As we continue to reimagine education to meet unprecedented challenges, the new year brings new opportunities to empower every learner on the planet. We’ve heard repeatedly from teachers and leaders that they’re working hard to provide access to equitable education to all learners they serve. This includes best-in-class learning solutions and technologies regardless of ability, income, language, location, or identity. It also means using safe and trusted solutions that are inclusively designed, foster well-being, accelerate learning, and are trusted, secure, and future-proof.
With the help of our trusted Education Partners, we’re making it easier than ever to accelerate learning, support social and emotional well-being, and prepare all students for the workplace of tomorrow.
Inclusively designed
Every student deserves the resources and support they need to fully engage in learning, and when we design for inclusion (from products through support), everyone benefits. Our partners are key to delivering on this commitment through built-in tools that enable full participation in learning and multiple ways to create, engage, and participate regardless of ability.
aleX (the Adaptive Learning Experience), from Antares Solutions, leverages AI to build open and inclusive learning communities on Microsoft Teams that promote questions and knowledge sharing among students and teachers. aleX utilizes Teams, Azure Cognitive Services, Microsoft Graph, and Power BI to provide a digital learning assistant in every team to capture data, source answers, and promote discussions.
Winjigo from ITWorx Education allows students to schedule and access live Teams sessions and provides smooth integration with assignments and assessments. The learning platform offers extended resources and capabilities for students and teachers to reach their full potential in a seamless user experience supported with reliable cloud technology. International standards-based integration with different cloud content platforms allows for a seamless experience to access extended learning resources that support learning plans.
Revisely’s solutions help teachers give more and better feedback on students’ work, in less time. New features include better peer grading, support for multiple correctors, integration with the Learning Tools Interoperability standard, and a unique assignment API. Teams integration will launch soon, as will the ability to outsource correction work to external professionals.
Whiteboard.Chat helps teachers engage and observe students’ work in real-time. Each student gets their own board and teachers can interact one-on-one with individual students, or in a group collaborative setup. Whiteboard.Chat is fully integrated with Teams and OneNote and has full support for inclusion and accessibility features like Immersive Reader, Speech to Text Transcription and Translation, Handwriting Recognition, keyboard-based Navigation, Drawing and Typing, and more.
Secure and future-proof IT
When students and educators operate in a secure environment on a trusted platform, they’re more confident to participate and collaborate in their learning. Microsoft’s automated compliance capabilities can help ensure schools are better prepared to respond to threats and security requirements.
Bromcom’s Azure cloud-based school Management Information System (MIS) provides a comprehensive view of student and school performance covering attendance, behavior, and assessment, including progress tracking. Ultimately, Bromcom aims to support effective decision making by school leaders and teachers while keeping parents informed.
NetSupport’s classroom.cloud provides a complete classroom orchestration solution facilitating teacher-to-student activities including screen monitoring,sharing, surveys, and collaboration tools, while also providing full online safety, keyword monitoring, and alerting across all devices. Classroom.cloud supports a fully blended learning experience and integrates with Teams for a coordinated online safety and monitoring solution.
Senso fully supports the hybrid learning environment facing schools today. A winning combination of classroom orchestration tools that work regardless of the geo location of the students and best in class student safety monitoring across Windows, Chromebooks & iOS. Senso’s integrated agentless Teams Chat Monitoring works on any device, personal or provided by the school. Senso scans images for visual threats and uses keyword algorithms focused on user safety, wellbeing, and social and emotional learning (SEL). Senso is helping to create a safer digital environment, encouraging inclusivity while alerting teachers when issues occur.
Accelerate learning
Real-time insights that identify challenges and provide strategies to intervene, reduce impact, and achieve potential can accelerate learning and better prepare students for the workplace of tomorrow. Our partners share our commitment to ensuring that all learners have opportunities to develop skills for the digital economy through relevant curriculum, immersive experiences, and industry-recognized certifications.
Beedle helps educators embrace and adopt Teams in their daily work without leaving the familiar environment. Beedle adds educational functionality for planning, teaching, and engaging in Teams, so educators can do all their daily activities in Teams, such as planning lessons, embedding resources, and providing guidance—all in one place.
Firefly Learning starts by bringing everyone into the conversation, enabling whole community engagement. With messaging via email, SMS, or in the Firefly apps, and supporting a wide range of languages through Immersive Reader, Firefly simplifies communication. Firefly’s 360-degree student overview—including achievements and behavior, homework (from Teams), and student biographies—gives parents, teachers, and school leaders a complete understanding of each student.
ThingLink is an award-winning visual learning platform for classrooms with diverse language backgrounds and reading abilities. Easily integrated in Teams, ThingLink helps teachers and students create audio-visual learning materials that are instantly accessible through an integrated reading tool. Any text description in a hotspot can be opened in Immersive Reader, in over 60 languages.
Enjoy the flexibility of hybrid learning with Skooler and Microsoft 365. Skooler is a K-12 flexible learning tools solution fully integrated in Teams and Microsoft 365 and hosted in Microsoft Azure. Skooler consists of many useful tools for the following user groups: teachers, students, guardians, and school administrators. You are provided access to certain tools based on the type of user you are, and they are then made available in a web-based portal Teams and in an app.
Foster well-being
Students’ and educators’ social and emotional well-being has been proven to have long-term impacts on success, health, employment, and more. These solutions support SEL through tools that help build skills to navigate emotions, social situations, and conflict.
Breakthru is a guided system of immersive two-minute breaks to give, share, and play in the school day, available on Teams. Mood based, Breakthru microbreaks teach students to articulate how they’re feeling, further imagine how they want to feel, and help them learn a healthy habit of taking breaks to get there. For older students, it’s a chance to check-in with themselves and each other. Movement is an antidote to anxiety. Visually led and choreographed by movement practitioners, the breaks are accessible to users worldwide and students of all ages.
eCare Vault, and its Safe Spaces™ application for Teams, provides intuitive, automated workflows. This puts in place digital care infrastructure for school and district staff that makes it easier to identify student needs, alert stakeholders to time-sensitive developments, and track and coordinate services for students in crisis and those at risk for mental health issues or safety incidents. This FERPA- and HIPAA-compliant application helps educators and staff to support students in a proactive, real-time manner with an efficient, team-based approach, so the right people are notified at the right time with the right information to ensure that students facing issues never fall through the cracks.
Natterhub is a Teams-based immersive online safety and media literacy hub for teaching students ages 5-11. Natterhub provides classrooms with a library of interactive, engaging lessons and activities, offering a fun space for students to practice the skills needed to be safe and savvy online. Natterhub’s animated lessons provide media literacy and critical online safety to students—even when they’re working remotely or as part of a hybrid program.
The interruption of in person learning has impacted all students, but Microsoft Education Partners have been continuously working hard to develop student-centered solutions that work seamlessly with Microsoft Education tools. Every child deserves the opportunity for a great education—one that leads to success in career and in life. Learn more about our Microsoft Education partner solutions and our commitment to education equity to begin a great 2022!
