Technology has the power to unlock limitless learning

Microsoft is empowering students to create the world of tomorrow.

This week in London at the Bett education tech conference, Yusef Medhi, corporate vice president, Windows and Devices Group, shared new Windows 10 devices great for education. In addition, Eran Megiddo, corporate vice president, Microsoft Education, provided an update on the next wave for inclusive and collaborative learning via Office 365 Education.

Based on feedback from teachers, students, and parents, Microsoft is working on extending the capabilities of Learning Tools even further with a number of new updates coming to Office in the next month, including:

• Dictation in Office—this tool will help students write by using only their voice. Starting in February, Dictation will be available in Word, Word Online, PowerPoint, Outlook Desktop, OneNote Windows 10, and OneNote Online—and in more than nine languages.
• Read Aloud— allows students to hear the contents of an email while each word is highlighted in sync. It will soon be available on Outlook Desktop in more than 30 text-to-speech languages.
• Immersive Reader— to further support students of different backgrounds, Immersive Reader now supports an additional 10 new languages. It is also coming to even more platforms in 2018 and will soon be available on Word for Mac, iPhone, and Android, as well as Outlook Desktop and OneNote for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

According to new research, Learning Tools “improves reading comprehension, and it ‘levels the playing field’ of learning for struggling readers.” Megiddo noted that, “seventy-three percent of classrooms have students with reading levels that span four or more grades, and up to 50 percent of instructional time can be lost managing the students’ varying needs. Learning Tools is proven to help, and we are humbled by the results.”