Aichi Board Upgrades Education with 12,000 Surface Pro AI PCs & Microsoft 365 Copilot

Deployed 12,000 Surface AI PCs to all prefectural teachers

Aichi Prefecture has formulated "Aichi's Education Vision 2025" which spans “knowledge, virtue, and physicality,” based on the principles of "improving oneself" and "becoming a leader of society,” to achieve education fostering a richer way of life and humanity.

The Aichi Prefectural Board of Education is promoting a variety of measures to support children's learning using ICT, including a pillar of this policy as "development of information skills and promotion of ICT-based education.”

As part of those measures, and ahead of other prefectures in Japan, allocation to all prefectural teachers was decided of approximately 12,000 Surface Pro 10 AI PCs during device renewals in 2024. In addition, a trial at some high schools introduced Microsoft 365 Copilot, an AI assistant integrated into Microsoft 365.

Operational challenges during 5 years of managing two devices 

The Aichi Prefectural Board of Education ICT Education Division was established in 2022.

“We are creating an environment for individualized and optimal education utilizing ICT so that learning for children will not be impeded even in crisis situations such as outbreaks of infectious disease and large-scale disasters," says Katsuhiro Idota, Chief Assistant Director, ICT Education Division, Aichi Prefectural Board of Education.

Aichi Prefecture has been steadily developing an ICT education environment through distribution of the Surface Go series to all students at prefectural high schools. Ahead of the scheduled device replacement for teachers in 2024, the prefecture began identification of the requirements for new devices around 2021.

Administrative devices previously used had performance and battery life issues, making daily classes and administrative work challenging. They also were considered inconvenient in terms of daily operation.

Tomoki Kawaguchi, Assistant Director, DX Section, Information Policy Division, Aichi Prefectural Government, and ICT Education Division, Aichi Prefectural Board of Education, explains, "The use of two devices, one for administration in the staff room to handle sensitive information, and the other for teaching in the classroom, was initially well received in terms of versatility and separation of duties. However, the need to return to the staff room to carry out administrative tasks ended up reducing work efficiency for teachers.”

Aichi Prefecture has formulated a work style reform roadmap for teachers in public schools, as it is a pressing issue to change their workstyles and thereby improve their work. Since network infrastructure was being shifted to the cloud, and with achieving secure data exchange close to realization, one of the themes of this renewal was eliminating the need for teachers to have two devices.

Surface Pro 10 and Microsoft 365 Copilot deployed with an eye towards future requirements

Another theme for device renewal was "functionality that is responsive to future requirements.”

“The renewal of devices in local governments generally takes place every five years. We aim to select those that can be used without issues until the next renewal," recalls Kawaguchi. Furthermore, Kawaguchi, who is in charge of promoting digitalization throughout the prefectural board of education, and planning at prefectural schools for the deployment of generative AI, believed the key in the field of education in the future would be built around AI.

Kawaguchi visited Microsoft's Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore to experience generative AI in 2023. Although the product was still before Copilot, Kawaguchi says, "I was impressed by the possibilities of generative AI when I saw how it supported work in Excel and Word. I felt that if we could really apply it, that would make an incredible difference in the work of teachers."

Idota and other members of the section honestly said that they could not foresee the real benefits of generative AI. However, Kawaguchi's suggestion made them realize the urgency thinking, "Not preparing an environment now for future use of generative AI will leave us behind. Since device renewal is a once-in-five-year chance, missing it now means we will have to wait until the next opportunity.”

The bidding process resulted in the selection of an AI PC, the Surface Pro 10. A globally unprecedented number of approximately 12,000 Surface Pros were distributed to all prefectural teachers. In addition, trials of Microsoft 365 Copilot were decided at some high schools.

At Aichi Prefecture Ichinomiya High School, Surface Pro was distributed to teachers for use in their actual work from September 2024. Also, some of the managers were given Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses to verify the use of generative AI in their work.

Aichi Prefecture Ichinomiya High School promotes the multifaceted use of Surface Pro 10

Ichinomiya High School is one of several traditional schools in the prefecture, celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2018. As indicated by the school motto of "Live Simple and Live Sturdy", not only athletic clubs but also many science and math clubs are active. It has been designated as a Super Science School (SSH) by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT). In addition to part-time and regular courses, the school also offers a course in fashion creation, and graduates are active in a variety of fields.

The school is also actively engaged in ICT education, and there were many challenges felt on a daily basis says Junko Suzuki, Teacher, ICT Promoter of Educational Affairs, Ichinomiya High School, who serves as one of the advocates for ICT assigned to each school in the prefecture.

Suzuki says, “When we were using two devices, the one for administrative work in the staff room was considered inefficient as it took a long time to start up. It was also inconvenient as it took time to move files between devices, with restrictions on certain types of files that could not be moved.”

Izumi Hara, Coordinator, SSH Planning Department, Ichinomiya High School, who is also an advisor for the Biology Club, says, “I am usually not in the staff room but in the Biology Preparation Room, so I often had to schedule days for administrative work and handle that all at once, meaning that some work was put off until later.”

However, these issues were greatly improved after the introduction of Surface Pro 10. Haruhiko Goto, Chief Coordinator of Super Science High School, Ichinomiya High School says, "The new Surface is easy to use with its fast-processing speed. The large screen allows simple operation by touch, making it straight-forward for digital grading. Grading previously took an hour by hand, but now it only takes about 40 minutes.”

Goto adds that the improved convenience has led to an increase in the number of teachers adopting digital grading, and the Surface Pro is helping to significantly raise the skills of teachers with ICT.

Hara also comments, “Consolidating everything on one device has made it very easy to begin work immediately. Since it can also be used as a tablet, it is easy to carry and use in a variety of situations. The pen is especially useful as we often must explain charts or diagrams in biology classes and club activities.” She adds that with improved performance, she's looking forward to using the device in more interactive ways—like writing directly on projected PowerPoint slides while explaining them.

Suzuki noted facial recognition through Windows Hello and data protection by BitLocker as key points in her evaluation, saying, "Information security was a major concern when eliminating the use of two devices. However, Surface devices come equipped with robust security features, so I believe teachers can use them with confidence.”

Additionally, she mentions the sensitivity labeling feature included in Microsoft 365 saying, “Ability to decide access permissions on a per-user or per-group basis, further strengthening the security of information, for documents and e-mails is also reassuring.”

Microsoft 365 Copilot driving teachers work style reform

A Teams community was established by the school to help teachers fully use new tools such as Copilot, and there has been ongoing sharing of information and case studies. This has supported promotions for the use of these tools, also Surface Pro 10 and Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Goto uses Copilot in Word to create simple communication materials for teachers who have classes in common, as well as morning announcements to students.

He enthusiastically explains, “With Copilot in Word, bulleted information can be instantly summarized as a sentence, greatly reducing the amount of time necessary to think and type sentences. That is very helpful during busy morning hours. Creating documents now only takes half the time, and we can see the great progress being made to improve our efficiency at work.”

“With Copilot in Forms, we can easily and conveniently digitize questionnaires that were previously distributed on paper, simply by pasting information directly from a document in Word,” says Suzuki.

She is pleased that Surface Pro has increased her access to generative AI.

"When I wanted to use generative AI, I previously had to access through a browser. Now when I want to do some research, I can easily launch Copilot by pressing the Copilot key. I feel that we now have a shortcut to generative AI," says Suzuki.

Goto says Copilot has given him a new search experience. 

“It is refreshing to search as if asking someone by writing text, instead of typing search words into a browser to find information as in the past. Answers are also returned in written text, so it is helpful that information can be gathered even without having sufficient knowledge about the search subject," says Goto.

Goto also expressed his vision for the future, saying, "If we continue to learn from now even more how to use Microsoft 365 Copilot, we will be able to analyze and summarize the results of research projects from various views while brainstorming with Copilot.”

Goto says the trick to mastering Copilot, which he has learned from his experience, is "not to expect perfect results with the first try.”

“I like to think of it as having Copilot do 80% of the work and adjusting the rest myself. Generative AI is an evolving tool, and it is good to have an attitude of just enjoying the little-by-little improvements of its capabilities. Also, just because something doesn’t work perfectly at first, don’t write it off as ‘useless.’ If you stop using it altogether, you might miss out on the progress that’s being made.”

At the same time, some challenges have also come to light.

“We still need to improve our own skills with prompting. As there are various ways to use it, and we should first aim to improve our work efficiency by summarizing documents and brainstorming,” says Goto.

Hara says it is important to share roles with AI in the field of education. 

“In social studies, for example, what was previously considered factual information often changes. Therefore, we would like to divide the work between the two in their respective fields of expertise, such as having generative AI summarize and improve the appearance of the content we present, while we check the parts that require the latest knowledge and explanations.”

Teams is being actively used for communication not only within the school, but also with other schools. The possibilities for expanded methods of utilization will be communicated from here on out, with the aim of expanding the system throughout the prefecture.

Creating an environment in which all students and teachers can enjoy the benefits of ICT

Kawaguchi says, "I can definitely envision improved work efficiency with Surface Pro 10 and Microsoft 365 Copilot. I would like to continue sharing examples of how teachers can create more time with their students.”

The department is also thinking towards the next step of faculty workstyle transformation with the promotion of students using generative AI.

Idota says, “Generative AI and AI PCs will become mandatory tools in the future. I hope that students will learn how to use them properly in school education, develop a foundation as digital natives, and create more options for their future.”

“We believe that generative AI can optimize individual learning. Even students who have limited learning opportunities due to their own circumstances can deepen their learning at their own pace with generative AI. It is first important for teachers to have a solid understanding of the technology to make that a reality. Supporting teachers who are not comfortable with digital technology is one of our goals, so that they can enjoy teaching with ICT,” says Idota.

Both have high expectations that Microsoft Japan, which is deploying tools in a variety of educational settings, will continue providing further cooperation by sharing examples of progress and conducting training sessions. 

“Providing new information and answering questions that teachers usually have will not only help them improve their skills, but also keep them motivated. We hope that Microsoft Japan will continue to support us in this area," expectantly says Kawaguchi.

The Aichi Prefectural Board of Education has taken into account the opinions of educators in the field and implemented a device upgrade that is forward looking for the next five to ten years. Many educators can learn from their efforts to look ahead and implement the best solution at the right time. We at Microsoft Japan will continue to provide the utmost support to the Aichi Prefectural Board of Education in realizing their vision.