A blatant play on words but for the record…this post is squarely focused on Microsoft’s ubiquitous Teams app and not Bob Dylan’s 1964 anthem of change. Only two months ago I posted Microsoft Teams – Your Ever-evolving Digital Classroom and observed that whether teaching and learning was in-class, online or a mixture of both (Blended) Teams was a powerful digital hub that teachers could deploy to centralise learning, work and collaboration in one place. Also mooted at the time was the fact that keeping up-to-speed with it’s ever-evolving functionality was a tall order and to prove the point I’m back to highlight four new and/or additional Teams features to enhance your hybrid classroom that didn’t make the cut last time out…
One Click Present from PowerPoint into a Teams Meeting with
The Present in Teams feature in PowerPoint lets you share any PowerPoint presentation saved in OneDrive easily with students in a live meeting just…
- Open your presentation in PowerPoint.
- Click Present in the top right corner.
- Present in Teams button
Content From Camera in Live Classes
The new “Content from camera” feature uses special image-processing software that enables teachers to share content from physical artefacts such as whiteboards and documents and allows a presenter to draw on and share in real-time content during live classes. All you need is a laptop or PC with an in-built camera or with an attached USB camera.
Introducing the Feelings Monster in Reflect
As reported in December’s post, Reflect check-ins in Teams enables conversations about students’ feelings and needs that a teacher can view over time, helping them to identify patterns and better support students emotional well-being and now with the Feelings Monster equipped with over 50 emotions for students to choose from with facial expressions and body language makes a Reflect check-in more visual and engaging while helping to build student’s emotional vocabulary…more
Group Assignments
Teams has introduced a new group assignments feature, allowing students to work together and submit one assignment for the whole group. Teachers can then provide feedback and grades to either each individual student within that group or give out an overall grade for the group.
- In Teams click on Assignments, select Create and then Assignment and enter the relevant details
- Then select Assign to, this will be set to the default All students. Select Group of students from the drop-down menu.
3. Select Manually group students from the pop-up window and then click Create groups or select Randomly assign groups from the pop-up window, enter the number of groups you need and select Create groups.
More on Group Assignments