Version one of Speaker Progress for Microsoft Teams has become globally available.
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Part of the Learning Accelerator toolkit, Speaker Progress includes real-time AI coaching capabilities to help students practice their presentation skills.
Students simply need to record their presentations within the application to get feedback from the AI Speaker Coach on their content, delivery, and engagement performance. Educators will also have access to a ‘rehearsal report’ of students’ strengths and opportunities.
Samantha Fisher, Microsoft Education Product Manager, pointed to research by National Association of Colleges and Employers which found that graduate communication skills were lacking, as well as an HR Daily Advisor article on the added importance of communication in the age of AI.
Fisher also expanded on the benefits and capabilities of Speaker Progress in the same Microsoft Tech Community blog post: “We are so excited to announce that Speaker Progress, our newest Learning Accelerator, is now rolled out worldwide!
“Speaker Progress helps students develop confidence in their presentation skills and reduces anxiety by providing AI-powered real-time coaching and feedback on their public speaking skills like their pace, pitch, filler words, and more.
“Speaker Progress can also save educators time and create more opportunities for independent practice for in-class presentations.”
Speaker Progress Feedback Features
Speaker Progress offers feedback on pace, pitch, filler words, repetitive language, sensitive phrases, and body language, although you can turn off any of these coaching areas if you choose.
The AI presentation coach can help when it comes to pace by reminding to speed up or slow down in order to stay within the recommended rate of 100 t o165 words per minute
Another key area – pitch – can be improved as Speaker Progress is able to detect if you are speaking too monotonously and prompt you to emphasise important words and alter your pitch and volume to keep audiences engaged.
Filler words such as “um” , “err”, and “like” can be identified and brought to the student’s attention, which Microsoft says will create a more confident sounding presentations.
