Stephen Downes

Phil Hill looks at Microsoft's Classroom offering, outlining what it does, what it doesn't do, and what may be Microsoft's strategy going forward. "For Big Tech," he writes, "an LMS can be a gateway drug: introduce students to an ecosystem of productivity and AI tools, and potentially keep them as users throughout their working lives. Could Microsoft Classroom push Google to become more aggressive with Classroom in higher ed?" Maybe. But Microsoft is going to have to be a lot easier to use for that to happen. I'm not talking about Word or other Office applications, which are excellent. Using Teams, though, or anything that starts with an institutional login can be a nightmare for people trying to work collaboratively.