Reconnect Series: Maxi Accotto

by Scott Muniz | Sep 9, 2020 | Uncategorized

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Ready or not, it is time once more to Reconnect! This week we are joined by 14-time Data Platform MVP Maxi Accotto! 

Hailing from the Adrogue province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Maxi’s passion for all things tech dates back to his young teenage years. Starting with SQL Server in version 4.2, Maxi soon embarked on a tech career by studying programming while simultaneously working as an electronics and communications technician.

Maxi has been regularly rewarded with the Data Platform MVP title since 2005 thanks to his deep understanding of the relational database engine as well as big data, machine learning, business intelligence, PowerBI, and Azure.

Today, Maxi is the managing partner and principal architect at Triggerdb Consulting SRL, an Argentine certified Microsoft partner company which provides qualified consulting services, support and training to more than 300 companies in the region.

Maxi remains a frequent speaker for different community and Microsoft events with participation in more than 500 conferences over the years. For example, Maxi remains an active and engaged member of SQLPass Argentina, Power BI Argentina, and SQL Server Performance Spanish. 

Now in his first year of Reconnect, Maxi says it is both personally and professionally exciting to keep in contact with other former titleholders. Meanwhile, the Argentine tech expert says he looks forward to seeing the next generation of Microsoft professionals come through the ranks, encouraging new MVPs to “do and talk about what your communities need” rather than focusing on “the technological trends that are not always the things that the community needs.”

Maxi says he looks forward to the coming years doing what he always did: “teaching what I know and learning what I do not!”

For more on Maxi, check out his blog and Twitter @maxiaccotto.

Back to school 2020 – Microsoft Forms for effective remote learning

by Scott Muniz | Sep 9, 2020 | Uncategorized

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

[Note: this blog is a partnership between Microsoft Forms and West Ada School District from Idaho, USA]

Microsoft Forms can be used standalone, but also supports a number of powerful integrations such as Forms within Stream, Teams, OneNote, PowerPoint, and more.  If you missed the blog earlier this year for educators and students, start here: Sample forms to help educators and students shift to online learning

Regardless of your data collection needs, Microsoft Forms is ready to make you even more productive in the school year.  Let’s look at 2 scenarios and show you some of the newer Features in Microsoft Forms:

Scenario 1: Using Quiz in Teams assignment to assess students, collect their work, and provide feedback with their grades.

Quiz creation – Microsoft Forms provides a breath of question types and options so you can build an assessment that meets your needs.

• File upload question – use this question type to allow students to upload a file at response time.  You can configure the allowable size, number of files, and file types.  Quizzes with file upload questions are also now fully supported for use in Teams Assignments. – Learn more
• Half points – Quiz now allows you to set half points, giving you more flexibility on your scoring system.

   

• Printing – if you have any students who require an offline copy or your school has a compliance requirement to store a printed copy, now you can easily print the blank form or quiz via the “…”  Note: if you don’t see it yet, this is rolling out for users in September.

• Sections – If your quiz or form is longer, it may make sense to break it up into sections, which will appear as different pages to the student while taking the quiz. – Learn more

Quizzes in Teams Assignments – Microsoft Forms Quizzes can become even more powerful when used in Teams Assignments.  This allows you easily distribute the quiz to students.

• Clearer interface within Teams assignments – Quiz Assignments will now show you only Quizzes and you can use the New Quiz button to go directly to a new Quiz.  Note: if you want to assign a Form, choose New -> Assignment instead of New -> Quiz – Learn more

   

Student response – New features allow students to use Quizzes even better.

• Immersive reader – allows for a more accessible and inclusive environment in your classroom.  Immersive reader is a full screen reading experience to increase readability of content in Microsoft Forms desktop/mobile view.  Previously only available for EDU users, immersive reader in Forms is now also available to Microsoft Account (MSA) users.  Learn more

• Progress bar – allows your students to see a visual indicator of their progress through a form or quiz, helping them understand how much is remaining.  Note: if you don’t see it yet, this is rolling out for users in September.

Teacher grading – Microsoft Forms supports automatic grading.  However, you can also do manual grading and feedback before returning the quiz to the student when needed.

• Teams assignments data loss prevention – When you are manually grading or putting in comments, you will now be warned before leaving the page too early so you won’t lose any data.  Note: if you don’t see it yet, this is rolling out for users in September.

   

Scenario2: Using Forms to collect information from parents re: their student’s needs.

Form creation – Microsoft Forms continues to add additional features to enable you to collect data more efficiently and effectively.

• Multilingual forms – if you are a multilingual district, you no longer need to create separate forms for different languages, send out different links, and manually merge data for analysis.  You can use a single form, add multiple languages, and Forms will use the responders browser language to show them the correct Form.  They can also change it manually via the drop down.  – Learn more

• Branching– allows you to create customized routing logic in your form or quiz.  Many teachers use this for personalized learning, leading students who get a question incorrect down a path for extra practice questions, vs students who get it correct can jump to the next section.  For this form, if a parent indicates their student requires a device, the form will then show additional questions to determine pickup logistics  – Learn more

   

• Question intelligence can pop up questions from your previous forms, recommend questions based on various standard templates, recommend themes, and much more.  This allows you to create a high quality form even faster – Learn more

Analysis – forms allows you to make better decisions using data.  We continuously add features to provide more meaningful insights so you can get more out of data.

• Excel Data sync – For Group Forms, Forms created in One drive for business/SharePoint/Excel online, Forms will sync results with an online Excel file.  This allows you to use the same online Excel for your analysis instead of having to download a new Excel file each time.  – Learn more

   

Microsoft Forms and West Ada School District are confident you and your school can have more effective teaching and learning by utilizing powerful Microsoft tools, such as Microsoft Forms. 

Get started with Microsoft Forms here.

We listen to our users very closely. Please visit our UserVoice site to submit new feature ideas or vote on existing ones. You can also engage with us and other users right here on Tech Community, where we’ll continue to announce the latest releases.