Introducing Search Coach in Microsoft Teams - a unique approach to learning how to search online
Search Coach is a simple, powerful, free app in Microsoft Teams that helps educators and students to form effective queries, and identify reliable resources. Think of it as a search engine with training wheels.What's New in Microsoft EDU webinar - March 2025
Join us on Wednesday, March 12th, 2025 for our latest "What's New in Microsoft EDU" webinar! These 30 minute webinars are put on by the Microsoft Education Product Management group and happen once per month, this month both 8:00am Pacific Time and 4:00pm Pacific time to cover as many global time zones as possible around the world.Unleash the power and fun of learning with colorful Microsoft Education Quick Guides - Summer 2024
Heather Aird’s Microsoft Education Quick Guides instantly catch the eye with their vibrant colors and engaging design. Gone are the days of dull, text-heavy manuals. These visually stunning guides are a breath of fresh air in the world of educational resources.Domains, citations, and mobile, oh my! Discover new features in Search Progress and Coach
We’re on a mission to equip students with the skills they need to navigate the digital landscape effectively, and today I’m thrilled to be sharing a deeper dive into four exciting enhancements to Search Progress and Coach in Microsoft Teams for Education! Search Progress aims to help students learn how to ask better questions and critically assess the information presented to them – critical skills for traditional research that are also foundational to strong AI literacy.Introducing Search Progress: A new way to assign and track research projects in Microsoft Teams
We’re so excited to share that Search Progress, the newest addition to our Learning Accelerator family, is rolling out globally this week for all educators and students using Microsoft Teams for Education. Search Progress and Search Coach are free tools built into Teams for Education that empower students to think critically and search with confidence.What's New in Microsoft EDU, BETT 2025 Edition
Welcome to our update for Microsoft Education and our special Bett 2025 edition! The Bett conference takes place in London during the week of January 22th - January 24th, and Microsoft Education has a bunch of exciting updates to share! Check out official Bett News blog here, and our full Bett schedule and session times, be sure to check out our Microsoft EDU Bett 2025 guide. January 2025 topics: New Learning app for Copilot+ PC M365 Copilot Chat M365 Copilot updates for Educators and Students Learning Accelerators Teams Minecraft EDU OneNote 1. Project Spark, a new learning app for Copilot+ PCs Last year, Microsoft introduced Copilot+ PCs; a groundbreaking category of Windows PCs designed for AI. These are the fastest, most intelligent Windows PCs ever built, featuring powerful silicon capable of over 40 TOPS (trillion operations per second), all-day battery life, and access to advanced AI models. Copilot+ PCs unlock capabilities you won’t find on any other PC. At Bett, we’re excited to announce Project Spark, a new free AI-enhanced learning app coming later this year to Copilot+ PCs. Via the power of AI Spark empowers educators to create interactive, personalized lessons quickly and with no-cost. Whether using their own materials or leveraging trusted resources available in the app, it makes teachers’ day-to-day easier by cutting the manual work and tech knowledge needed for content creation, and enables educators to provide active, meaningful, personalized and engaging learning experiences for their students. Project Spark is built on trusted partnerships with leading organizations: OpenStax: Harness the power of the world’s largest publisher of open educational resources (OER) and a leader in interactive learning technology, based at Rice University, to generate lessons tailored to your needs. NASA, Figma and Minecraft Education: Explore ready-to-learn interactive lessons that inspire creativity, curiosity, and next-level engagement both in the classroom and beyond. Kahoot!: Effortlessly create personalized, interactive Kahoot! games with on-device AI, to engage your classroom with fun and effective learning experiences. Project Spark brings learning value to the entire Windows classroom; while lesson generation is only available on Copilot+ PC devices, anyone with a Modern PC can use the extensive ready-to-learn lesson library or any lesson created by their colleagues to share with students, and students can play lessons on any Windows device. Grounded in learning science and developed with responsible AI principles in mind, Project Spark is the first educational solution natively built for Copilot+ PCs, harnessing on-device AI (NPUs) to elevate teaching and learning and ensures lessons are not only impactful but also inclusive, engaging, and safe. With Project Spark, we’re taking the next step in transforming classrooms, enabling educators to create meaningful learning experiences powered by cutting-edge technology. 2. M365 Copilot Chat updates Our vision is for everyone to have access to a Copilot and for educational experiences to be transformed with agents. Education institutions from Auburn University to Northern Ireland Education Authority are already saving time and improving learning outcomes with Copilot. Today, we’re introducing Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, a new offering that adds pay-as-you-go agents to our existing free chat experience for Microsoft 365 education customers. Copilot Chat includes: Free, secure AI chat powered by GPT-4o Agents accessible right in the chat and priced on a metered basis IT controls, including enterprise data protection and agent management It’s the chat experience you can use every day—powered by broad knowledge from the web, built on the latest AI models, and designed to be safe and secure. It offers foundational capabilities of the Copilot Control System, including enterprise data protection and agent management. Moving forward, institutions will have a mix of Copilot Chat and Microsoft 365 Copilot, our best-in-class offering. Try Copilot Chat today at m365copilot.com and learn more in the announcement blog. 3. M365 Copilot for Educators and Students updates AI Suggested Feedback for Educators The new Suggested Feedback feature helps educators streamline their feedback process by combining student work with the selected rubric or initial teacher-provided comments. Using AI, it generates updated, summarized feedback that aligns with student performance and expectations. Teachers remain in full control, with the ability to review and edit suggestions before returning feedback to students. This ensures that feedback remains personal, accurate, and reflective of the teacher’s expertise while saving valuable time. When: Entering private preview in Q1 2025 for M365 Copilot subscribers Education agents On top of the wide range of pre-built agents from Microsoft, teaching and learning agents will be available in the coming months. Eligible students are proactively prompted with questions to engage them in the learning process and provide tailored coaching on specific subjects or assignments. Educators receive the support of an instructional designer with responses grounded in pedagogical expertise and educational standards. When: Microsoft agents in private preview for M365 Copilot subscribers. Register here. One of our partners, Clever, the global identity platform for education, understands the importance of connected data to maximize educational value and insights. Clever's agent, currently in private preview, helps teachers generate customized lesson plans by incorporating applications their districts already use. Districts interested in piloting the Clever agent for Microsoft 365 Copilot with their teachers can express interest here. When: Clever’s agent is in private preview for M365 Copilot subscribers. Register here. We will also be releasing open-source agents designed to facilitate interactions between educators, learners, and their course materials within learning management systems such as Canvas LMS, part of the Instructure Learning Platform, and Moodle LMSTM. Institutions will be able to download, customize, and deploy them to address their specific needs and get the most out of their investments. When: Canvas agent entering private preview in Q1 2025 for M365 Copilot subscribers. When: Moodle agent entering private preview in Q2 2025 for M365 Copilot subscribers. The word Moodle and associated Moodle logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Moodle Pty Ltd or its related affiliates. 4. Learning Accelerator updates Math Progress at general availability We’re pleased to announce Math Progress, a new Learning Accelerator, is now generally available in Microsoft Teams for Education for all supported languages. Math Progress streamlines assignment creation and provides student performance insights to help educators identify course trends at the individual or class level. And it’s easy to keep students on track by addressing mistakes or common misconceptions to accelerate learning. As a powerful formative assessment tool, Math Progress simplifies lesson planning by providing educators with activities and quizzes designed on math concepts that students are prepared to learn. When: Available globally now Speaker Progress updates We are so excited to announce some incredible updates to Speaker Progress, our Learning Accelerator that helps students build confidence in their presentation and public speaking skills with real-time coaching and feedback. AI Transcript Feedback in Speaker Progress We are bringing generative AI to Speaker Progress with our new AI Transcript Feedback feature. Educators can choose to enable AI feedback, select a speech type, and evaluation criteria. Student speeches will then receive summary feedback and in line notes to help students improve the content and qualitative aspects of their presentations. The educator is fully in control and must review AI Feedback before it is shared with students. When: Spring 2025 More languages in Speaker Progress More languages are now available in Speaker Progress, including Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, Swedish, Norwegian, Polish and Danish. More languages including French, German, and Dutch are in progress as well. Keep checking back regularly as we are adding new languages to Speaker Progress every month! When: Available globally now! PowerPoint Sharing in Speaker Progress Our top user ask is now here! Students can now upload PowerPoints and present them in Speaker Progress. They’ll be able to share their PowerPoints while getting real-time feedback from Speaker Progress. Students can upload a PowerPoint from OneDrive or their device and then allow screen sharing to access this experience. When: Available globally now! Moodle and D2L Brightspace support Learning Accelerators via LTI The Teams Assignments LTI tool brings Learning Accelerators directly into your LMS! In addition to Canvas, Schoology and Blackboard integration which are generally available today, Teams Assignments LTI integration is now in preview with Moodle, and D2L Brightspace, and we will open up self-onboarding for additional partners shortly. To keep up to date with LMS integrations, and to receive preview invitations, please sign up at: https://aka.ms/LMSPreview. For deployment instructions for your LMS, please visit: https://aka.ms/LTIAdminDocs When: Moodle and D2L in preview now, Canvas and Schoology - available globally. Reading Coach at general availability The standalone Reading Coach standalone app is now Generally Available in multiple languages, and with new engagement features. Reading Coach is a FREE reading fluency application that provides personalized, engaging practice. It can be used in the classroom or home with a Microsoft account as a Windows application or on the web that can be accessed from any web connected device, including Chromebooks, iPads and any browser-enabled device. You can check out a detailed demo video here. Reading in multiple languages Add your own content in 80+ languages include 14 different English dialects. Reading Coach will listen to you read in the language of your choice, note mispronunciations and coach you on challenging words. Readers can also create stories using AI in 14 languages. Like in English, the stories have multiple chapters and learners can pick their own path through the story. Find it easily Users will be able to find Reading Coach more easily at www.microsoft365.com alongside the rest of the M365 applications when logged in as a consumer or Entra ID education user. Reading streaks and progress over time Earn Reading 3-day, 5-day and 7-day streaks to earn rewards in Reading Coach. Readers can also see their progress over a week, 30-days and all-time through an easy-to-read dashboard made usable for learners of all ages. When: Available globally now Formatted feedback support We're excited to introduce Formatted Feedback for Teams Assignments, offering enhanced options for feedback to your students! Now, you can provide detailed and visually engaging feedback with support for bold, italic, underline, bullet points, font color, highlights, and even emojis (Windows + . shortcut). With up to 10,000 characters of space, teachers have plenty of room to give comprehensive feedback. Need more space? Switch to Expanded View for a larger text input, making it easier than ever to craft detailed responses. When: Available Now Refreshed grid view experience Microsoft Teams for Education now has a new refreshed grid view, wherein you will directly be able to get to your assignments or classwork for your classes in grid view. This feature will make it easier and faster for you to get to your assignments, classwork or channels. When: Generally Available Class team templates Education users of Microsoft Teams admin center will now be able to create team templates for their organization. A team template in Microsoft Teams is a definition of a team's structure designed around a business need or project. As an admin, you can use templates to easily deploy consistent teams across your organization. With templates, your users can quickly create rich collaboration spaces with predefined settings, channels, and apps. EDU IT admins will now have an option to add a new template on top of existing default templates for Education. While creating the template, users will have 3 options to choose as a starting point Create a new template to create from scratch Use an existing team as a template to use one of your existing teams as a starting point Start with an existing template to using existing template as a starting pointA screenshot of a computer 3. Next, user will be required to add basic details for the template like name, description and locale. 4. Once created, these templates should start showing up for Teachers & Students on Teams while creating classes/teams. If you wish to limit the access, you can use template policies which is a Teams premium feature. 5. Lastly, users can customize the channels & apps for the template and save it.A screenshot of a computer When: Available now Rename General channel Up until now, every team in Microsoft Teams had a default General channel. All team members are part of this channel, and it can’t be archived or deleted. We’ve heard from users that they wanted the option to retitle this channel to something more meaningful. So, we made it happen! The General channel can now be renamed by the team’s owners. It will then show up in alphabetical order like other channels in the teams and channels lists for all members. When: Available now 6. Minecraft EDU updates Try Lesson Crafter, now in Preview, a new tool to help educators create Minecraft lesson plans to fit their classroom. Minecraft Education is also expanding its AI skills program with a new student credentialing pathway offered through Prodigy Learning. 7. OneNote Updates Pick any color with the new Eyedropper tool in OneNote With the new Eyedropper tool in OneNote, you can easily choose a color from any image, shape, or inked notes found in the app. The tool also allows you to build your own personalized set of pens in the drawing toolbox. When: Available now New ink pens We have added two new pens to your Draw tab in OneNote on Windows: Fountain Pen and Brush Pen. Also, we have updated pen icons, bringing a new refreshed and coherent look across your favorite productivity apps. When: Available now And finally, just to recap all the news we have for you this month, here’s a quick review of all the features that are generally available or are rolling out now: Project Spark, a new learning app for Copilot+ PCs M365 Copilot Chat M365 Copilot for Educators and students Learning Accelerator updates Math Progress at general availability Speaker Progress updates LTI integration with Moodle Reading Coach at general availability General Teams Updates AI Feedback and grading expanded dialog New grid layout updates Rename the General channel Unified calendar with Outlook Minecraft EDU updates OneNote updates Ink eyedropper New ink pens Have any feedback to share with us? As always, we'd love to hear it! Mike Tholfsen Group Product Manager Microsoft EducationLearning Accelerators, Teams Assignments Generally Available for Blackboard by Anthology
Today we are pleased to announce general availability of the Teams Assignments integration for Blackboard by Anthology! Blackboard is the latest Learning Management System to move to GA with this powerful integration, with more on the way. The Teams Assignments integration brings the power of Microsoft Learning Accelerators and generative AI educator tools to your LMS, along with other engaging activities such as Flip videos, Auto-graded Forms, MakeCode projects, Whiteboards, and Reflect check-ins. Grades and feedback are automatically returned to the LMS gradebook. LMS admin resources for deployment: Blackboard Admin Deployment Guide NOTE: If you have already deployed the preview, you do not need to re-install - just keep enjoying the app! Educator resources for readiness: Using Microsoft Teams Assignments in Learning Management Systems Additional readiness for Microsoft Learning Accelerators: Support reading fluency practice with Reading Progress Develop confident presenters with Speaker Progress Develop search strategies with Search Coach and Search Progress Support building mathematics skills with Math Progress Build social and emotional skills in your classroom community with Reflect Achieve More with Assignments in your LMS The new Teams Assignments integration brings unique new capabilities into your LMS, saving educators time, and providing powerful tools to accelerate learning. For example, with Teams assignments you can: Leverage AI during assignment creation to rapidly draft assignment descriptions and rubrics Accelerate student learning and educator insights with Reading, Math, Search, and Speaker Progress assignments Deliver auto-graded quizzes with Microsoft Forms Access unique assignment types such as Microsoft Whiteboard, MakeCode, and Flip video Use Reflect exit check-ins to gain insights into student sentiment related to assignments Teams Assignments are seamlessly integrated with LMS assignments via the Learning Tools Interoperability® (LTI®) v1.3 Advantage standard. As an educator, you can create new Teams assignments or link existing Teams assignments in your LMS course. Once linked, you can view and access those assignments as you would any other assignment in the LMS course. Your students can view and access their Teams assignments in the same way as their other LMS assignments. Assignment grades in Teams are automatically imported into the LMS gradebook. You can now use the best that Teams assignments and your LMS offer working together, instead of working alongside each other. Support for additional LMS platforms will be added soon! You can sign up here to receive information on current and future LMS integration previews. Choose the Right Tool for the Right Assignment Many educators are already using the OneDrive LTI® tool to bring M365 documents into LMS assignments. The new Teams Assignments LTI® tool is a complementary solution that brings unique capabilities of Teams for Education to LMS users. When creating an assignment in your LMS, you should choose the tool that best meets the needs of the specific assignment. Whatever the choice of tool, the assignment can be viewed and accessed like any other assignment in the LMS, and grades will be added into the LMS gradebook. Teams Assignments LTI® OneDrive LTI® What is it best used for? Learning Accelerators, Forms Quizzes, Whiteboard, MakeCode, Flip video, and other activities exclusive to Teams Assignments. AI-assisted assignment and rubric creation. Multiple Word, PowerPoint, Excel documents along with other activities can be required to be submitted by the student as part of a single assignment. Embedding or linking M365 documents in course content, discussions, announcements, or other LMS content. When a single or several documents are the focus of the assignment, announcement or discussion, and other Teams Assignments features are not needed. Collaborative editing of documents. Where are assignments graded? In Microsoft Teams, with grades and feedback automatically syncing back to the LMS gradebook. In the LMS, using the native LMS rubrics and gradebook. Requires Microsoft Teams for Education? Yes No How to get Help or give Feedback For any issues deploying the integration, our Education Support team is here to help: Please contact https://aka.ms/EduSupport Once deployed, the Teams Assignments integration has links to Contact Support and Send Feedback from right within the app. These can be found in the user voice menu in the upper right on any view that appears within the LMS. Leverage Microsoft Education for more than Assignments in your LMS The new Teams assignments integration is the latest advancement in our continued efforts to bring the full value of Microsoft Education to users of learning management systems. You can already use the capabilities of Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, OneNote Class Notebooks, Microsoft Reflect directly within LMS courses. You can learn more about these integrations with leaning management systems such as Blackboard, Brightspace, Canvas, Schoology Learning and Moodle in our previous overview, and our support page. Learning Tools Interoperability® (LTI®) is a trademark of the 1EdTech Consortium, Inc. (www.1edtech.org)Golden Path for Education - Part 1a
What is Golden Path Golden Path was developed to simplify and enhance the security of deploying a Microsoft 365 tenant solution in education. It consists of three stages: Stage 1: Deployment Guides are available online at Golden Path. This stage includes: Baseline - Stage 1a Standard - Stage 1b Advanced - Stage 1c Stage 2: A Discovery/Assessment AI tool is used to expose the tenant's configuration and analyze it against the tenant's license configurations, tenant and service settings, Microsoft's general education recommendations, and customer requirements. Stage 3: Drift Configuration management helps understand changes made against the established configuration in the tenant. These changes can be reversed or modified before any breaches or irregularities create problems. Goals and Objectives for Golden Path Goals Develop prescriptive deployment guides that provide a centralized resource with education-specific scenarios to assist organizations in defining, managing, and organizing their tenant and appropriate applications. Reduce the overall complexity of tenant and service deployment. Establish baseline recommended pathways to facilitate a common and agreed-upon configuration based on subject-matter experts. Utilize AI technology to uncover and compare recommended settings against user requirements based on documented configurations. Implement phased configurations to aid customers and partners in understanding what they may not know or should consider during discovery to meet customer expectations. Highlight unused features and products to ensure customers fully leverage the potential and benefits of their purchased product licenses. Identify opportunities for partner participation in achieving customer goals and expectations based on customer requirements and Golden Path findings. Create an easy pathway for customer change management to enhance control, security, compliance, and privacy of tenants. Develop custom assessments to evaluate product entry for items such as Copilot, Defender, Purview, Intune, Zero-Trust, and Microsoft Entra ID. Objectives Deliver information for features available (used/unused) to users based on license model. Prescriptive recommendations based on education scenarios. - Present upgrade license opportunities from A1 to A3 to A5. Security analysis exposing gaps and issues proactively to allow modifications before it's too late. Promote partner access to customers that have defined gaps based on assessments and are requesting partner assistance. Better discovery and assessment analysis with new tools. Designed to be more self-serving customer and partner access management. Speed up user adoption for educators and IT Admins alike. Baseline Stage 1a Baseline is stage 1a in the overall development of the Golden Path for Education. It is based on a majority of licenses within the tenant at the Microsoft 365 A1 for Education level. It also is a set of recommendations for ALL Microsoft Education tenants. Navigation Golden Path has three folders in the navigations. Golden Path Baseline References Golden Path folder consist of the Golden Path overall review. It goes over the entire program and the how and why it is built. Currently there are two pages, Golden Path overview and Baseline Overview. Golden Path overview menu Golden Path overview Stages (Deployment Guides, Discovery/Assessments, Drift Management) Modules (Setup, Identity, Applications, Security, and Devices) Phases (Baseline(A1), Standard(A3), Advanced(A5)) Baseline Overview Steps for each phase (Setup, Identity, Applications, Security, Devices) Licenses that are included General information links List of links for all applications and products included with A1 license List of links for all features included with A1 license Baseline menu Setup Tenant setup is key to establishing a secure and valid tenant. Setup goes through domain assignment, administration, and service management. Overview - Review all the steps that are part of the setup phase section Step 1 - Create your Office 365 tenant account Step 2 - Configure Security Center admin settings Step 3 - Secure and configure your network Step 4 - Sync your on-premises active directory Step 5 - Provision users Step 6 - Sync SIS with School Data Sync (SDS) Step 7 - License Users Identity Establishing an identity via Microsoft Entra ID and establishing authentication methods, Single Sign-On, and user procurement methodologies. Overview - Review all steps that are a part of the identity phase Step 1 - Understand identity definitions Step 2 - Configure Microsoft Entra ID basics Step 3 - Consider education identity steps Step 4 - Consider identity applications Step 5 - Set up access to operation services Step 6 - Set up identity lifecycle Step 7 - Configure security in identity Step 8 - Manage access controls Applications Applications like Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, Exchange Online are the core to a Microsoft tenant. Getting these applications setup are essential to allowing users in education to access services and apps like Learning Accelerators. Overview - Review all steps that are a part of the application phase Exchange Online o Step 1 - Design an Exchange Online environment o Step 2 - Set up Exchange Online o Step 3 - Configure compliance and security in Exchange Online o Step 4 - Configure address books, shared mailboxes, and clients Microsoft Teams o Overview - What is Microsoft Teams for Education o Step 1 - Configure Microsoft Teams for Education o Step 2 - Configure Microsoft Teams policies and settings for education organization OneDrive/SharePoint - Overview o Step 1 - Plan your OneDrive and SharePoint Deployment o Step 2 - Share within OneDrive and SharePoint o Step 3 - Configure security and access controls in OneDrive and SharePoint o Step 4 - Compliance considerations with OneDrive and SharePoint Security and Compliance Security via each phase is essential to maintaining order and blocking access for bad actors. Along with security compliance/privacy considerations that are established to adhere to a multitude of local and government requirements worldwide. Overview Step 1 - Security Considerations Devices Managed and unmanaged devices are another key to helping secure the network and potential cyber-security considerations that enter the network via these devices. Overview Step 1 - Review device management structure Step 2 - Plan device management Step 3 - Configure settings and applications Step 4 - Deploy and manage devices Windows 11 features and tips References menu Mulit-tenant solutions - Architectural recommendations base on multi or large tenant solutions. Accessibility Deploy Office 365 applications Pooled storage management How do you use Golden Path? Golden Path uses deployment guidelines content that contain education scenario specifics. Golden Path has a linked path for each modules based on the phase (Baseline,Standard,Advanced). Users can follow the deployment content to establish or redefine the tenant configuration in order to enable additional services and products. What’s Next Go to https://aka.ms/gp4edu to access the first part of Golden Path. Part 1b (Standard -A3 content) NEXT Part 1c (Advanced – A5 content) Part 2 - We will create a mechanism to discover the tenant configuration settings and allow customers and partners the ability to qualify what is set to standard recommendation. Using AI to deliver user requirements against the configuration will allow additional paths to enable services and features that allow the user/customer to achieve their objectives. Part 3 – Deliver drift management solution for management of unrealized or understood changes that need to be approved or modified.
