Transforming education in the age of AI with a unified solution

In today’s educational landscape, digital transformation is taking center stage—with schools turning to AI and cloud-based tools to prepare for the future. The great news is that a unified solution like Microsoft 365 Education can help schools around the world with security, productivity, and collaboration in the age of AI.

Over the last few years, schools underwent tremendous change by adopting hybrid learning and new tech tools for teaching, learning, and working. However, schools face increasing challenges with outdated software and ever-increasing cyberattacks that threaten the security of sensitive and important data, targeting student personal information, login credentials, school operational data, and more. It’s a daunting security landscape as the education sector regularly makes up over 80% of the reported malware encounters in any 30-day period.

Let’s take a deep dive into some of the real-life challenges that primary and secondary education institutions have faced and learn how they solved them.

Harnessing secure AI tools to transform education

Bad actors are constantly testing the fences of educational IT networks looking for vulnerabilities. Because of this, the Fulton County school district in Georgia, US, put plans in place to monitor, detect, and mitigate these potential cybersecurity threats. The district also wanted to modernize data collection to showcase student performance and operational efficiency data in near real time.

The district’s plans involved advanced Microsoft security features through a Microsoft 365 A5 educational license, which gave them the tools to address cybersecurity risks. They also transformed their data-driven decision-making with dynamic analytic insights using Microsoft Power BI. Additionally, the district maximized its existing Microsoft licenses and migrated to an end-to-end platform that spans on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments, which suited the institution’s complex needs.  

Newington College, a primary and secondary-level boarding school in Australia, experienced a cybersecurity incident that catalyzed their need to improve the security and management of education technology while revolutionizing the way students and teachers engage and collaborate. For Newington, the greatest success lay in the efficiencies gained and benefits realized across the Microsoft stack by simplifying the deployment and support model across the environment. This process has become a catalyst for enhanced engagement, collaboration, and student success—helping the IT team stay on the front foot of opportunities.

Many school districts are embracing technologies they deem beneficial for educating students and supporting how faculty work. In fact, 68% of educators and 95% of education leaders have already used AI for school-related purposes. Wichita Public Schools in the US is one such example. Because no two students learn in precisely the same way, Wichita Public Schools started looking into the many ways Microsoft Copilot with enterprise data protection can help educators bring a greater diversity of tailored learning experiences into the classroom.

Students are also using AI-powered tools to enhance their learning and literacy. The Stour Academy Trust, located in Southeast England, tested two powerful Microsoft Education tools—Reading Progress and Reading Coach—to boost literacy and help readers succeed. Features in Reading Progress leverage AI to generate and personalize reading passages and assessments, which significantly reduces an educator’s workload while addressing student’s specific needs.

The Stour Academy Trust beta-tested AI-enabled Reading Coach to further enhance student reading fluency. When added to Reading Progress assignments, Reading Coach identifies words that are most challenging for each student and gives them a supported opportunity to practice the words again. One of the most exciting features of Reading Coach is the ability for learners to co-create their own personalized reading experiences utilizing responsible AI. Due to their success, Reading Coach and Reading Progress continue to be introduced across the Stour Academy Trust so that all educators can see how these tools fit into their classroom practices.

Our final case study takes us back to Australia, where the South Australia Department for Education is empowering students and teachers with responsible AI in the classroom. The Department has harnessed the power of AI to build and trial a chatbot that has been designed specifically for teaching and learning. ‘EdChat’ is the first chatbot of its kind in Australia and one of the first in the world to be introduced in an educational setting.

The chatbot was designed in partnership with Microsoft and uses Azure OpenAI Service, powered by the same technology as ChatGPT. Students can enter prompts to get information on a topic, ask for creative suggestions or analyze complex ideas. EdChat proved extremely helpful in allowing students to access vast amounts of information quickly, and have this information synthesized into simple, easy-to-understand language.

These are just a few real-life examples of how specific Microsoft products have helped in primary and secondary education. However, there’s something even bigger that Microsoft offers that every school should consider for meeting their needs.

The most comprehensive value for education

The Microsoft 365 A5 license offers a comprehensive solution tailored for schools, blending essential security, management, productivity, and learning tools. There are three highlights that separate Microsoft 365 A5 from others. The first is the ability to implement a Zero Trust approach across your entire digital estate with Microsoft’s suite of security products. The second is simplified endpoint management that gives you the power to deploy endpoints from the cloud and streamline support of student devices. The third is that Microsoft 365 A5 offers AI-powered instructional tools and advanced accessibility features, enabling new patterns of working and learning in today’s environment.

In a Forrester report from 2023, the composite education organization using Microsoft 365 A5 licenses saw a 118% return on investment or $4.2M over 3 years, $1.7 million reduced downtime for educators and IT staff, and a 30% reduction in licensing costs with vendor consolidation.

Microsoft 365 A5 empowers you to support your school community—from enhanced security and access control, comprehensive cyber threat protection, and streamlined data governance and security, to efficient classroom management and collaboration. Microsoft 365 A5 is one of the best choices that every school should consider when looking to enable secure teaching, learning, and working for all.

Reimagine education with AI

Microsoft is committed to security, privacy, and compliance across everything we do, and our approach to AI is no different. Microsoft’s approach to Responsible AI is grounded in a set of core principles and practices that we believe should guide AI development and use. With that in mind, perhaps the most exciting application currently is Microsoft Copilot, allowing you to leverage AI to provide personalized suggestions, accelerate routine tasks, offer real-time feedback, and more. Additionally, Copilot also offers enterprise data protection to help safeguard your information. Simply tell Copilot what you want to create, and it will help you generate new content in seconds.

Additionally, Microsoft Teams for Education leverages AI to enhance learning outcomes and streamline collaboration. Educators can leverage AI to help draft rubrics, assignment instructions, learning objectives, and more. With Reading Coach—a popular Learning Accelerator available in and outside of Microsoft Teams—learners can create unique AI-generated stories by choosing characters and settings from a curated collection of options.

There are additional ways that Microsoft can help meet your school’s needs. You can protect against student endpoints through the recently released student Defender for Endpoint. You can also step up your security by leveraging AI and machine learning to provide real-time threat detection and response with Microsoft Sentinel.

Overall, from productivity and learning to security, Microsoft is ready to help provide the most value to you and help you realize transformative benefits for your school.

Now is the time to transform your school

Microsoft 365 Education is a significant step toward meeting the demands of your school and empowering students and teachers to do more. By leveraging Microsoft’s robust tools and resources, educational institutions can create more secure and connected learning environment.

• For an overview on Microsoft 365 licensing, see the Microsoft product licensing page.
• Visit the Microsoft Education Cybersecurity solutions page to learn how our solutions help protect your school’s information.
• Empower everyone in your organization to be a cybersecurity champion with cybersecurity awareness resources and training.
• Learn how you can get started with free AI tools from Microsoft Education.
• Reference the Microsoft Education AI Toolkit to deploy and implement Microsoft AI Solutions.
• Learn more about Microsoft Copilot and ways you can use it to save time and energy.
• Explore quick Learning Accelerators demos and leverage these powerful tools in your classroom.