Minecraft Education Lesson Plans in Teach: AI-powered lesson planning meets the world of Minecraft
As educators, you've told us that some of your most time-consuming work is adapting lessons for engagement, aligning them to standards, and finding ways to bring immersive experiences into your curriculum. At the same time, Minecraft Education is already one of the most effective learning tools for engaging learners in classrooms around the world, with students lighting up the moment they hear the word "Minecraft." Today, we're bringing those two things together. Minecraft Education lesson plans are now generally available in Teach. Describe your topic, pick a grade level and subject, and Teach generates a complete, standards-aligned lesson plan built around Minecraft Education activities, including the specific blocks, materials, and preparation steps you need to run it confidently, even if you've never opened Minecraft Education before. (Minecraft Education is included in most Microsoft 365 software subscriptions for schools, so you also likely have full access.) What you get Every generated Minecraft Education lesson plan includes: Standards-aligned Minecraft Education activities - Build activities and challenges that reflect your selected standards across subjects like ELA, math, science, social studies, computer science, and more Minecraft-specific materials guidance - Recommendations for the exact blocks, items, and in-game tools your students will need, so you don't have to figure it out yourself Preparation instructions - Step-by-step setup guidance for educators new to Minecraft Education, so you can walk into the classroom ready to go Differentiation and collaboration - Tiered challenge options, collaborative build tasks, and formative checks embedded within gameplay A student link - A shareable link to send directly to students so they can join the activity See it in action Once your lesson is generated, you can edit any section directly or use Enhance with AI to refine it further: add collaborative build tasks, adjust the length and tone, include accessibility supports, or regenerate with new instructions. When it's ready, save to OneDrive and open it in Word to share with colleagues, or launch the Minecraft Education app directly to set up the lesson experience. For a full walkthrough of every step, see the support article. Why this matters We know many of you already love using Minecraft Education in your classrooms, while others are curious how Minecraft can enhance your teaching to deepen student learning and engagement. Minecraft Education lesson plans in Teach make it easier to create experiences by generating a complete, customized lesson from your topic and standards, with the Minecraft-specific materials, activities, and preparation guidance built in. Whether you're looking for a fresh lesson idea in a subject you haven't tried with Minecraft Education before, or you want to quickly adapt a concept for a different grade level, this tool gives you a starting point you can make your own. You bring the teaching expertise and your knowledge of your students. Get started Try it now: Minecraft Education lesson plan Available to Faculty/Staff with a Microsoft 365 for Education license and Copilot Chat enabled Does not require a paid Microsoft 365 Copilot license Minecraft Education may already be included with your Microsoft 365 license or can be purchased separately. Check your licensing options. Helpful Links Teach module training on Microsoft Learn, now including training on Minecraft Education lesson generation Training courses for Minecraft educators Have questions or ideas? Drop them in the comments below - We'd love to hear how you plan to use Minecraft Education lesson plans in your classroom! Share your feedback with us by joining our EDU Insider Program (aka.ms/joinEIP). Until next time, Max Fritz · Microsoft EducationMore standards are coming to the Teach Module and Teams for Education!
Hi everyone! As educators, you have told us that aligning lessons, assessments, and classroom materials to the standards you actually use is one of the most important parts of making AI-powered teaching tools useful in practice. When standards are available and easy to apply, it becomes much faster to create materials that fit your local curriculum and instructional goals. That is why we are continuing to expand the standards experience across Microsoft Education. We are excited to share a new wave of international standards coming to the standards experience in Teach and in Teams for Education. These standards will support experiences in the Teach module across Lesson Plans, Quizzes, and Rubrics, and they are also coming to Assignments in Teams for Education. If you don't see your country listed, you can request more standards at this link. In this post, we will share what is coming this week, what is planned over the next two months, what we are targeting for summer, and how we plan to keep you updated going forward. Why this matters Standards alignment helps you spend less time translating curriculum requirements into classroom materials and more time supporting student learning. Whether you are building a lesson plan, generating a quiz, creating a rubric, or preparing future assignments workflows in Teams for Education, access to the right standards makes those experiences more relevant and easier to use. Our goal is to keep expanding coverage so more educators can work with the standards they already know and trust, in more countries, subjects, and grade bands. New standards added in 2025 In 2025, we expanded standards coverage with a new set of international additions, including: Austria Canada - Ontario Early Language Learners Health & PE Technology Education Art Canada - Quebec Francophone Canada - Ontario World Languages French as a Second Language Native Languages American Sign Language as a Second Language Classical Studies and International Languages Egypt England Arts Education Health & PE World Languages Technology Education Career Technical Education Finland Kuwait UK GCE AS and A Level Qualifications across a broad range of subject areas These additions helped expand standards coverage beyond core national frameworks and into more subject-specific and qualification-based experiences. Recently added We have already started rolling out new international standards this spring. Recent additions include: Czech Republic UK additions, including recent support for Scotland, Wales, and UK GCE AS and A Level qualifications New Brunswick - Technology Standards Kuwait - Language Arts, Math, Social Studies Estonia - Language Arts, Math, Science Estonia - Social Studies Latvia New Brunswick - Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies These recent additions laid the groundwork for the next wave of standards now arriving across Teach and Teams for Education. Coming this week This week, we are adding the following standards to the standards experience in Teach and Teams for Education: Finland Lithuania Norway Romania These additions continue our recent rollout of international standards and expand access for educators who want to align AI-assisted lesson creation and assessment workflows to local curriculum expectations. Coming in the next two months Over the next two months, we expect to continue expanding standards coverage with the following additions: Slovakia Sweden Egypt Canada - Quebec Francophone Standards India NCERT - Hindi Language Arts India NCERT - Sanskrit Language Arts Bahrain Lebanon Oman Qatar Greece We also have additional standards in progress that are on the roadmap, with timing still being finalized: Austria Kuwait - Science India NCERT - Urdu Language Arts Australia ACARA National Technology Education Health & PE Art Languages Canada - New Brunswick additional subject expansion Health & PE Art Languages Norway vocational standards As these become available, they will light up the same standards-backed experiences across Teach and Teams for Education. Planned for summer Looking ahead, we are planning an even broader set of standards expansions over the summer. This work is designed to add more international coverage across core subjects and additional curriculum frameworks. The following are planned for summer: Belgium - Flemish Catholic Network Standards (VVKSO) Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Canada, British Columbia ADST (Entrepreneurship & Marketing) Career Education (Career-Life Education, Career-Life Connections) Core Competencies Canada: Ontario Business Studies Canadian & World Studies Co-op Ed Guidance & Career Ed Ontario Catholic expectations (ICE) CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) Language Arts Portugal Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Germany: NRW State Kernlehrplan Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Hong Kong Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Turkey Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Vietnam Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Costa Rica Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Peru Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Guatemala Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Morocco Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Croatia Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Kenya Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Bolivia Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Chile Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Pakistan Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Panama Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies This planned summer wave reflects our continued focus on expanding standards coverage in ways that are useful for real classroom workflows across regions. Where you will see these standards As standards coverage expands, educators will see the impact across several experiences: Teach module - Lesson Plans Teach module - Quizzes Teach module and Teams for Education – Rubrics Teams for Education – Assignments Instructions (Coming soon) This means more opportunities to use standards as part of lesson creation, assessment design, and classroom workflows without having to start from scratch. What this means for educators As more standards become available, you will be able to: Align lesson materials to more local and regional curriculum requirements Build quizzes and rubrics that better reflect what students are expected to know and do Use standards-backed workflows in Teach across more countries and subject areas Prepare for future standards-aligned experiences in Assignments in Teams for Education For educators working across multiple countries, languages, or curriculum systems, this expanded coverage can help reduce manual work and make AI-generated outputs more relevant to your teaching context. We plan to keep sharing updates We also plan to share regular blog updates roughly every quarter so you can see what standards are newly available, what is rolling out next, and where we are continuing to expand coverage. Our goal is to make these updates easier to track so educators, school leaders, and partners can stay current on what is available in the standards experience across Microsoft Education. Helpful links Getting started with Teach Modify content - Align to Standards Microsoft Teams for Education International standards currently available through EdGate Request additional standards Share feedback with us by joining our EDU Insider Program Have questions or want to let us know which standards you would like to see next? Drop a comment below or submit a request through our Standards Feedback form. We would love to hear what curriculum frameworks matter most in your classrooms. Until next time, Samantha Fisher · Microsoft EducationClassic LTI App Retirements, Preview of OneDrive LTI Migration Tool for Canvas
Classic Microsoft LTI® Apps Retiring in 2026: What You Need to Know and How to Prepare Microsoft is continuing its investment in a unified, modern Microsoft 365 LTI experience. As part of this evolution, several classic Microsoft LTI apps will be retired in September 2026. This post outlines: Which classic LTI apps are retiring and when What happens to existing course links and content created in classic LTIs retiring What actions you should take now to prepare, and start transitioning to Microsoft 365 LTI New migration tooling available to support transition Classic Microsoft LTI® Apps Retiring September 17, 2026 As we shared last September in our Microsoft 365 LTI GA release Blog, the following classic Microsoft LTI apps will be retired on September 17, 2026: Microsoft OneDrive LTI (1.3) OneNote Class Notebook LTI (1.1) Microsoft Reflect LTI (1.3) Microsoft Teams Assignments LTI (1.3) After September 17, 2026, any links or placements of these classic apps in courses will stop working. However, the files, notebooks, assignments, and check-ins created by these classic apps will continue to be available to copy and reuse. Replacements for these classic experiences are now available through the unified Microsoft 365 LTI built on the LTI® 1.3 Advantage standard. This delivers modern security, simplified identity mapping with Microsoft Entra, LMS enrollment and grade syncing, and a single deployment model for LMS administrators. We’ll continue to update our migration guides as additional tools and guidance become available. NEW: Preview the OneDrive LTI Migration Tool for Canvas Canvas LMS Customers: We are excited to announce that the Microsoft OneDrive LTI Migration Tool for Canvas is now available in Preview! This tool helps institutions using Canvas LMS migrate OneDrive content links from the classic Microsoft OneDrive LTI app to the new Microsoft 365 LTI app — preserving existing file links in courses so educators and students experience a seamless transition. For new preview deployments: detailed deployment instructions are available in the Canvas migration guide, which has been updated with configuration steps and guidance for using the migration tool. If you participated in the private preview: If you have already deployed the OneDrive LTI Migration Tool in Canvas during the private preview, no action is required. Your existing deployment will continue to work as part of the Public Preview, and in GA. If you deployed the private preview in a testing environment, we suggest that you follow the new Canvas migration guide in your production environment. Below is guidance to assist with transition from the other classic LTI apps and on additional LMS platforms. We will continue to communicate updates to this guidance as it evolves. If you use the classic Microsoft OneDrive LTI 1.3 with an LMS other than Canvas Deploy Microsoft 365 LTI with the OneDrive app enabled and guide educators to use the new Microsoft 365 LTI (Microsoft Education menus) to create file links or embeds in course content. Disable/hide/remove placements of the classic Microsoft OneDrive LTI app in your LMS but do not uninstall or disable the app. Files linked or embedded with the classic Microsoft OneDrive LTI will stop working when the app is retired, so those links and embeds must be replaced using the new Microsoft 365 LTI (Microsoft Education) app ahead of the retirement date. OneNote Class Notebook LTI 1.1 (All LMS platforms) The new OneNote Class Notebook LTI 1.3 integration is now available in the Microsoft 365 LTI app, with automatic roster sync and streamlined setup. Deploy Microsoft 365 LTI with the OneNote Class Notebook app enabled, and guide educators to use the new app. Disable/hide/remove placements of the classic OneNote integration, but do not uninstall the app to avoid migration issues during transition. While there is no direct migration path from OneNote Class Notebook LTI 1.1 notebooks to Microsoft 365 LTI Class Notebooks, educators can copy sections/pages from one notebook to another using the right-click menu on Sections and Pages (and selecting “Move/Copy”) in OneNote on Windows, OneNote Web, and OneNote for Mac. Instructions are also available for content transfer using OneNote on Mac, iOS, or Android. Microsoft Teams Assignments LTI 1.3 (All LMS platforms) Deploy Microsoft 365 LTI with the Assignments app enabled, and guide educators to create assignments using the new app. Disable/hide/remove placements of the legacy Teams Assignments LTI app as soon as you install the new Microsoft 365 LTI and enable the Assignments app, and guide you users to copy their existing assignments using the new app. Teams Assignments created by the classic LTI 1.3 app can be reused as in the new Microsoft 365 LTI Assignments experience (which does not require a Team) Assignments created in the LMS or via the Assignments app in Microsoft Teams can be copied and reused using the Create from Existing functionality in the Microsoft 365 LTI (Microsoft Education) Assignment instructor flow. Microsoft Reflect LTI 1.3 (All LMS platforms) Deploy Microsoft 365 LTI with the Reflect app enabled, and guide educators to create new Reflects in the new Microsoft 365 LTI experience. There is no migration path for reflects created in the classic Reflect LTI 1.3 app to the Reflect experience in the new Microsoft 365 LTI Reflect app. We recommend transitioning to the new Reflect experience in Microsoft 365 LTI as soon as possible, and remove the classic app ahead of the September 17, 2026 retirement. Stay Connected We love hearing from you! There are a few ways to stay engaged with Microsoft and your peers on the LMS integrations. Follow this blog! Click Register at the top right to create an account and profile for the Microsoft Tech Community and Follow the Education Blog so you don’t miss any of our updates. Join the free Education Insiders Program to preview updates, get support from other community members, meet the team, and influence the roadmap. Join us for Microsoft 365 LTI office hours to connect with your peers and share feedback directly with Microsoft experts. When: 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month @ 11AM EST Where: https://aka.ms/LTIOfficeHours Getting help and giving feedback LMS and Microsoft 365 admins can contact Microsoft Education Support to help resolve configuration and deployment issues, for themselves or on behalf of users. Educators and Learners can contact support or give feedback directly from the app through the help and feedback menu. TJ Vering Principal Product Manager Microsoft Education https://linkedin.com/in/tvering Learning Tools Interoperability® (LTI®) is a trademark of the 1EdTech Consortium, Inc. (https://1edtech.org/)New information literacy features in Search Progress now generally available
Hello all! Last September, we shared a preview of new information literacy features coming to Search Progress — designed to help students pause, think critically, and show their reasoning as they research online. Today, we’re excited to share that these features are generally available for all educators using Search Progress through Assignments in Teams for Education and the Microsoft 365 LTI®. A special thank you to the educators who participated in the preview and shared feedback along the way; your insights helped shape these features into what they are today. See it in action Want a walkthrough before reading the details? Watch our Elevate Signature Series session, “Show Me Your Thinking,” where Dr. Geri Gillespy and I discuss future ready skills along with Search Progress setup, the full educator-to-student workflow, and how these skills connect to global assessment frameworks like PISA 2029. Why process matters more than ever Information literacy skills like verifying sources, understanding context, and thinking critically are foundational for responsible and effective navigation of online information. These skills become even more critical as AI becomes an integral part of learning and daily life, where students don’t just need access to information, they need to know how to evaluate it. To ensure these features were developed in alignment with the latest in online reasoning research, we consulted with experts from the Digital Inquiry Group — a team with decades of experience as curriculum designers, classroom educators, researchers, and teacher educators — recognized with awards from UNESCO, the American Educational Research Association, and the School Library Association, to name a few. What’s now available The enhanced Search Progress features introduce structured activities and checkpoints — cognitive forcing functions that encourage students to pause, consider, and articulate their reasoning as they navigate the complex world of online information. Here’s what you can now enable for your assignments: Evaluating source reputability: Instead of relying solely on what a source says about itself, students investigate the individuals or organizations behind the information by looking into what other sources say about them, like how employers use references in a job interview. Cross-checking and lateral reading: “Using the internet to check the internet”, students compare information and perspectives across multiple sources to reveal patterns, differences, and possible inaccuracies. Impact awareness: Students consider what could be at risk if the information is inaccurate or fabricated with the new "factual importance" checkpoint. For instance, health advice carries different consequences than an AI-generated image of a cat dancing at the disco. Identifying source purpose: Information is created for a reason. Students consider who created a source, and whether it’s trying to inform, persuade, sell, or entertain. Metacognitive reflection: Students reflect on the research process itself including why certain sources stood out, which strategies worked best, and how to apply those learnings in the future. Not just for research projects These features aren’t only for formal research assignments. They’re designed for class activities that involve online research, whether students are exploring a new topic, gathering sources for a presentation, or verifying information for a discussion. The goal is to build habits that transfer throughout the digital information ecosystem, from navigating social media to evaluating AI-generated content. For example: A science educator assigns a pre-lab research task on chemical reactions. By enabling Source Reputation and Factual Importance, students learn to prioritize safety data sheets and academic sources over unverified blogs and to think about why accuracy matters when the stakes are high. A social studies educator uses Cross-check for an assignment focusing on current events. Students discover that a viral statistic has been reported differently across sources, and they practice tracing claims back to their origin — building lateral reading habits they’ll carry into their media consumption outside of school. What educators are saying Teacher librarians, in particular, have told us that the “process over product” approach gives them something they’ve been missing — visibility into the process of student inquiry, not just what they turn in. These features give them a window into the journey, not just the destination. With new scaffolds that support cross-checking and the investigation of source reputation, Search Progress now covers more of the skills they’ve been trying to teach. We’ve heard from educators that the explanation prompts reveal a side of student thinking that traditional assignments don't often capture. During an early pilot, students pushed back on a text field that didn’t scroll to expand, not because they wanted less writing, but because they had more to say about why they chose their sources and wanted more space to explain their thinking. Students who described themselves as not being strong essay writers found a different way to show their thinking, and when they knew that their reasoning mattered as much as the final product, it changed how they engaged with the assignment. Preparing students with future-ready skills for the age of AI As educators worldwide work to build students’ information literacy skills, global frameworks are evolving to match. The OECD recently published a first draft of the PISA 2029 Media and Artificial Intelligence Literacy (MAIL) assessment framework — a new assessment that will measure 15-year-olds’ ability to critically evaluate digital and AI-generated content across all participating countries. We were interested to see how closely the skills that Search Progress helps build align with the competences this framework describes. The MAIL assessment places significant emphasis on evaluating source credibility, assessing purpose and bias, and cross-checking information across multiple sources — all skills that Search Progress is designed to support through structured activities and checkpoints in the flow of research. Educators have also shared that these features help address a tension many are navigating right now: how to maintain academic integrity when AI-generated work is increasingly difficult to distinguish from student work. Rather than relying on detection tools at the end of the pipeline, Search Progress makes the research process itself the artifact, which gives educators evidence of student thinking throughout. Of course, information literacy is broader than any single tool. The MAIL framework also includes competences around content creation and collaborative digital participation that go beyond what Search Progress currently addresses. But for the core skill of analysing and evaluating online information — which the framework highlights as one of its most heavily weighted competences — Search Progress can help you give your students meaningful practice right now. By integrating these research habits into everyday assignments, you’re helping students build skills that will serve them well beyond any single assessment — from navigating social media to evaluating AI-generated content in their daily lives. Getting started Open Assignments in Teams for Education (or your LMS via the Microsoft 365 LTI). Create a new assignment and select Search Progress as a Learning Accelerator. Choose which information literacy features to enable for this assignment; you can mix and match based on the lesson. Customize the checkpoint card prompts to fit your subject area and grade level. Assign it to your class and watch the research process unfold. Requirements Available to all Microsoft 365 Education customers Classes set up in Teams for Education or the Microsoft 365 LTI Helpful links 📘 Take the MS Learn course — Intro course for educators 📘 Microsoft 365 LTI app overview — Bring Search Progress into your LMS 💬 Join the Education Insiders Program — Share feedback directly with our product team We’re committed to helping you foster information and AI literacy, and your feedback continues to shape how these tools evolve. Join the Search Progress channel in the Education Insiders Program to connect with other educators, attend community calls, and share your experience directly with the product team. If you’re not yet an EIP member, sign up here: aka.ms/JoinEIP. Have questions or ideas? Drop them in the comments below. I’d love to hear how you’re using these features in your classroom! Until next time, Emma Gray Product Manager II Microsoft Education Learning Tools Interoperability® (LTI®) is a trademark of the 1EdTech Consortium, Inc. (1edtech.org)
Looking for official role-based AI learning paths and Microsoft AI ecosystem diagram
Hello everyone, I am responsible for AI up-skilling at my company, and we are currently building role-based learning paths for roles such as AI Engineer, Data Analyst, Data Engineer, and Data Scientist. I would really appreciate any advice or pointers to official Microsoft resources on the following topics. Q1. Role-based learning paths I am aware of the Microsoft Learn career paths: However, I am looking for the most up-to-date official learning paths or curated guidance that also cover newer services such as: Copilot GitHub Copilot Microsoft Fabric Azure AI Foundry Are there any Microsoft resources that organize recommended learning content by role for these newer areas? Q2. Official Microsoft AI ecosystem diagram I am also looking for an official Microsoft diagram, map, or architecture overview that shows the overall AI ecosystem, including services such as Copilot, GitHub Copilot, Microsoft Fabric, and Azure AI Foundry. As a reference, I am aware of unofficial resource, although it appears to be somewhat outdated: If anyone knows of an official and more recent resource, I would be very grateful. (If direct links are not allowed in replies, page titles or document names would also be very helpful.) Thank you.OneDrive, Assignments, and Learning Accelerators are now Generally Available in Microsoft 365 LTI
Enhance your LMS with the power of Microsoft 365 Today, Microsoft is announcing general availability of the OneDrive and Assignments (including Learning Accelerators) experiences as part of Microsoft 365 LTI®—bringing seamless integration of Microsoft 365 tools into learning platforms to simplify workflows and enhance teaching and learning whether you’re using Canvas, Schoology, Brightspace, Blackboard, Moodle or other LMS platforms. Microsoft 365 LTI makes it easier than ever for educators and students to leverage the full suite of Microsoft 365 Education tools within existing workflows. And now, the OneDrive, Assignments and Learning Accelerators (Reading Progress, Speaker Progress and more) experiences previewed in July with the new Microsoft 365 LTI build on all the capabilities of the classic tools and add additional features in one convenient tool. Educators and students benefit from a more seamless and up-to-date LMS experience with Microsoft 365 Education. Teach and learn with confidence knowing that Microsoft 365 LTI is backed by Microsoft's industry-leading security and compliance tools with Microsoft 365 Education. Deploy and access the new Microsoft 365 LTI in your LMS today with the overview and deployment guides. IMPORTANT: If you have deployed the Microsoft 365 LTI previously, you do not need to redeploy in your LMS – however, we do recommend reviewing the deployment guide for any new recommendations or deployment guidance, and revisit your Admin Settings to check your M365 Admin Consent status and review the apps enabled for your educators to have access to in their courses. Classic LTI retirements Microsoft OneDrive LTI, OneNote LTI, Teams Assignments LTI and Reflect LTI are set to retire next September 17, 2026. The Microsoft 365 LTI replaces these separate LTI tools going forward and we encourage you to start proactively migrating your course this term. You will find migration guidance in our admin documentation to help take steps now. We will continue to provide any additional migration guidance as necessary OneDrive and Microsoft 365 files with embedded editors and new placements The new Microsoft 365 LTI tool expands beyond the capabilities of the existing OneDrive LTI tool with capabilities for Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, including Microsoft 365 Copilot - and is now available within your LMS experience by embedding or linking documents, videos, PDFs, and images into course materials like assignments, discussions, modules, announcements and more. Microsoft 365 LTI orchestrates management of permissions to prevent oversharing, and with dedicated course-level storage to support proper document lifecycle management, assignment workflows, and use of Microsoft 365 Copilot. With Canvas, Collaborations are supported along with students editing and submitting Microsoft 365 documents as an external tool assignment without leaving your LMS. This functionality replaces the classic Microsoft OneDrive LTI which will retire September 17, 2026. Learning Accelerators and AI-enhanced assignments available in your LMS - without the requirement for Microsoft Teams With Assignments in Microsoft 365 LTI, you will be able to use Learning Accelerators, multiple-document submissions, AI rubric and instructions generation, AI-assisted feedback, auto-graded Forms and other assignment capabilities directly within your learning management system (LMS), without the need to create and sync a Microsoft Team for your class. Assignments in Microsoft 365 LTI no longer require Teams access, enabling more LMS users to benefit from AI-enhanced experiences that were formerly exclusive to Microsoft Teams for Education. And Assignments can be created, managed, completed, and graded, without leaving your LMS with grades and feedback available to sync automatically to the LMS gradebook. New: Improve student speaking and presenting skills in 13 languages with Speaker Progress Exciting new AI Feedback features for educators to leverage, students can practice for in-class presentations or save class time by presenting and turning in their presentations for grading. This capability is included automatically in the new Microsoft 365 LTI tool. Existing, Teams-based assignments will continue to work and can be copied to new courses, so no migration is necessary. The assignments functionality in Microsoft 365 LTI replaces the classic Teams Assignments which will retire September 17, 2026. Dive into the new Microsoft 365 LTI to streamline your LMS experience We are bringing our Microsoft 365 Education capabilities for learning management systems together into a single, unified tool to streamline the user experience. Educators will be able to access Learning Accelerators, Reflect, OneDrive, Teams, and more in their LMS courses, without having to enable multiple tools separately, and without overcrowding menus where LTI tools surface. Whether adding content to a module, creating an assignment, or scheduling a meeting for a class, you will be able to easily access Microsoft 365 Education related features directly in your LMS workflow. Microsoft 365 LTI is available for supported LMS platforms, including Canvas by Instructure, PowerSchool Schoology Learning, Blackboard by Anthology, D2L/Brightspace, Moodle™, and for any LTI 1.3 Advantage compliant platform. Migration guidance and tools Guidance for migrating users from the classic LTI tools to the Microsoft 365 LTI can be found in our First Time Configuration guide. We strongly recommend guiding users to leverage the new experiences for OneDrive, Assignments, Reflect and OneNote Class Notebooks in the Microsoft 365 LTI as the classic experiences are set to retire on September 17 th , 2026. We are working on additional guidance to help with migration of existing content ahead of classic LTI retirements, and more information will be available soon. Compliance and regulatory resources Visit the Microsoft Service Trust Portal to learn how Microsoft cloud services protect your data, and how you can manage cloud data security and compliance for your organization. You will find our latest HECVAT assessment along with other resources for Microsoft 365 LTI and all Microsoft apps and services. For more information, and to keep up with future product announcements Please visit the Microsoft Tech Community Education Blog and subscribe to keep up with what’s new in Microsoft Education. We also hold bi-monthly office hours every first and third Thursday where lots of LMS + Microsoft 365 customers come to discuss scenarios and get assistance from peers, please join us. Microsoft 365 LTI Office Hours 1 st and 3 rd Thursday of each month at 11am EST Join link: https://aka.ms/LTIOfficeHours How to get help or send feedback For any issues deploying the integration, our Education Support team is here to help. Please visit https://aka.ms/EduSupport Once deployed, there are 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. Learn more about Microsoft feedback for your organization. Learning Tools Interoperability® (LTI®) is a trademark of the 1EdTech Consortium, Inc. (1edtech.org) The word Moodle and associated Moodle logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Moodle Pty Ltd or its related affiliates.
Microsoft Mesh Education Licensing
Microsoft Education and Product Teams, I am writing to advocate for the inclusion of Microsoft Mesh (Immersive Spaces and Events) within the Microsoft 365 Education SKU family (A1, A3, and A5). Currently, Mesh is available across nearly every commercial license family, from Teams Essentials to E5 Enterprise, but is explicitly excluded from Education tenants. As documented in several Learn Q&A threads and service plan manifests, the MESH_IMMERSIVE_FOR_TEAMS service plan is simply not provisioned for EDU customers. The current state is one of silent exclusion, creating several critical hurdles: Pedagogical: Immersive technology is one of the most requested features for remote and hybrid learning to combat "Zoom fatigue" and increase student engagement. Education is a high-value use case for 3D immersion. Parity: Universities and K-12 institutions on A5 licenses pay for "top-tier" features but are denied the innovative tools available to a "Business Basic" user. If you are a small business on a basic plan, you have Mesh. If you are a world-class University on A5, you are blocked. This isn't a "procurable" add-on; it is a licensing eligibility wall. Implementation: Current Microsoft guidance suggests schools move to Business or Enterprise licensing to access Mesh. This is not a viable solution for institutions with thousands of users, complex compliance requirements, and student-data privacy frameworks built specifically around EDU SKUs. We aren’t asking for a discount; we are asking for eligibility. We urge the product team to: Add the Mesh Immersive service plan to the A3 and A5 EDU license entitlements. Provide a clear roadmap for when Education tenants can expect feature parity with Commercial tenants. Education should be the vanguard of immersive collaboration, not an afterthought. We would appreciate a formal update on when this licensing barrier will be removed.
Unable to Setup Billing for new tenant account: Error code - 43881
I set up a Microsoft 365 Education tenant for a school in Uganda but received error code 43881 during billing verification. The tenant was created but A1 trial licenses were not attached. I have no chat or email support options available in the admin center. Error code: 43881ProvePresent: Ending Proxy Attendance with Azure Serverless & Azure OpenAI
Problem Most schools use a smart‑card‑based attendance system where students tap their cards on a reader. However, this method is unreliable because students can give their cards to friends or simply tap and leave immediately. Teachers cannot accurately assess real student performance—whether high‑performing students are genuinely attending class or whether poor performance is due to actual absence. Another issue is that even if students are physically present in a lecture, teachers still cannot tell whether they are paying attention to the projector or actually learning. The current workaround is for teachers to override the attendance record by calling each student one by one, which is time‑consuming in large lectures and adds little educational value. It is also only a one‑time check, meaning students can still leave the lecture room immediately afterwards. Another issue is that we have many out‑of‑school activities such as site visit, and the school needs to ensure everyone’s presence promptly in each check point. This kind of problem isn’t unique to schools. It’s a common challenge for event organizers, where verifying attendee presence is essential but often slow, causing long queues. Organizers usually rely on a few mobile scanners to check in attendees one by one. Solution ProvePresent is an AI tool designed to verify attendance and create real‑time challenges for participants, ensuring that attendance records are authentic and that attendees remain focused on the presentation. It uses OTP login with school email. Check-in and Check-out With a Real‑time QR Code The code refreshes every 25 seconds, and the presenter can display it on the projector for everyone to scan when checking in at the beginning and checking out at the end of the session. However, this alone cannot prevent someone from capturing the code and sending it to others who are not in the room, or from using two devices to help someone else scan for attendance—even if geolocation checks are enabled. We will explain this next. This check‑in and check‑out process is highly scalable, and no one needs to queue while waiting for someone to scan their QR code! Organizers can set geolocation restrictions to prevent anyone from checking in remotely in a simple manner. Keep Attendee Alive with Signalr The SignalR live connection allows the presenter to create real‑time challenges for attendees, helping to verify their presence and ensure they are genuinely focused on the presentation. AI Powered Live Quiz The presenter shares their presentation screen, and two Microsoft Foundry agents with Azure OpenAI Chatgpt 5.3 —ImageAnalysisAgent, which extracts key information from the shared screen, and QuizQuestionGenerator, which generates simple questions based on the current slide—work together to create challenges. The question is broadcast to all online attendees, who must answer within 20 seconds. This feature keeps attendees on the webpage and prevents them from doing anything unrelated to the presentation. Detailed report can be downloaded for further analysis. Attendee Photo Capture Request all online students to capture and upload photos of their venue view. The system will analyze the images to estimate seating positions using Microsoft Foundry agents with Azure OpenAI ChatGPT 5.3 PositionEstimationAgent and complete an image challenge. When the presenter clicks Capture Attendee Photos, all online attendees are prompted to take a photo and upload it to blob storage. The PositionEstimationAgent then analyzes the image to estimate their seating location, which can provide insights into student performance. Analysis Notes: Analyzed 13 students in 2 overlapping batches. Batch 1: The venue is a computer lab with the projector screen at the front center, whiteboards on the left, and cabinets on the right. Relative depth was estimated mainly from screen size and number of monitor rows visible ahead. Column estimates were inferred from screen angle and side-room features, with lower confidence for the rotated side-view image. Batch 2: These six photos appear to come from the same computer lab with the projector at the front center. Relative depth was estimated mainly from projector size and number of visible desk/monitor rows ahead. Left-right placement was inferred from projector skew and side-wall visibility. Within this batch, 240124734 and 240167285 seem closest to the front, 240286514 and 240158424 are slightly farther back, 240293498 is farther back again, and 240160364 appears furthest. Pass around the QR code attendance sheet Traditionally, the attendance sheet is circulated for attendees to sign, but this method is unreliable because no one monitors the signing process, allowing one attendee to sign for someone who is absent. It is also slow and not scalable for large groups. The QR Code attendance sheet functions as a chain. The presenter randomly distributes a short‑lived, one‑time QR code—representing a virtual attendance sheet—to any number of attendees, just like handing out multiple physical sheets. Each attendee must find another participant to scan their code to record attendance, continuing the chain until the final group of attendees. The presenter then verifies the last group’s presence. The first chain is a dead chain because that student left the venue and cannot find another student to scan his QR code. The second chain contains 20 student attendance records. It also provides useful insights into their friendship and seating patterns. Architecture This project is built using Vibe Coding, so we will not share highly technical details in this post. If you'd like to learn more, leave a comment, and we will write another blog to cover the specifics. GitHub Repo https://github.com/wongcyrus/ProvePresent Conclusion ProvePresent demonstrates how Azure serverless technology and Azure OpenAI can work together to solve a long‑standing problem in education: verifying genuine student presence and engagement. By combining real‑time QR code verification, SignalR‑powered live interactions, AI‑generated quizzes, and intelligent photo‑based seating analysis, we created a system where “being present” is no longer just a checkbox—it becomes a verifiable, interactive, and meaningful part of the learning experience. Instead of relying on outdated smart‑card systems or manual roll calls, educators gain a dynamic tool that keeps students attentive, provides insight into classroom behavior, and produces useful analytics for improving teaching outcomes. Students, in turn, benefit from an engaging, modern attendance experience that aligns with how digital‑native learners expect classes to operate. This is only the beginning. With Microsoft Foundry agents and the flexibility of Azure Functions, there are many opportunities to extend ProvePresent further—richer analytics, smarter engagement models, and seamless integration with LMS platforms. If there’s interest, we’re happy to share more technical details, architectural deep dives, and future roadmap ideas in a follow‑up post. Thank you for the contribution of Microsoft Student Ambassadors Hong Kong Institute of Information Technology (HKIIT) Wong Wing Ho, CHAN Sham Jayson, Pang Ho Shum, and Chan Ka Chun. They are major in Higher Diploma in Cloud and Data Centre Administration. About the Author Cyrus Wong is the senior lecturer of Hong Kong Institute of Information Technology (HKIIT) @ IVE(Lee Wai Lee).and he focuses on teaching public Cloud technologies. He is a passionate advocate for the adoption of cloud technology across various media and events. With his extensive knowledge and expertise, he has earned prestigious recognitions such as AWS Builder Center, Microsoft MVP- Microsoft Foundry, and Google Developer Expert for Google Cloud Platform & AI.
