Jagshemash. If you see only one moviefilm this year, please see the only one that got made - mine.
Great success! Please, you look. Chenquieh. pic.twitter.com/ygtv4RT4GG

— Sacha Baron Cohen (@SachaBaronCohen) October 1, 2020

We’re only days away from Minecraft Live and we’re already getting some unexpected yet exciting news!  Joining Mario, Link, Pikachu, Kirby, and the other 72 challengers Steave, Alex, Zombie, and Enderman take the stage to test their might!  From Redstone, to lava buckets, from gliders to pistons Steve and friends battle it out to prove they’re just as tough as the others as the newest announced DLC fighters for Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the Switch.  No announcement date has been set but you can tune in this Saturday at 7:30 am PT / 10:30 am ET / 4:30 pm CET before Minecraft live starts.

Set your calendars cause Saturday is going to be amazing!

Sumo Group has acquired Oregon-based development studio Pipeworks for an undisclosed fee. The deal is part of Sumo’s plan to break into the U.S. market, and includes Pipeworks’ 134-strong team and original properties like Prominence Poker.

Based in the UK, Sumo Group is the parent company of LittleBigPlanet 3 developer Sumo Digital and others including The Chinese Room, Red Kite Games, and Lab42.

Pipeworks was founded in 1999, and has developed or co-developed over 100 games and technology solutions for notable clients including EA Sports, Wizards of the Coast, and Google.

It has previously worked on franchises including Terraria and Madden NFL, and is currently working on an unannounced original project.

Commenting on the move, Sumo chief exec Carl Cavers said the purchase will help the company produce more new titles and original properties in-house.

“This is the largest acquisition Sumo Group has made since IPO,” explained Cavers in a press release. “Our underlying market is strong, and we see good opportunities for new games, including Original-IP developed by our talented studios.”

The legal dispute between Apple and Epic Games will be settled by a judge if both companies get their way, with the warring pair keen to avoid a jury trial.

Earlier this week, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers suggested the case should be put before a jury, and talked about the importance of “understanding what real people think.”

Since then, however, both Epic and Apple have discussed the matter, and have agreed the case should be “tried by the Court, and not by a jury.”

Both companies outlined their position in a filing submitted to the Northern California court handling the case, spotted by MacRumors, and seem to have finally found some common ground.

“Epic and Apple have met and conferred, and the parties agree that Epic’s claims and Apple’s counterclaims should be tried by the Court, and not by a jury,” reads the filing.

“Therefore, with Epic’s consent, Apple hereby withdraws its demand for a jury trial pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 38(d). The parties respectfully request that the case (including any claims and counterclaims) proceed to a bench trial on a schedule determined by the Court.”

As it stands, Rogers has found that Apple is well within its rights to ban Fortnite from the App Store, and is estimating the case as a whole will be heard in July 2021.

The Creator and Developer Advocacy group over at Unity have just launched a new initiative called Open Projects, a Unity lead effort to develop a vertical slice of a game that is open source and community driven. If you are looking to get experience at working with a team, or perhaps are a student looking to build up your resume, contributing to an Open Project could be a good fit. The intention is to create open projects for multiple genres, but initially they are starting with an action-adventure style game. The final results will be published (assumedly for free) on Steam, with all contributors credited for their efforts.

There is a bare-bones project in place now you can download from GitHub. In fact GitHub is central to the entire process, as this is where the project will be housed and where all code and asset collaboration will occur. In addition to GitHub they are coordinating the project in a dedicated Open Projects forum, as well there is a Contribution Guide on Google Docs available here. Project management tasks are managed here powered by Codedecks, an online PM tool specifically for game developers.

You can learn more about Unity Open Projects in the video below (or on Odysee here).

Major tech companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon may be required to share customer data with smaller rivals, should the European Union’s Digital Services Act pass.

As had been promised when the game’s Version 1.5.0 update was released, Animal Crossing: New Horizons‘ NookLink app has now been updated.

The update introduces a new feature which allows you to quickly perform Reactions in-game by using your smartphone. As you can see in the image below, you can simply tap on your chosen Reaction from a menu, getting rid of the need to cycle through your favourite poses on your Switch.

The update doesn’t appear to have rolled out everywhere at the time of writing, so don’t worry if you can’t find the option to use Reactions on your NookLink app just yet. We’re sure it’ll be with you very soon indeed.

In the meantime, let us know what you think of this new feature in the comments. It sounds like it’ll make communicating with friends much easier when checking out each others’ islands!

Nintendo has dominated the UK charts throughout September in terms of both software and hardware sales, a new GamesIndustry.biz report reveals.

GfK Entertainment data suggests that more than 1.07 million physical games were sold in the UK last month, with 41.7% of those being Switch titles. The majority of those Switch games were Nintendo-published titles, too, with the Big N’s mascot names accounting for 32.3% of the country’s physical game sales throughout the month.

Super Mario 3D All-Stars unsurprisingly came out on top, managing to narrowly outsell the heavily marketed Marvel’s Avengers which released on rival platforms. You can see the UK’s top 20 physical games for September 2020 below.

146,000 gaming consoles are reported to have been sold in the UK throughout September, with Switch being top of the pile. In fact, Switch sales are up 90% when compared with the same time period in 2019, and PS4 and Xbox One are also seeing year-on-year growth despite their next-generation systems being just around the corner.

On September 23, Microsoft Education held our third Education Transformation Summit, where education leaders shared best practices from the acceleration of digital learning due to the global pandemic.

To facilitate this conversation, we brought together 200 education system leaders in two Microsoft Teams live sessions to reflect on progress and talk about their goals and vision for the future. Invited panelists came from across the globe—from Finland to the Philippines, from Canada to Costa Rica.

Though each leader’s perspective was unique and based on their specific experience, we’ve identified five key factors that are universally relevant.

1. Visions for digital transformation at scale should be grounded in a unified technology strategy
2. Ensuring all learners have access to appropriate devices and learning platforms is priority number one
3. Integrating technology with pedagogy enables social-emotional learning and student well-being
4. Supporting teachers with professional development is key to success
5. Data security and privacy are critical as education becomes increasingly digital

“It’s critical that the constituents are bought in to the vision. And we need a vision that’s more sustainable and longer term than just purchasing and deploying the technology.” – @AnthonySalcito VP #MicrosoftEdu at ETS Summit Click To Tweet

The disruption of education by COVID-19 can be seen as a catalyst, an invitation not to simply strive to minimize the negative effects of the change, but to improve education models for the future. One of the biggest hurdles for leaders with this goal has been balancing short-term decisions with making longer-term sustainable investments that will impact how students and teachers learn using technology for years to come.

When wrapping up the panel discussions, Microsoft Vice President of Education Barbara Holzapfel said, “It’s clear that with continued public-private partnership, education systems around the world will continue to advance the goal of creating personalized, equitable learning enabled by the intentional integration of pedagogy and technology.”

With leaders such as all of those who joined the events as contributors and participants working toward these goals, the transformation of education around the world is underway.

To hear all of the insights and ideas discussed, you can watch the recording of the full Education Transformation Summit, which includes more resources and links to research that was discussed at the summit. Continue the conversation throughout October by joining the Sustainable Strategies for Hybrid Learning webinar series, and identify your school’s next steps in the Education Transformation Framework and Assessment.

Read on below for a more in-depth recap of the key points, with quotes and examples from the contributors and panelists.

The Education Transformation Summit

This year, the back-to-school season has been unlike any other year. For students, teachers, parents, and education system leaders, getting used to the new normal in a COVID-19 world is an enormous challenge. At the same time, we’ve seen incredible creativity—and speed—in deploying remote and hybrid learning. Here are some of the key learnings from the contributors and panelists who joined us for the Fall 2020 Education Transformation Summit.

1. Visions for digital transformation at scale should be grounded in a unified technology strategy

Education institutions that already had a strong focus on long-term digital transformation have been more resilient during COVID-19, as they have accelerated existing projects and driven wider adoption rather than having to start from scratch.

A major factor in the strategy is the mindset of the project, according to Anthony Salcito, Vice President for Education at Microsoft. “It’s super critical that the constituents are bought in to the vision. And we need a vision that’s more sustainable and longer term than just purchasing and deploying the technology,” he said.

Emily Bell, Chief Information Officer for Georgia’s Fulton County School District in the US, illustrated how her district engaged in a consultation strategy to bring everyone along. “We surveyed parents and asked them what they liked and what they don’t like. We had families with children in multiple schools, and they complained that there were too many software tools to learn. So, we moved to standardized approaches and offered a menu of applications including Office 365 and Teams for schools to use. Since then, we surveyed parents and 80 percent told us they were satisfied with our technology. The remaining 20 percent just wanted their kids back in school,” she said.

At the same time, some education systems are thinking about how to simplify technology provisions for teachers and schools by providing services centrally.

“We implemented Teams nationally and created more than one million accounts in two weeks. We created a call center to help,” said Paula Villalta Olivares, Vice Minister of Institutional Planning and Regional Coordination at the Ministry of Public Education of Costa Rica.

Unified approaches like these take the burden off local IT admin staff to support teachers, students, and parents in using the platform, rather than having to set up a platform in each individual school.

2. Ensuring all learners have access to appropriate devices and learning platforms is priority number one

The need to move learning online quickly highlighted existing challenges, such as access and equity, and any plan for future success includes striving to level the field for all students. As Borhene Chakroun, UNESCO Director, Division for Policies and Lifelong Learning Systems, stated during the panel discussion, “The master principle is leaving no one behind. COVID-19 has increased the divides that existed prior to the crisis. We need to be focused on inclusiveness, equity, and reaching out to the most disadvantaged.”

Access to dedicated and reliable devices is an issue in many areas, and there are many different approaches to getting devices in the hands of learners.

Gaby Rowe, Founding Principal at GROW Associates, noted that as the state of Texas worked to provide devices to students, the communities that were hardest hit by the virus were also those that were the most under-resourced. “As we started Operation Connectivity, there was a real focus on how we ensure that as we get devices out there and we provide connectivity, that we’re really making sure it goes into the neighborhoods, the households, the students’ hands, the schools, and the teachers who need it the most”

Nicole Dezen, Microsoft Vice President of Device Partner Sales, in the opening fireside chat with Anthony Salcito, mentioned this challenge as well. “We have seen a flurry of buying, but we are still seeing a lot of institutions still struggling to get devices needed by students and faculty to support their needs.”

Keith Kruger, CEO of the US-based Consortium for School Networking who represents CIOs from more than 1,000 school districts, highlighted the importance of careful consideration of the total cost of ownership, and noted that oftentimes, a cheaper device is more expensive in the long run if it isn’t the right device for the student.

3. Integrating technology with pedagogy enables social-emotional learning and student well-being

Student well-being has always been important, but it has become an even stronger focus during times of crisis. Our research for the whitepaper “Emotion and Cognition in the Age of AI” demonstrated that educators believe positive emotions are critical for academic success, that they are important in developing communication skills, and that technology, when used correctly and integrated into quality pedagogy, can support traditional knowledge acquisition and the development of social and emotional skills.

“We prioritized social and emotional needs and interaction. One of the biggest challenges was supporting students close to dropping out during the remote period,” said Dr. Marjo Kyllonen, Head of Development Service Unit, Helsinki Education Division. “The importance of personalized learning and digital platforms, and how they can be beneficial for the learners, really increased.”

Meanwhile in Costa Rica, the strategy was to drive students’ independent learning.

“We created autonomous learning guides for students. Every day students received activities to do at home,” said Melania Brenes Monge, PhD. Academic Vice Minister at the Ministry of Public Education of Costa Rica.

And in Canada, Jordan Tinney, Superintendent of Schools and CEO of Surrey Schools, uses Power BI to create a dashboard where educators can track and visualize different categories of student information related to student well-being. These results help educators map the needs of students in schools throughout the district, and respond by taking actions such as reaching out to parents and implementing additional after-school activities.

4. Supporting teachers with professional development opportunities is key to success

Even prior to the pandemic, a majority of teachers surveyed for our Staff of 2030 whitepaper said that they expected the use of technology in the classroom to increase. However, only 38 percent of them felt that their training had prepared them to use digital tools for learning. Now that so much of teaching and learning is online, investment in teacher professional development is a key indicator of success.

“Pedagogical understand[ing] of learning, and how to do it from a distance was important for our teachers,” said Kyllonen. “We have regular discussions with teachers about the pedagogical model, what are the skills needed for the future, and how does our pedagogy reinforce their acquisition,” she continued.

The government of the Philippines has undertaken a massive initiative to bring electrical power and internet connectivity to schools that have been without it, and along with providing access, teacher training on new technology is a top priority.

Alain Pascua, Undersecretary for Administration, Department of Education at the Republic of the Philippines shared, “What we have been doing for the past few days and from past few months is the massive training of all our public school teachers in terms of open innovation and resources in terms also in the use of the learning management system.”

In Costa Rica, more professional development was required to quickly shift to digital platforms.

“It just confirmed what we already knew—PD needs to be relevant, current, novel. We want teachers to have the chance to change their teaching practices into more effective learning procedures, and we are expecting evidenced transformation of their teaching activities,” said Vice Minister Melania Brenes Mong.

5. Data security and privacy is critical as education becomes increasingly digital

The increasing amount of digital education in systems around the world generates a huge opportunity for leaders and teachers to get more insight into learning, but needs to be handled in ethical and appropriate ways.

“It’s important to start with data privacy and security,” said Chakroun. “We need to shift from classical Education Management Information Systems to a new generation that are integrated with Learning Management Systems to make more up-to-date and effective reporting on learning.”

In Finland, their AI and data strategy is strongly student centered.

“Our focus is always on good pedagogies. So the aim is that every student can achieve his or her own potential, and that we can have a transparent process using a variety of data collection points from teachers, from students, from platforms and so on. Our goal and objective is to promote the ideal learning process with automated learning design to help make learning transparent, and thus deeper and better,” said Kyllonen.

Microsoft Education would like to thank the leaders and contributors who took part in the summit. Their wisdom and experience generated some incredibly insightful observations, provided actionable information for attendees, and made our third Education Transformation Summit a valuable event.