Teachers have especially good reason to eagerly anticipate this summer’s Windows 10 Anniversary Update, as it will add an array of new education features to the most widespread PC operating system.
Taking account of the common classroom practice of sharing devices, the Microsoft in Education Team has revealed that a new app, “Set Up School PCs”, will help teachers to set up a device within minutes. This is intended to help students to get productive with Windows 10 devices more quickly.
In fact, Microsoft claims to have made “significant performance improvements for affordable devices”, adding that it expects “the average first login to take 26 seconds, with subsequent logins of 6 seconds when the student uses that machine again.”
Teachers will also be able to more simply set up quizzes or tests on Windows 10, thanks to a new “Take a Test” app. The software will allow “simple and more secure standardized testing for the whole classroom or the whole school, where teachers or IT can lock down the testing environment”.
Noting that almost 60% of teachers personally buy and load apps for classroom use, Microsoft says that the Anniversary Update will further enable schools to bulk purchase and deploy software from the Windows Store. Microsoft has more to say about the upcoming education features on the official Windows blog.