Microsoft provides a variety of web-based tools for creativity, productivity, and management. Microsoft 365 is a multi-platform productivity tool suite consisting of numerous applications from Microsoft, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, OneDrive, Outlook, Calendar, To Do, and Teams. Microsoft 365 strives to enhance capability for collaboration within user teams in a variety of settings. Microsoft 365 Education edition has additional education-specific tools, such as Intune for Education, Minecraft: Education Edition, and School Data Sync.
Microsoft 365 tools increase productivity, ease communication, and foster collaboration between and among students and teachers. Teachers can choose from a variety of tools depending on the needs of the learning process.
Microsoft 365 tools help teachers guide lessons, keep students on task, manage activities, create and distribute assignments, follow individual student progress, and collaborate in real time. Students can use Word as a word processor, and Excel and PowerPoint as numerical calculation and presentation management tools. The simultaneous editing feature, which is present in each tool, helps students organize group work. Students and teachers can edit shared documents online or from the desktop version of the tool, and the document will be updated in real time for all collaborators. OneDrive is a file sharing platform syncing automatically with all Microsoft 365 applications.
Teachers can use Outlook and Teams for communication with students. Outlook is an e-mail manager, providing for asynchronous communication with students. Teams is a combination of an online texting and virtual video meeting tool, providing for instant communication with students and live interactions. Additionally, students and teachers have access to shared OneDrive storage space from a Teams class environment.
For better maintenance and organization of tasks, teachers and students can use Calendar, OneNote, and To Do. Calendar assists teachers with scheduling classes and meetings. OneNote, and OneNote Class Notebook, helps teachers organize and share class content. To Do supports making lists of action items to accomplish. Students and parents can benefit from using these tools along with teachers.
Immersive Reader is an accessibility tool built into many Microsoft 365 applications, such as Word, OneNote, Outlook, Teams, in addition to being used by many other 3rd party applications. The tool assists teachers in fostering and enriching student’s reading and writing ability, and making learning content accessible to everyone in the classroom, through text adjustments, voiceovers, or translations.
Microsoft has a strong commitment to teacher and student privacy. In the Online Services Terms Data Protection Addendum (DPA), Microsoft agrees to be designated as a “school official” with “legitimate educational interests” in customer data as defined under FERPA.