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Microsoft Teams Classroom instruction Communicate and collaborate
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Supporting educators in STEM integration
October 15, 2018
Microsoft Teams Setup Table of Contents
Microsoft Teams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Creating a Classroom Team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Team Management Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Conversation Portal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Video Meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Whiteboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Team Store Apps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Conversation management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Teams from a template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
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Microsoft Teams Setup
Microsoft Teams Microsoft Teams is part of Office 365 for business. The business application provides services specific to educational institutions. Teams combine a variety of services to help collaboration and communication. The main page in Teams highlights conversations. We will focus most of our attention in this article on the Conversations portal. Teams for education provides a variety of team templates for education. These templates include services for classroom teachers and Professional Learning Communities. Teams for education also provides templates with services for staff members. These services focus on communication and collaboration at a school.
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We will use Teams for classroom use with students. We will develop a basic Team site with services and resources. The services will support classroom instruction. These services for instruction are helpful for middle and high school educators. Teams is available as an application for devices and a cloud service. The training in this article focuses on the web-based App.
Microsoft Teams Setup Creating a Classroom Team The Team App is available in the Microsoft Apps launcher. This launcher is in the upper left corner of the Office 365 portal. Click the Apps launcher and click the Team icon.
There are many resources available in Teams. We will explore most of these during the development of a classroom team. People are usually invited to join a team with an email invitation. This isn’t always possible with large teams like those in classrooms. Teachers in middle and high school campuses often have hundreds of students. This is where the option to join with a code is useful. The option to join a team with a code is available through the same process used to create a Team. We will learn where to get this code when we get to the management teams option.
The option to create or join a team is also available at the bottom of the panel to the left. This button loads the create or join team page. Click the Create team button.
A selection box will open with four options. These options include classes, PLCs, Staff Members, and general. Click the Classes team.
A configuration box will display. We will provide a name and brief description for this team.
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Microsoft Teams Setup Provide a descriptive name for the course and a brief description. Below the description is an option to create a new team based on an existing team. This is a useful feature we will use later to create other teams. Teams work best when they are for a specific class. Teachers with several classes and periods will have more than one team. For example, a teacher with 5 class periods will need 5 teams. Designing a team around a specific class affords the teacher the options. These include the option to customize the learning for that class. A teacher may choose to create one Team and use channels for separate classes or periods. This can get confusing. Click the next button to proceed. In the next step, we will add students and teachers to the team.
The role assigned determines the access they have in Teams. Teachers have more access. They also have similar access. In Teams, teachers create assignments, review student work, and add students.
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Teams are tied to the district accounts for students. Students outside the district account system cannot be added to the Team. The same is true for teachers. We don’t need to add student and teacher accounts now. Students have the option to enroll themselves using a link. This is a better option when there are lots of students to enroll. We will look at this option later. In the meantime, add teachers and students as needed. Skip this process by clicking the skip button. Teachers have the option of enrolling students with a code.
Microsoft Teams Setup Team Management Options
Click the action menu for the team and select Manage team.
Before we begin it is a good idea to review some of the management options for the Team we created. Teams are created and added to the Favorites panel. To the right of the Team name is an actions menu. The menu has three dots. Click the action menu to reveal options for the Team.
Select the Edit team option.
We have the option to change the team name and update the description. We don’t need to make any changes now. Click the cancel button.
A management page will open. There are four tabs near the top of the page. The Members tab is where all the members of the team are listed. The member information includes headings for basic information about the member. This information includes the member’s name, title, and location.
The location can refer to the student’s home campus. Teams are useful as a distance learning tool. Students can work from anywhere as long they have access to a live Teams portal. The last column header includes information about the role of the member in the Team. The roles include one of two options. In this team, I am the owner.
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Microsoft Teams Setup Students added to the team are members. The owner controls permissions for members.
Click the settings tab. The options in the settings tab are configure the team. This is where we set the permissions for members in this team.
Click the Member permissions section. Most of the permissions are not enabled for members. Members currently have the option to edit and delete their messages. They also have the option to post messages.
Channels in teams create working sections within a team. The creation of channels is limited to the owner of the team. In this case, that would be the teacher. Teachers use channels to focus the content of their lessons into sections. In this critical writing class, we can include channels for sections of instruction. These channels would include Planning critical writing essays, Research, and Planning arguments. One option allows students to add and remove apps. Teachers might want to allow students to add apps for use in the course. We will cover apps in the next section. Another option allows students to create and remove tabs. Tabs are associated with a variety of content. This content includes Office documents, web pages, and a variety of other resources. Connectors are another service used to bring content into teams. This content comes from a variety of sources. These sources include Twitter, Bing News, and
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