Skype for Business Meeting Broadcast has arrived!

As a Microsoft Education Licensing Solution Partner (EdLSP) we get asked a lot of questions around Microsoft and their product road maps. For the last 12 months, the question we’ve been asked the most is “When is Skype for Business Meeting Broadcast coming to the E5 for Education plan?” Well, today’s exciting news is that we now have an answer for you!

Skype for Business Meeting Broadcast is now officially available under the Office 365 E5 for Education plan. This is big news, and completes the Skype for Business (S4B) suite. It also provides a compelling reason for our education customers to look at the E5 offering again. Not only do you get a wealth of advanced security, analytics and collaboration features like Advanced Threat Protection, eDiscovery, Power BI pro, My Analytics and Teams but you get the only cloud communications platform you’ll ever need.

S4B in E5 already offered advanced enterprise voice features through cloud PBX, PSTN calling and PSTN Conferencing. S4B Meeting Broadcast now takes it to another level by adding enterprise video features and allowing you to broadcast this content on the internet for up to 10,000 attendees. This is clearly a great fit for education, especially with blended learning advocates. Broadcasting your interactive lectures online via Meeting Broadcast has the following teaching benefits:

• It allows for students who happen to be unable to physically attend to view the lecture in real-time on any device from anywhere.
• It allows for students on distance learning courses to attend in real time from any location on any device. Integration with Yammer also allows for a live Q&A facility to be utilised in the lecture.
• Pre-recording and allowing the students to download the lecture allows for a blended or flipped learning approach. This means that students are introduced to the learning material beforehand, with classroom or lecture time then being freed up and used to deepen understanding through discussion with peers and problem-solving activities or projects facilitated by teachers or lecturers.
• In Higher Education, students often try to capture what is being said, meaning they never stop to think and reflect on the information presented to them. Meeting Broadcast’s use of video puts control back into the students’ hand. They can view the lecture video as many times as they want, at a pace they want, which can help reinforce learning on particularly complex subjects.

In addition to the myriad teaching benefits, here are some other examples of where S4B Meeting Broadcast can be used:

• It can be used as an income generating tool
• It can be used to broadcast significant events such as graduation ceremonies to individuals who cannot attend the big day
• It can be used to produce webinars that promote a School or University as a great place to study
• It can be used as a tool for undertaking staff appraisals
• It can be used to produce training and personal development content for staff
• It can be used to produce instructional how-to or procedural videos

Hopefully this blog has provided some examples of how S4B Meeting Broadcast can enhance your education offering and learning outcomes. As a much-requested feature within the E5 offering, it completes the S4B suite and provides establishments with a more collaborative, more secure, more effective and more integrated voice and video solution when compared with their existing multi-vendor setup.

If you feel you are now ready to make the move to E5 then call us on 01974 200 201 or email us at sales@pugh.co.uk. We are ready and waiting to help.