Microsoft's new AI-enabled tools to improve speaking, math skills

SAN FRANCISCO: Microsoft has announced new AI-powered classroom tools, which will help students sharpen their speaking and math skills, making teachers' jobs a little easier -- as children prepare for an even more technologically advanced future.

With the new tool, teachers will be able to save their time by "streamlining the process of creating, reviewing, and analysing speaking and presentation assignments for students, groups, and classrooms", Microsoft said.

The new tools will launch in Teams for Education in the 2023-24 school year, reports 'Engadget' on Thursday.

Speaker Progress is a new AI classroom tool for teachers.

"The tool can provide tidy summaries of presentation-based skills while highlighting areas to improve and let teachers review student recordings, identify their needs and track progress," Microsoft said.

The 'Engadget' report also mentioned that it will be a companion for Speaker Coach, an existing feature Microsoft launched in 2021 that provides one-on-one speaking guidance and feedback.

Microsoft's AI math tools are its answer to nosediving math scores during the pandemic.

Math Coach breaks down problems for students, guiding them through the steps to solving them while encouraging critical thinking.

Meanwhile, Math Progress is a companion tool for teachers, assisting them in creating practice questions and providing more efficient feedback.

"The features complement one another: Math Coach uses teacher feedback from Math Progress to develop new lessons," the company said.

"Schools can use the tools' overall math fluency data to track progress and better meet their objectives," the company added.