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Digital toolkit

Microsoft Teams in educational use

Teams Class -group type is for educational use. Teams Class is a learning environment and it offers different features and applications for teaching and learning. Because it is part of M365 it works seamlessly together with other M365 applications.

Teams Class is a perfect platform for interactive teaching because it offers many features for interaction between student and teacher and also between students. Features that support interaction are for example Channels which are platforms for informing and conversation. In Education there is also a Chat-feature for instant messaging between two or more people. Education has also a Class Notebook application which is a version designed for educational use out of the OneNote application. In Class Notebook it’s possible to work in groups. In Education there is its own tools for assigning and grading assignments. There are different features for having interactive Teams lectures; breakout rooms and working together in Whiteboard.

Teams class

Vocabulary for Teams

  • Teams = The application
  • Team = Area that is created for the group
  • Channel = Area inside of a team that has its own areas for conversation, files and other tools. Team has always a main channel; General. You can also add more channels for different subjects.
  • Chat = Instant messaging feature for two or more people

Most relevant features and applications of Teams Education:

Comparing Teams and Moodle

Teams

  • Writing together = Sharing files and writing together is easy when the file uploaded in the teams files is automatically editable by everyone in the team.
  • Student centrality = Working in teams is quite equal between Owner and other members. Everyone is able to edit documents, start conversations and students are also able to create group chats and teams for small groups.
  • Real-time interaction = Teams offers different tools for real-time communicating.
  • Versatile tools = All Office 365 tools are easily usable through Teams.
  • Nb! Teams areas aren’t yet connected to study information system so information of student registeration to course won’t shift to Teams.

Moodle

  • Teacher led structure and content designing = Building the Moodle area and the tools being used are mostly depending on the teacher.
  • Reports and phased progress = The contents of a Moodle area can be hidden so the progress on the course can be phased. In Moodle teacher also has very specific data of students progress on the course.
  • Connection to study information system = Course areas are automatically made and registered students are automatically members of the course.
  • Versatile tools = For example in Moodle there is H5P tools and connection to Panopto which means that the students of the course area get automatically rights to the courses video file in Panopto.
  • Nb! There isn’t great tools for real-time interaction in Moodle and for video conferences you have to use either Zoom or Teams. Also the tools for writing together simultaneously are weak comparing to Teams

Ways to use Teams

Group working via Teams during large courses: Teams enables interaction which wouldn’t maybe be otherwise possible.

Teams supports face to face meetings: With Teams the work can be continued between meetings.

Teams supports independent study: Teams works well as a support area for independent projects.

 

 

What do I need to do?

First you need to create a TUNI Groups Education -group. When the group is created and ready for use, you can add teachers to the group, build up the platform for the team and add students.

  • Creating content to the team: Creating needed channels, adding course materials
  • Adding students to the group: The easiest way to add students is to use the Team code option
  • Assigning: Set and mark assignments
What should I take into account?
Read more:

 

Updated 1/2024