology responsibly,
respectfully, critically, and creatively. Not only is it a reminder to continue
to make safe, welcoming, inclusive gaming a priority, but it’s also a call to
action for everyone to practice safe online habits in every experience.
Today, we challenge
you to share your online safety tips with your community. Whether that’s a
tweet, or simply a conversation with a friend, inform someone about how they
can help make gaming safe for all.
To learn
more about safety tools and settings available on Xbox, visit Xbox.com/for-everyone.
At left Gladys Hall in 1939; at right, Gladys Hall and Sarah Bond in 1999.
Gladys Hall was born on March 19, 1925, in Atmore, Alabama, at a time when her prospects and those of her family were inextricably linked to the circumstances of her birth and race. Her father worked tirelessly to provide for his family. He ran a dry cleaning business from their home, where Gladys started working as a girl. She would meet customers out at their cars and carry their clothes up the hilly driveway back into the shop. One routine Saturday, men dressed in white robes and hooded masks pulled up in their car and asked 12-year-old Gladys where her father was. She quickly concocted a story about him being away and then ran up the driveway to warn him. Her father immediately fled out of the back of their home, in fear for his life, for simply the unchangeable fact that his skin was black.
That man was my great-grandfather. Gladys was my grandmother. She could have taken that early experience – and all the other obstacles she encountered growing up – and allowed it to build hate and resentment in her heart. But instead, she chose to focus on building a better future for herself and for others. Her life spanned a time when there were great advancements in civil rights, making it possible for her to achieve things beyond what her father could have ever imagined. At the age of 45, Gladys Hall achieved her lifelong dream of attending college, graduating with a master’s degree in education – and she became a teacher.
‘Progress is not inevitable, but driven by the choices that we make as individuals’
Black History Month is a reminder for us all to reflect on the richness of our history and the lessons it has taught us. Each year it helps us move forward a little further together, as one. The origin of Black History Month came as a response to black people being largely left out of the history books, despite the many significant roles they played. Since first being celebrated in 1976, February is now recognized around the world as a month to pay tribute to the accomplishments and contributions of generations of people who may otherwise have been forgotten. For me, it’s also a reminder that progress is not inevitable, but driven by the choices that we make as individuals. Choices like the ones my grandmother made.
This is one of the reasons why, for me, Microsoft is special. Our chosen mission is to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more. Diversity and inclusion are core tenants of our culture and integral to achieving that mission. It is only when we empower everyone to realize their full potential – no matter the circumstances – that we reach our full potential as a society.
‘It is only when we empower everyone to realize their full potential – no matter their circumstances – that we reach our full potential as a society’
We kicked off Black History Month with our Blacks at Microsoft chapter ringing the Nasdaq closing bell on Wall Street for the third consecutive year. Throughout the month, Microsoft Stores around the globe will host Black History Month events, and if you live near one, I would encourage you to attend.
We have the power to choose how we think, how we speak, and how we act – and we can choose to treat each other with dignity, respect and inclusion as our path forward. I celebrate Black History Month by reflecting on this lesson that my grandmother – the teacher – taught me. It’s my hope that this is a lesson Black History Month can teach us all.
