Microsoft Teams is launching a “Parent connection” feature that will allow educators to connect with parents via chat. The feature is labeled as in development on the Microsoft 365 roadmap, but it’s planned for release in October (via Dr. Windows).
Microsoft says that the Parent connection experience in Teams will take advantage of its School Data Sync tool to sync all the data of parents and guardians with Office 365. “With Parent connection in Teams for Education, educators can easily connect and engage with the parents and guardians of their class using Teams chat. All parent and guardian data is provisioned using School Data Sync, saving educators and IT staff valuable time,” the Microsoft 365 roadmap reads.
Microsoft Teams for Education is also getting a new suggested replies feature that will give educators the ability to reply to chat messages with AI-powered suggestions. The feature will consider the context of the conversation to provide up to three suggestions, allowing users to respond to a given message quickly. It will be turned on by default for all teachers and faculty members, but students will have no access at all. This update will start rolling out later this month.
Microsoft Teams has become one of the most popular platforms for educational institutions in recent months, and it helps students to collaborate and learn in a secure environment. The Redmond giant has also announced a slew of updates for Teams for Education back in May that will be available ahead of the next school year. These include a new Reading Progress, Group Assignments, as well as Supervised chat features.
