To most of us, Microsoft Teams might just seem like another Slack competitor vying for office messaging market share, but in schools it’s proving its to be a revolutionary and transformative tool for classrooms. Those aren’t the words of Microsoft or some Teams spokesperson, but James Yanuzzelli, a social studies teacher hailing from Old Bridge, New Jersey, who is very much on the ground with today’s students.

“I’ve been teaching for almost 15 years now, and this is the greatest product that we’ve started integrating into our classrooms, Yanuzzelli says. “I started a pilot program this year with Microsoft Teams and getting more open education resources into our classrooms, and it’s led to the biggest transformation I’ve seen.”

“We can put assignments through Teams, we can send it out to them where they can receive it and use OneNote in Teams, he says. “I can connect my device to theirs, I can connect my device to a presenter or presentation, and it moves the classroom from me to them.”

In this way, Yanuzzelli feels great about the way Microsoft Teams has shifted the entire classroom from a ‘teacher-centered focus’ to a ‘student-centered focus.’

“Where teaching first started as ‘I’m the teacher, I’m going to stand and deliver you guys sit and learn,’” Yanuzzelli describes. “Now, it’s here’s the Declaration of Independence, let’s break it down [as a group]. They can break it down and put it into subsections, they can work together, and now it’s really an exercise. It’s not just remembering and regurgitating the facts.”

Yanuzzelli also sees his students as being more self-driven then ever and often welcomes students to personalize the curriculum.

“Let’s bring in sports, Minecraft and everyone’s playing Fortnite, so let’s talk about Fortnite,” he says. “Kids can really change the entire lesson, because it’s not just an one-size fits all. It’s now let’s see how we’re doing and how we can relate this to our lives.”

Bird’s eye view

As a teacher, Yanuzzelli says Microsoft Teams lends him more accountability to see how his students are doing and progressing.

“Giving students a voice and choice in what they do is great, but still at the end of the day I still see how they pull it all together,” he says.

“Can they still articulate their thoughts, so once they do cover the declaration?” Yanuzzelli poses the scenario. “Can you explain it in your own way and how can we bring it to present it to me?”

With this sort of bird’s eye view perspective, Yanuzzelli says he really can’t miss anything on his end, as he can literally see everything his students are working on.

“I can pull up every student to see what they’re working on, how they’re working collaboratively and what [each] student posted, he says.”It’s all there and we don’t have to worry about where it went or losing it.”

Sorry kids, the classic ‘my dog ate my homework’ excuse doesn’t work with Microsoft Teams.

Beyond the screen

You might think that, with Microsoft Teams and laptops being introduced into the classroom, students are just looking at a screen all the time, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

“You have to balance it out,” Yanuzzelli explains. “I don’t want them to get stuck in screen time.”

Yanuzzelli explains that sometimes he’ll break up the class into an agree or disagree session. In this exercise, the students are separated into two opposing ‘agree’ and ‘disagree’ sides to discuss a question before going back to Teams to put their thoughts together.

“We still need to get our blood flowing, move around, interact and be personable because that’s the skills we have to carry,” he says. “We need to have our 21st century skills, but also the soft skills of talking and working together face-to-face.”

“Just everyday it’s a new experience for me and them – it’s awesome.”

http://www.techradar.com/news/how-microsoft-teams-is-transforming-the-classroom

If you use more than one email account, as most of us do, the right email client will really take the hassle out of managing your messages. Once you’ve found the right one for you, you’ll wonder how you ever managed without it. This is particularly true if those accounts are with different providers, which would otherwise require you to have several browser tabs open at once.

That’s not all – as well as aggregating all your messages in one convenient place, a good email client can add features like encryption and integration with calendars, RSS feeds and video chat services.

Desktop clients can store your mail locally too, giving you access to archived messages and attachments when you’re offline and providing a valuable backup. That’s a feature that webmail services are gradually catching up with (you can now use Gmail to read mail offline, at last), but a dedicated email client offers far more flexibility and better search tools.

If that sounds good – and we think it does – read on for our pick of the very best free email clients.

1. eM Client

eM Client has been around for nearly 10 years now, and throughout that long development it’s evolved into the best free email client for Windows.

eM Client makes it easy to migrate your messages from Gmail, Exchange, iCloud and Outlook.com – just enter your email address and the client will adjust the appropriate settings for you. eM Client can also import your contacts and calendar, and it’s easy to deselect these options if you’d prefer to manage them separately.

There’s an integrated chat app too, with support for common platforms including Jabber and Google Chat, and the search function is far superior to those you’ll find in webmail interfaces.

Unlike most free email clients, eM Client is also packed with advanced options like automatic translation, delayed send and encryption. It’s a remarkable set of tools, and for managing two email accounts, it’s ideal.

If you have more accounts, it’s well worth considering upgrading to eM Client Pro for a one-off fee. This lets you connect an unlimited number of accounts, access VIP support (in the unlikely event that you need it), and use the email client commercially.

2. Mailbird Lite

Mailbird Lite isn’t just an email app – it’s a whole communication platform to which you can add apps for scheduling, chatting, file syncing and teamworking.

Free users miss out on features such as speed reading, email snoozing and quick previews of attachments, but Mailbird Lite is still an excellent choice. The Lite version only lets you connect one email account but, it’s optimized for speed, and looks great to boot.

Setup is simple; enter your email details and Mailbird Lite will find the necessary POP or IMAP settings automatically, then get to work importing your messages. It offers to connect with your Facebook account, so it can liven up your inbox with your contacts’ profile photos, and can also link with Whatsapp, Google Calendar, free task manager Moo.do, and teamworking app Asana.

3. Hiri

Hiri is usually a paid-for premium email client, but it’s free for TechRadar readers. It’s designed primarily with business users in mind (it currently only supports Microsoft email services including Hotmail, Outlook and Exchange), but home users will also appreciate its productivity-boosting features.

If you find yourself spending too long managing, reading and replying to emails, Hiri is the email client for you. It includes a smart dashboard that lets you see how many unread messages you have at a glance and how long you should wait before checking them (after all, how many really need an instant reply?)

The Compose window is designed to save you time too, offering only the essential options (no fancy formatting) and including the subject line at the bottom so you don’t have to write it until you know how to summarise the message.

These little touches make Hiri a truly exceptional client. If Microsoft is your email provider of choice, it should be well up your list.

4. Opera Mail

The developers of Opera have always considered email to be a key feature of any good browser, and have poured a great deal of effort into developing free email client Opera Mail – now detached from the browser and available as a standalone program.

Opera Mail’s features include message templates – particularly handy for business use – message filtering and sorting, message sorting by type and a wide range of customization options.

The client also imports RSS feeds, making it a good alternative to web apps like Feedly and the much-missed Google Reader.

5. Mozilla Thunderbird

Like Firefox, free email client Mozilla Thunderbird was created by the Mozilla Foundation (though development of the two has since been uncoupled). Like the web browser, its features can be extended and enhanced with a huge range of third-party add-ons.

Some of its excellent built-in features include the ability to link files that are too big to email and the ability to read RSS news feeds alongside your email.

Setup is straightforward; as with most modern email clients, all you need are your usernames and passwords, and Thunderbird takes care of the rest.

http://www.techradar.com/news/the-best-free-email-client

In a moment that made us shudder, in a ‘why, why won’t this end?’ kind of way, Apple has been awarded significant damages in its patent dispute with Samsung, amounting to $539m (around £400m / AU$700).

For those that don’t remember this mind-numbing dispute between the two tech giants, it centers around the fact that Apple asserts that following the iPhone’s launch, Samsung’s new Galaxy range bore a striking resemblance to the iDevice.

Samsung, obviously, doesn’t believe it did anything wrong, but the jury in San Jose on May 24 decided that the similarities were too strong to believe that it was either a coincidence or designs that couldn’t be governed by a patent.

Apple sent TechRadar the following statement, understandably jubilant with the decision:

“We believe deeply in the value of design, and our teams work tirelessly to create innovative products that delight our customers. 

“This case has always been about more than money. Apple ignited the smartphone revolution with iPhone and it is a fact that Samsung blatantly copied our design. It is important that we continue to protect the hard work and innovation of so many people at Apple.

“We’re grateful to the jury for their service and pleased they agree that Samsung should pay for copying our products.”

Samsung, on the other hand, doesn’t believe the same thing:

“Today’s decision flies in the face of a unanimous Supreme Court ruling in favor of Samsung on the scope of design patent damages. 

“We will consider all options to obtain an outcome that does not hinder creativity and fair competition for all companies and consumers.” 

What’s actually covered here?

The patent dispute, which started in 2012 and will seemingly never die until a technology journalist sacrifices themselves as a tribute to the tech gods, dealt with three key things: the way the phone looked, the rounded corners and the grid of icons (and how said icons actually looked).

Apple claimed that its design was iconic and covered by its patent, making it unique enough that others aping the design would be infringing. Given the change in Samsung designs pre- and post-iPhone, many would struggle to say there wasn’t an influence:

Samsung argued that the designs were generic and that it was always looking into such things, and designs submitted do back up that claim.

The debate has rumbled on for so long not just because it’s two massive companies with huge legal departments and deep pockets, but that the nuances of what constitutes copying, and how much of a phone is relevant in the way it looks, is something that’s heavily open to interpretation.

Given so much of the phone is filled with patents, there’s a question over whether it’s the whole phone or just parts of it that are on trial – and thus that has a big impact on how much the damages should be.

In this case, the jury decided that it was indeed the whole phone – and this could have ramification for future, similar, trials.

(For a more detailed, excellent, analysis, check out FOSS Patents’ coverage of the whole trial – Florian Mueller is an ex-IP activist and has some superb insights into the dispute, including questioning whether Homer Simpson might have played a part).

So, IS IT OVER?

Nope. Not at all. There’s still scope for Samsung to appeal, or for the two brands to settle out of court and make this whole thing go away forever.

What it means for you, the consumer, is minimal – well, pertaining to this exact case. The phones in question were the Samsung Galaxy S2 and variants (the Galaxy S3 was quite a visual departure from the S2, as Samsung took its design in a different direction), so the case is largely irrelevant to today’s phones.

We’ll keep you updated on this story – but mostly because we’re hoping that the next episode will be the final element.

• The current Samsung phones look jolly different, and are among our best smartphones

http://www.techradar.com/news/apple-awarded-huge-damages-in-never-ending-samsung-patent-saga