Today at the BETT education conference, Microsoft announced its new Classroom Pen, which is designed for K-8 students and optimized for the Surface Go, although it's an N-Trig pen, meaning it will work on Surface Pro 3 or later. It has a hardened tip, and there's a replacement tip in the box. There's even a slot at the end to make it easy to tie to the student's case.
The Microsoft Classroom Pen will only be sold in packs of 20 for $799.80, which works out to $39.99 each. That's significantly cheaper than a Surface Pen, which retails for $99.99. The "first wave of availability" will begin next month, and it will be available in the same 36 markets where the Surface Go is available.
Microsoft also announced a range of partner devices from Lenovo, Acer, and Dell. Interestingly, HP seems to be focusing its educational offerings on Chromebooks this year. Starting at $189 and maxing out at around $300, the new PCs include the Lenovo 100e, Lenovo 300e, Lenovo 14w, Acer TravelMate B1 (B118-M), Acer TravelMate Spin B1 (B118-R/RN), Acer TravelMate B1-141, and Dell Latitude 3300 for Education.
The firm also touted some new features that are coming to Teams this week. A new feature called Grade Sync does exactly what it sounds like, sending grades to the Student Information System. You can sign up for the preview here. Educators will also be able to grade Teams Assignments from the iOS and Android apps.
Turnitin integration is on the way. That's a service that's often used by schools to detect plagiarism in writing assignments. There's also MakeCode integration coming, which is Microsoft's solution for creating computer science activities, and it's free.
