Overview

This page outlines the key features and resources to be aware of when facilitating remote teaching using  Microsoft Class Teams.

​Getting started

A Class Team is automatically created for every timetabled class. Teachers and students are added to these Teams with the appropriate levels of permissions. Membership of Class Teams is dynamically managed -  if a new student or teacher is added to the class in the timetable, this will be reflected in the associated Class Team. 

Learning the basics 

When you open Microsoft Teams you will be presented with the below screen. Your automatically created teams will display here. 

​Within the Team you will be presented with a range of tools to support your remote learning experiences. 

For more assistance on an Introduction to Microsoft Teams (including exploring the interface, inviting members to your team and adding channels and tabs) please refer to the Introduction to Microsoft Teams course material.  Microsoft's Class Teams help site​ is also an excellent resource.

Video Conferencing

Video conferencing allows the class teacher to facilitate virtual classes directly within Microsoft Teams. Students are not permitted to initiate a meeting. 

When conducting a video conference/class meeting it is important to plan to ensure a successful session and have clear behavioural expectations for your students. 

Click Meet now under the message box to start a live meeting within that channel. You can also Schedule a meeting to be held in the future. Members of the channel will see an invitation for the meeting in their calendar if you decide to schedule it for later. 

A recent product update to Meetings in Teams means that a teacher or meeting organiser can now end the meeting in progress for all participants​. 

It will not always be possible for all students to join the meeting live. Use the Start recording feature on all meetings to make the video recording available upon the completion of the meeting. 

To summarise the current student permissions in Teams Meetings in BCE:

​Students should be able to:

• ​Join a meeting in progress
• Share their desktop (not available in browser)
• Use video and audio

Students should NOT be able to:

• ​Initiate a meeting either in Meet Now or in Calendar
• Record a Meeting
• Participate in private chat

If you find that a student has permissions that are different from above, eg a student has initiated a meeting, please log this with Service Now and include the student name in the call.

Issues to be aware of (these are also high priority items in terms of development from MS):​

• Students can invite other students into the meeting, even from outside the Team
• Teachers can't definitively mute all students - if muted, students can unmute themselves

Assignments

Class handouts, quizzes, tests, and homework can all be assigned and even graded within the Assignments tab. Make an assignment as simple or complex as you need. 

TurnItIn is made available within all Brisbane Catholic Education Assignments for originality checking. 

OneNote Class Notebook

Every class team comes with its own linked OneNote Class Notebook. Your Class Notebook is a digital notebook for the whole class to store text, images, handwritten notes, attachments, links, voice, video, and more.

Teams delivers these essential components of the OneNote Class Notebook experience:

• Student Notebooks -- a private space shared between the teacher and each individual student. Teachers can access every student notebook, while students can only see their own.
• Content Library -- a read-only space where teachers can share handouts with students.
• ​Collaboration Space -- a space where everyone in your class can share, organize, and collaborate.

​Handy tips

@mention: Using the @ symbol you can raise the profile of the conversation. @mention a student for them to receive a notification that their name has been used in a conversation or @mention the whole class for everyone to receive a notification.

@forms: Use @forms to create an instant, real time poll/form in seconds. Students can respond to the poll and see the results in real time.

​Add an emoji, meme, or GIF​​​​​​​: Click sticker under the message and select a meme or sticker from one of the categories. There are also buttons for adding an emoji or GIF.  Don’t want students conversing through emoji’s and gifs? Head to the settings page by click on the name of your class at the top of the page and choose to mute students or adjust the ‘Fun Stuff’ settings.

​Add a tab in a channel: Click + by the tabs at the top of the channel, click the app you want, and then follow the prompts.   

Organise your Team using Channels: Creating channels allows you to organise your conversations, separate your documents and more. 

​Visual guides

Easy to follow visual guides have been created to display the most common tasks within Microsoft Class Teams. 

Microsoft Class Teams - How to guides

​References

Teams Quick Guide​

Microsoft Class Teams - How to guides

Microsoft Class Teams - Video conferencing considerations

Microsoft Class Teams help site

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