What's New in Microsoft EDU - Back to School August 2025
Welcome to our monthly update for Microsoft Education and thank you so much for being part of our growing community! Topics: Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat for teens (13-17) Microsoft 365 LTI (LMS integration updates) Learning Zone on the Copilot+ PC – public preview now available Microsoft 365 Copilot – Educator Features Microsoft 365 Copilot – Learner Features Learning Accelerators Updates OneNote EDU Updates We’ve loved seeing the early impact at schools and institutions such as Brisbane Catholic Education and Miami Dade College and the exploration of new capabilities like agents. Get started with Copilot Chat, our no-cost AI-powered chat with data protection, and learn more about Microsoft 365 Copilot. Our first two topics today are about even more value -- we’re bringing even more value to education in with Microsoft 365 Copilot, including with a new set of capabilities designed for relevant and powerful use by educators and students. These features will be included in Microsoft 365 Copilot and will be in private previews over the coming months. Education organizations institutions with any academic license are eligible to purchase Microsoft 365 Copilot, with no minimum, for their faculty, staff, and students aged 13 and older. Our second topic brings a powerful LMS integration for AI-powered learning tools, with Microsoft 365 LTI. 1. Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat for teens (13+) Last month, we announced teen student availability coming this summer for Copilot Chat and Microsoft 365 Copilot and today, we are sharing general availability is expected in late July, 2025. To prepare, administrators should review guidance to enable Copilot Chat for students and ensure appropriate access. Enable Copilot Chat access for students Copilot Chat is included with Microsoft 365 at no additional cost and offers secure AI chat powered by GPT-4o with the ability to maintain IT control through enterprise data protection and management. It also includes features like file upload, image generation, Copilot Pages, and agents. We’re optimistic about the opportunities that lie ahead to help students increase their agency and build skills to prepare for future success. Read more about use cases, reflections, and advice from our global private preview educators and students in the announcement blog and from Johns Creek High School in the following video. When: Available now! 2. Introducing Microsoft 365 LTI® A new, streamlined learning management system experience for Microsoft Education Microsoft 365 LTI brings Microsoft 365 for Education capabilities for learning management systems together into a single tool and streamlined user experience. Microsoft 365 LTI provides seamless access to Learning Accelerators, Reflect, OneDrive, Teams, and our Microsoft 365 for Education tools directly into your LMS course, without having to deploy multiple tools, and without overcrowding the menus where LTI tools are accessed. Whether adding content to a course, creating an assignment, or scheduling an online meeting for a class, you can easily access Microsoft 365 directly in your LMS workflow. You can also access the latest AI-powered features from Microsoft 365 for Education for LMS assignments, including rubric and instructions generation, suggested feedback, Forms Quiz generation, and more. Microsoft 365 LTI is now in public preview for Instructure Canvas, Powerschool Schoology, Anthology Blackboard, D2L Brightspace, and Moodle. To learn more, see our preview announcement. When: Public Preview now available; Generally Available in Fall 2025. LTI® is a trademark of the 1EdTech® Consortium, Inc. (1edtech.org) 3.Microsoft Learning Zone enters public preview Earlier this year, we introduced Microsoft Learning Zone, a new app built for Copilot+ PCs to help educators create interactive, personalized lessons in minutes. Now available in public preview, the app combines research-informed tools and trusted on-device AI to help educators save time, engage students, and keep content and data secure. We are grateful to the educators, researchers, and partners who have helped shape the experience so far. In the months ahead, we will continue to expand Learning Zone with new features, rich content partnerships, and deeper integration into classroom workflows. Experience Microsoft Learning Zone on a 12-inch Surface Pro When: Learning Zone is now in public preview. If your school is planning to explore Learning Zone, please note that an IT administrator must enable the app before it can be used. View instructions. 4.Microsoft 365 Copilot – Educator Features Teach in the Microsoft 365 Copilot App Microsoft 365 Copilot delivers the latest AI innovations whether through reasoning agents like Researcher and Analyst, or advanced functionality like Copilot Tuning. We recently introduced the updated Microsoft 365 Copilot app, your hub for the latest functionality and later this year in preview, for AI-powered features for educators. In one place, educators will be able to easily create lesson plans, draft materials like quizzes and rubrics, and quickly make modifications like translation, adjusted reading levels, length, difficulty, alignment to relevant standards, and more. This module will be your one stop shop for creating and adapting education content in a guided interface, designed for Education institutions. Teaching capabilities can assist you in drafting the best content for your class, including lesson plans, rubrics, learning activities and more! Guided: Create and adapt content in guided interfaces, reducing the need for advanced prompting techniques, while still giving you full control over Copilot. Grounded: Leverage Education standards from 35 countries, your own content, and your class details to ground Copilot and create content relevant to your class. Available where you are: In the Microsoft 365 Copilot App with the Copilot license - Web, Windows or Mac. When: First functionality previews in Q3 2025. Lesson Plans in Classwork AI generated lesson plans will also be coming to Classwork in Microsoft Teams. Bring your class details and a lesson description, and Copilot will create a lesson outline with suggestions for enhancements. Provide Copilot with relevant files and your education standards for an even more grounded lesson plan. When: In Private Preview July. General Availability end of summer 2025 Education data integration At ISTE this year, we’re thrilled to showcase how Microsoft 365 Copilot is becoming even more powerful for educators with the integration of Assignments and Classwork data. By bringing this rich, contextual classroom information directly into the flow of work, Copilot can now help teachers save time, gain insights, and support students more effectively. Educators can quickly surface upcoming assignments, generate summaries, and even tailor instruction based on the needs of each student— all from within familiar Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Outlook, and Teams. This integration marks a significant step forward in enabling AI-powered teaching, helping educators focus more on what matters most: meaningful student learning. When: Private Preview: Summer 2025 Standards alignment and creation We are excited to share updates on our efforts to bring standards aligned content to our education features. We are partnering with EdGate to integrate learning standards from over 36 countries into our AI features in Teams for Education and Microsoft 365. Integrating EdGate’s comprehensive and global standards set will empower educators to select standards that are relevant to their classes and assignments, allowing them to create high-quality, tailored content. Educators will have the flexibility to choose standards based on location, subject, language, and other criteria. Standards will be seamlessly integrated into all our AI processes in the future. For ISTE, we are happy to announce that our AI Rubric Generator and our new AI Lesson Plan creation tool will be the first features to support standards alignment. Standards alignment will help educators create class materials that are not only relevant and engaging but also pedagogically aligned. When: Summer 2025 Suggested AI feedback for Educators AI feedback suggestions is a new feature that makes it easier for you when you want to provide feedback to students as part of your Assignments flow using Microsoft 365 Copilot. Use the Feedback field as a scratchpad as you review the student work, and have Copilot enhance and summarize it for you. Or, if you are using rubrics, you can have Copilot review your rubric selection and summarize it. Copilot always uses your input as the basis of the suggested summarized feedback, and you will always need to confirm the suggested update and add potential edits, before returning to the student. When: GA now 5.Microsoft 365 Copilot – Learner features Learning activities We’re excited to share that Learning Activities will be coming to Microsoft 365 Copilot this summer! Learning activities is a new Microsoft Education experience designed to help educators and students transform passive content into active learning. With just a few clicks, educators and students can now create engaging practice activities like flashcards directly from existing learning content. Our first learning activity will be AI generated flashcards in Classwork. Educators will be able to add their learning content, select question type and hints, and generate cards. They can then make edits, add images, and even enhance the cards with AI before sharing them with their students. We will also be launching a stand-alone web app for educators to create activities this fall. In the future, we will add more activities like fill-in-the-blanks, mind maps, and matching. Students with Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses will be able to generate their own learning activities in the future too. When: Summer 2025 6. Learning Accelerator updates Speaker Progress We have some great new features coming to Speaker Progress! Speaker Progress is our Learning Accelerator that helps students build confidence in their presentation and public speaking skills with real-time coaching and feedback. Educators can then view speeches and track student progress over time. 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 comments to help them 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: September 2025 More languages in Speaker Progress More languages are now available in Speaker Progress, including Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, German, French, Dutch, and Danish. Keep checking back regularly as we are adding new languages to Speaker Progress every month! When: Available globally now! Reading Coach Back-to-school webinar: Join the Reading Coach back-to-school webinar on August 26, 2025, 8 am PST to get insights on how to use Reading Coach with struggling and multilingual readers. Register now! Educator features This is your back-to-school reminder that educators can now share custom passages, set reading time goals for learners, and track progress over time through the new guided practice features in Reading Coach. Check out the new Microsoft Learn unit here. Description: Sharing custom practice passages or time goals with learners in your tenant is as simple as using a join code or link. When: Available now Learner features Reading Coach has several new features, including some that make the app appealing to older readers: new dark mode “Midnight” theme with a custom background, a different coach, and coaching voice makes Reading Coach appealing and more accessible to learners across ages. Learners can still mix-and-match coaches, voice with the new Midnight background. The original application theme remains and is named “Sunlight”. agement tips: Learners receive tips to remain engaged and uplevel their reading in each session. Create content with Copilot: Learners of all ages, especially older readers, can use Copilot to brainstorm stories and passages, then bring them into Reading Coach to read in over 80 languages. Leveled fiction and non-fiction Spanish passages in Reading Coach curated content library. When: Available August 2025 Insights API for Reading Coach data Using the Insights Leader Graph API for Reading Coach, education institutions and partners can build custom dashboards to track students’ reading progression in Reading Coach. When: Available now 7.OneNote for Education updates There are plenty of exciting new things to explore in OneNote for Education in time for back to school, including: New Microsoft 365 LTI 1.3 integration – Streamlined LMS access to Class Notebook, Assignments, Reflect, and more Broader OneNote updates – Merge table cells (finally!) and a new option to “paste text only” A reminder about the built-in Class Notebook toolbar in OneNote on Windows and for Mac (no more need to download the add-in!) – How to enable it and why it’s great For all this goodness and more, check out the deep dive blog here. 💜 ____________________________________________________________ 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: Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat for teens (13-17) Microsoft 365 LTI (LMS integration updates) Learning Zone on the Copilot+ PC – public preview now available Microsoft 365 Copilot – Educator Features Teach module in the Microsoft 365 Copilot App Classwork integration AI Feedback Standards integration Learning Activities Microsoft 365 Copilot – Learner Features Learning Activities Learning Accelerators Updates Speaker Progress updates Reading Coach updates OneNote EDU Updates LTI 1.3 integration through the new Microsoft 365 LTI Merge table cells & paste text only Built-in Class Notebook toolbar for OneNote desktop Mike Tholfsen Group Product Manager Microsoft Education
