Microsoft 365 is one of the most popular product lines for businesses in all the world. The solution is utilized many different sectors, including the Education sector. In fact, Microsoft 365 for Education has had renewed interest recently, owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, and the social restrictions that have been put in place over the last 2 and a half years because of it. We discussed this with TechQuarters, a company that provided small business IT support London based companies relied on during the pandemic, because it helped them adapt to remote work.
Just like businesses in other sectors, schools had to quickly adapt to the social restrictions – which meant enabling remote learning.
What is Microsoft 365 for Education
Microsoft 365 is a suite of products and services aimed at providing organisations with all the solutions relating to communication, collaboration, and general office productivity. Many businesses that get IT support services in London from TechQuarters use the solution because, just like outsourcing your IT support, Microsoft 365 is a great way of leveraging technology to make business easier. Microsoft 365 includes the following products in every plan:
Microsoft 365 for Education is a variant of this solution that is specifically geared towards supporting the specific needs of schools and other educational institutes. There are 3 different plans for Microsoft 365 for Education: A1, A3 and A5.
A1 is the most fundamental plan, and includes the following products:
- Word
- Excel
- PowerPoint
- OneNote
- Sway
- SharePoint
- OneDrive
- Outlook
- Exchange
- Teams
- Yammer
- Forms
- School Data Sync
- Power Apps
- Power Automate
The A3 and A5 programs are the more advanced versions of the plan. They cost more, but they come with additional offerings, on top of everything you get with the A1 plan. These additional products include:
- Publisher
- Access
- Bookings
- Power BI (A5 only)
Benefits of Microsoft 365 for Education
There are some very strong benefits to using Microsoft 365 for Education. According to TechQuarters – who in addition to providing IT support for schools, has also equipped schools with Microsoft 365 licenses – Microsoft 365 can help schools modernize in the following ways:
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Cloud-based Apps
The traditional way to access an app was to first purchase the software online, download and install the software on your computer, and then probably enter a registration key – thus restricting the software to the computer you installed it on.
With Microsoft 365, all apps are cloud-based, meaning you can access them apps across desktop, mobile, and web platforms. You simply sign in with a license-holding account, and you will be able to access your data. This is one of the main reasons M365 was chosen by many schools to enable remote learning.
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Automated Updates
Updating software is another process that used to be both lengthy and complicated for schools. Now that many schools equip each student with a laptop to use, performing organisation-wide software updates could be a significant pain. However, with Microsoft 365 for Education, all software updates are managed and rolled out automatically in the cloud. Schools don’t need to do anything.
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Work Experience
As we have already mentioned earlier, Microsoft 365 is one of the most popular software suites in the world, because it is the preferred solution for most businesses. With the way that modern work is going, it will be imperative for professionals to have a good working knowledge of Microsoft 365. Therefore, students that use Microsoft 365 in school will be well equipped for when they eventually enter the workforce.
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Digital Collaboration
Microsoft 365 for Education can support faculty in schools by making collaboration much easier. Microsoft Outlook is an industry-leading email client, and Microsoft 365 provides users with instant messaging, videoconferencing, and telephony capabilities.
What is more, documents, spreadsheets, and presentations created with Microsoft 365 are synchronised and standardised in the Microsoft Cloud, meaning you can share a presentation with a colleague, and even if you edit the presentation after sharing, your colleague will be seeing the most up-to-date version of the presentation – you and your colleague will even be able to edit the presentation at the same time, and see updates in real-time.
