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.
Repetitive language can be minimised by Speaker Progress by highlighting particular words that you may be overusing and suggesting synonyms to replace some of these.
Sensitive phrases and words that Speaker Progress finds to be potentially offensive, including culturally offensive references and profanities, will be reported back to the student.
Finally, body language can be reviewed by Speaker Progress to check that students are facing the camera, with their face clearly visible, and keeping themselves at the correct distance from the camera.
Coming Soon
According to Mike Tholfsen, Principal Group Product Manager at Microsoft Education, more languages will be coming soon, with PowerPoint presentation upload and screen recording capabilities also on their way. These additional features are expected to arrive in late September or October 2024.
For those interested in learning more about Speaker Progress, you can watch Tholfsen’s full video.
Educators can undertake a Microsoft Learn Course to enhance their Speaker Progress knowledge.
The tech giant has also written support articles for both educators and students via the Microsoft Support pages.
