Microsoft adds 35+ new features in Teams to empower educators, students

Microsoft has also added some new features to Minecraft: Education Edition including the ability to integrate seamlessly with Teams. Secondly, with the all-new Minecraft for Camps and Clubs, learners will be able to use Minecraft: Education Edition outside the classroom.

On the occasion of the National Teacher Appreciation Day, Microsoft on Tuesday announced more than 35 new features in Teams that will help teachers create a holistic learning environment and move education forward.

"To continue to support teachers and students, today we’re introducing new tools and updates designed to support the five key areas that help teachers create a holistic learning environment and move education forward: student centricity, skills focus, social learning, safety and security, and scalability," Microsoft said.

Here are some of the new offerings:

Reading Progress

To support learners in reading, Microsoft has introduced a new tool called Reading Progress that enables students to practice their skills in a secure, student-centric environment. Reading Progress in Teams helps educators:

• Save time - Teachers can upload a single reading fluency assignment or differentiate for their class’ many levels, review assignments quickly with a built-in auto-detect feature to identify and code potential errors
• Visualize class and individual progress with Teams Education Insights dashboards
• Engage students in independent practice so that they can make progress without pressure

Reading Progress in Microsoft Teams is free for all students and teachers using Microsoft Teams for Education, and is compliant with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). The tool is supported on Desktop, Web, Mac, iOS and Android and will be available by the end of August 2021.

Career Coach

Career Coach, a new Microsoft Teams for Education app powered by LinkedIn, offers personalized guidance for higher education students to navigate their career journey. The app uses an artificial intelligence-based skill identifier and LinkedIn integration to align a student’s comprehensive profile with job market trends.

Career Coach will be available this month.

Group assignments

The new group assignment feature allows educators to organize their students into assignment groups so that they can work together to create, collaborate, and submit one assignment.

Group assignments in Microsft Teams will be available at the end of August.

Calendar integrations

With new calendar integrations, students will be able to see when their classes are and when assignments are due in their Teams and Outlook calendars.

Learning management system (LMS) updates

Microsoft has joined forces with leading LMS providers such as Instructure and Blackboard to deepen and improve integrations between the LMS and Teams, Teams meetings, and OneDrive.

• Educators and students will be able to navigate to their respective class teams directly from their LMS courses on desktop, mobile, or web platforms. The capability will be coming to Blackboard and Canvas in August.
• Next, educators and students will be able to access and edit Teams meetings for their courses directly from Canvas.

Supervised chat

Coming later this May, Supervised chat in Teams allows designated educators to initiate chats with students while blocking them from starting new chats unless an appropriate educator is present.

Minecraft: Education Edition

Microsoft has also added some new features to Minecraft: Education Edition including the ability to integrate seamlessly with Teams. Secondly, with the all-new Minecraft for Camps and Clubs, learners will be able to use Minecraft: Education Edition outside the classroom.