Microsoft’s education event is turning out to be every bit as exciting as we were expecting it to. From a brand new operating system to $189 laptops, and to a slew of new productivity tools, we are seeing Christmas come early for students and teachers alike. The company went into great detail regarding a slew of productivity tools that it is launching soon. And the tools could well revolutionize how education works in our schools.
First off, Microsoft has announced that it is bringing its Teams to schools. That is a pretty smart idea and makes you wonder why the company didn’t do it earlier. In conjunction with a slew of Office 365 tools, Teams stands to change the way education happens in our schools — and beyond them. Microsoft had even brought a real school principal from the Bear Creek school to elaborate and we got an in-depth look at how stuff actually worked.
Not only will Teams allow students to have a real time, rich interaction with their peers or teachers while they are at hoe or at school, it would also let the teachers do stuff like calling int he cavalry to explain the more difficult stuff.
Can bring in an anthropologist into a conference call into the classroom through Teams.
Teachers can also do stuff like muting one or ore students in a discussion or adding in polls or other third party applications to facilitate the teaching process. Microsoft also showed how students working on a particular project could be guided individually by using “@” mentions. The company also said that video conferencing support facilitating live interaction was also part of the package.
Teams is available today in private preview and launches worldwide later this summer.
All in all, Teams is expected to prove at least as useful in schools as it proved in workplaces — probably more. The real time interaction that Teams provides, along with the tweaks Microsoft has added in it to cater specifically to education, are sure to bridge the gap between knowledge and students like never before.
