The Easy Guide to Using Microsoft Teams in Education

 With ever-evolving education technology, Microsoft Teams came out as a platform, bridging the gap between learning and communication. The way how educators engage with students has completely transformed to a level where teaching and understanding faces no barrier. Now that the demand for effective remote learning continues to rise, learning Microsoft Teams has become essential for educators and tutors. Microsoft Teams training is one of the best solutions to imbibe knowledge necessary for running a digital classroom. Here’s the easy guide to using Microsoft Teams in education, its intricacies, and strategies to optimize teaching.

Microsoft Teams being a versatile platform, streamlines communication, collaboration, and content sharing. As there is a paradigm shift towards remote and hybrid learning models, the integration of technology in education has become imperative, with Teams at the forefront of keeping everyone and everything in one place.

5 Features of Microsoft Teams Useful in Education

Before going through the advanced functionalities, it's crucial to grasp basic aspects and features of Microsoft Teams essential for teaching. From creating teams to navigating the interface and setting up channels, educators and students must familiarize themselves with intuitive features such as chat, video conferencing, and file sharing. 

1. Seamless Collaboration

With Microsoft Teams for schools, it's possible for educators to set up virtual classrooms and collaborate on Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. Using the Chat and Messaging, dedicated chat groups are created for individual classes for quick exchange of info, resources, or updates. Nowadays, educators yearn to enrich discussions to engage students and this has been made possible with Teams ability to share files, links, or multimedia content within the chat interface. 

It allows hosting live video sessions — interactive presentations, virtual whiteboards, and screen sharing.

1. Secure Communication

The educators can rest assured of having end-to-end encryption, multi-factor authentication, and data retention policies protecting communications and data. Especially in the context of remote learning, Teams offers a secure digital space either via video conferencing or supervised messaging. Thus, making Teams a reliable platform to reach out to students, staff, parents, and guardians. 

1. Independent Learning 

Students can practice on their own with the help from AI-assisted digital learning coaches, built-in progress trackers, and other customized Teams tools. For instance, Reading Progress can boost literacy confidence and Presenter Coach assists in improving orating skills. Similarly, polishing professional expertise is possible with a Career Coach. 

1. Inclusivity Support

Teams suit the unique learning preferences of each student spanning from K-12 to higher education. A continuous effort has been made to address educational barriers such as age, language, fluency, or abilities. For ease of accessibility and inclusivity, Teams offer ASL visibility features, text decoding solutions, and more options with Immersive Reader. Moreover, it is feasible to translate lectures into a student's choice of language with OneNote Live Captions. 

1. Hands-On Learning

Teams lets you excel beyond traditional classroom learning. Microsoft Teams for education provides practical hands-on experience for students. They can submit and retrieve information from handwritten notes using Office Lens. If you want to assign tasks, quiz learners, use grading systems, or track an individual's progress and class-wide achievements, you must use the Assignments and Grades feature. 

How to Use Teams for Education?

Teachers and students (from elementary to tertiary education) can begin using Teams by signing in with an active school email and it's completely free.

Sync Up All Apps for Quick Access

With Teams and Office 365, you have the potential to express creativity and illustrate concepts using Whiteboard. Besides, you can formulate and distribute lesson plans through OneNote and

co-author files from Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on any device. Henceforth, educators can create an immersive virtual educational system by incorporating external tools and resources within Microsoft Teams.

Integrate Into Your School’s LMS 

Yes, it is now possible to integrate Microsoft's educational resources into your school's learning management systems (LMS). You can incorporate Office 365 into your workflows by using OneDrive LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability). You can arrange and participate in meetings through Teams Meetings LTI. If you refer to platforms such as Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, and others, you can synchronize with them very easily.

To focus on delivering quality education without compromising on location, language, and security, use Microsoft Teams and adapt to the demands of the digital era. You can master the intricacies of Teams with comprehensive training offered by CustomGuide. So, your education can simulate the traditional classroom while anticipating active participation and commitment among students.