Case Study: Holy Names Academy achieves cross-platform student collaboration and boosts participation with Microsoft Teams

School facilitates cross-platform student collaboration with integrated software tools

Holy Names Academy, a Seattle K–12 school with about 150 staff educating nearly 700 students, needed a simpler way to support cross-platform student collaboration after launching a one-to-one device program. Teachers were using Office 365, OneNote Class Notebooks and Microsoft Surface Pros but found manually creating notebooks and adding students time-consuming, so the school adopted Microsoft Teams and other Microsoft tools to streamline classroom collaboration.

Holy Names implemented Microsoft School Data Sync to automatically create class groups and OneNote Class Notebooks in Microsoft Teams during a 2017–2018 pilot. The automated setup accurately added students, reduced administrative overhead so teachers spent more time on instruction, and boosted collaboration—students co-authored projects, used team channels and tabs for group work, and quieter students participated more—prompting a full roll‑out across the school.

Holy Names Academy

Sean Harris-Campf

Social Studies Teacher and Technology Chair