As educators, we recognize that you stay on the lookout for new ways to motivate your students, improve your teaching practices, and streamline your work processes. To support you in your mission, we’re excited to present another set of new updates from Microsoft Education, all aimed at increasing the achievement of you and your students.
We’ll highlight some of the recent product updates and capabilities to help you boost student engagement, improve your instruction, and simplify your tasks. We’ll also share professional development opportunities to help you develop and enhance your skills. Let’s dive in and see what’s new in Microsoft Education.
Simplify your workflow with new tools, features, and capabilities
1. Get free access to Khanmigo for Teachers for US educators
We recently announced a new partnership with Khan Academy to help turn the promise of AI in education into reality and increase access to innovation. As part of the partnership, Microsoft is enabling Khan Academy to provide free access to Khanmigo for Teachers to all US educators, we’re collaborating to explore opportunities to improve AI-powered math tutoring with a new open-source small language model, and bringing high-quality education experiences to more learners.
Read about our collaboration with Khan Academy and learn how US educators can get started with Khanmigo for Teachers for free. You can also save or print this quick guide to Khanmigo for Teachers to refer back to as needed.
2. Discover new Minecraft Education, Reflect, and MakeCode experiences inspired by Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out 2
Engage your class with new experiences from Microsoft Education inspired by Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out 2. Create an open and accepting classroom with these new activities from Minecraft Education, Reflect, and MakeCode.
- Dive into a world where emotions come to life and find what brings you joy in a new Minecraft Education build challenge inspired by the movie, complete with a lesson plan and a custom world.
- Explore new brain breaks in Reflect that include stories, games, and coloring pages featuring characters from the movie.
- Celebrate the release with a new Bubble Popping arcade tutorial from MakeCode that features art and characters from the movie.
3. Teach computing skills with Visual Studio Code for Education
Consistent with Microsoft’s commitment to preparing students for the future, we announced the release of our latest product to empower the next generation of developers—Visual Studio Code for Education, a free online computer science education platform. Visual Studio Code for Education is designed for students and educators and provides integrated curriculum and a sandbox coding environment for everyone, with zero setup.
Get started with Visual Studio Code for Education and see how it can be a valuable resource in your classroom!
4. Practice summer reading with Reading Coach
School may be out for summer in many places across the northern hemisphere, but learning doesn’t have to stop! Have your students practice their reading and personalize their own stories using Reading Coach online during the summer break. Reading Coach provides personalized, engaging, and independent reading fluency practice by allowing learners to create unique AI-generated stories by choosing characters and settings from a curated collection of options.
One of the newest features, “Unlock characters and settings,” empowers learners to get a new character or story setting for every 20 minutes of reading. Learners can even trade characters and story settings from a whole new collection. Get started with Reading Coach online for school or home use and scroll further to learn about the new Reading Coach training course for educators on Microsoft Learn.
5. Leap into summer learning with a free game from Microsoft
Help your student stay sharp over the summer break with our free game for students, Leaps and Logs. In this summer learning game, players take on challenges across various subjects including English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Coding, and Arts/Music. The free summer learning activities in Leaps and Logs can be completed by students of most ages (age 8 or older recommended) and players can engage with Leaps and Logs in two different ways: digitally or on paper (with access to a device for embedded task links).
Visit Leap into summer learning with a game from Microsoft for full game directions and the Leaps and Logs game board.
6. Check out the new AI enhancements in Microsoft Teams for Education
New features in Microsoft Teams for Education, a powerful communication app for schools, leverage AI to help you draft content like rubrics and assignment instructions, all while keeping the educator in control.
- Using generative AI to create rubrics in Assignments: With generative AI integrated into Assignments, enter what you want the rubric to assess, and Assignments will suggest criteria and complete the rubric for you.
- Using generative AI to create instructions in Assignments: Get multiple suggestions for how to enrich the content, such as adding more details, adding learning objectives, emphasizing key concepts, and even making your assignments more interesting. After the content is created, you can make further edits and updates as you go.
Visit What’s New in Microsoft EDU | May 2024 to learn about all the new updates in Microsoft Teams for Education.
7. Explore the new wild wisdom activities collection in Microsoft Reflect
build foundational skills with our powerful tools
Discover Learning AcceleratorsWe’re excited to introduce the wild wisdom activities collection in Reflect, featuring stories and coloring pages centered around nature. Reflect is a Learning Accelerator that helps students build important social, emotional, and academic skills by offering quick check-ins, intentional brain breaks, mindfulness activities, and actionable data. Each story in the wild wisdom collection is paired with a corresponding coloring page and highlights the fascinating behaviors of various animals—from dolphin friendships to elephant empathy, and penguin teamwork.
Explore the engaging stories and coloring pages in the new wild wisdom activities collection in Reflect.
8. Enrich teaching and learning experiences with Microsoft Forms updates
Microsoft Forms helps educators assess student progress and create engaging, interactive learning experiences for their students. Check out these updates in Microsoft Forms to easily access your responses and insert a form into a Stream video.
- Form or quiz data sync to Excel: You can now access all your responses in Excel for the web. New responses will sync automatically in real-time, while also leveraging Excel’s robust functions to analyze and evaluate your class’s performance.
- Embed Forms and callouts into Stream videos: You can now insert a form or quiz directly into a Stream video. As the video plays to a specific moment, the form or quiz will appear to the students. Once they’ve completed the form or quiz, they can continue watching the video, providing you with a new way to enhance engagement and assess comprehension in real-time.
Read What’s New in Microsoft EDU | May 2024 to learn about all the latest updates in Microsoft Forms.
9. Adding Universal Print value for educational organizations
Many schools have told us that they need simpler printing solutions and more predictable costs to manage their budgets effectively. To help educational organizations meet their printing needs, we recently announced licensing changes that will address both these issues. Organizations with Microsoft 365 A3 and Microsoft 365 A5 licenses1 now receive 100 print jobs per license per month. This means that most organizations can use Universal Print with no extra cost if they have eligible licenses.
Read the article Adding Universal Print value for educational organizations to learn more about Universal Print and the new increased print volume.
Stay ahead with professional development opportunities and events
10. Take the new Reading Coach course on Microsoft Learn
Learn how to use Reading Coach, a free tool that uses AI and built-in fluency detection to personalize reading content and practice for learners, with a new training module on Microsoft Learn. The new course will help you understand how to access Reading Coach and use the tool in your classroom. It’ll also help you learn how to describe the core reading functionality of the tool, and how to best use the different reading modes to support your students’ reading fluency.
Take the new Build reading fluency with Reading Coach training module on Microsoft Learn and learn how to get started with Reading Coach.
11. Recharge and explore with summer learning for educators
Many educators in the northern hemisphere are getting ready to take a well-deserved break for the summer. We know that many of you embrace this opportunity to explore new things, so we’ve curated a list of exciting learning experiences to inspire you this summer. These free, flexible professional development resources for teachers allow you to move at your own pace and can be accessed anytime, anywhere.
Visit Recharge and explore with summer learning for educators to tap into our collection of free professional development resources for teachers.
Tap into new possibilities for innovation in education
12. Become an MIE Expert, Showcase School, or Incubator School for 2024-2025
The future is here, and it’s time to step into the spotlight as a beacon of educational innovation. The Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) Expert nominations for the 2024-2025 academic year are open until June 17, 2024, and Showcase School nominations are opening soon. This is your opportunity to shine! Being part of these programs means actively participating in a global movement that redefines education through technology.
Check out the article Become an MIE Expert, Showcase School, or Incubator School for 2024-2025 to learn how to nominate yourself and your school.
Whether you want to discover new ways to engage your students, expand your learning, or tap into possibilities for innovation at your school, Microsoft Education has new features and experiences for you to explore. Happy teaching!
1 Users with Student Use Benefit licenses can print with Universal Print, but these licenses do not contribute print jobs to the pool. See Product Terms for details about Student Use Benefits and Academic Programs.
