Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, students and educators worldwide faced up to the new reality — distance learning. Flexible online education requires no commuting and in-class attendance, perfect for full or part-time workers. It stands out as the best option nowadays. More than 145 million people find Microsoft Teams multifunctional easy-to-use corporate platform for earning their degrees. Whether you are into in-person classes or teamwork, it helps create an effective learning environment. Video conferencing, meetings, calls, and more — check out this guide to access online education from anywhere in the world.
Teams features
1. User-friendly interface
Developers have simplified navigation to six main app bar buttons: Activity, Chat, Teams, Calendar, Calls, and Files. Activityaggregates all the notifications, your mentions, replies, and others. Chatshows your recent personal or group chats and your Contact list. Its button accumulates all the class teams with your membership. Calendardisplays your upcoming meetings, synchronizing data with your Outlook calendar. Files is a storage for all the files from your teams.
Moreover, it can be connected with personal OneDrive for Business storage. Press the Calls button to make outgoing audio or video calls. This section also contains the history of your incoming and outgoing calls in chronological order. As you can see, it is not difficult to get everything necessary!
2. Accessibility and flexibility
All you need for teaching or learning online is a working internet connection. Microsoft Teams made it possible to access the class teams from anywhere in the world. The app also helps set up a convenient schedule for educators and learners with breaks, stretches, meals, improving your time management system. All live meetings can be recorded and automatically posted on Stream. Learners missing classes are welcome to watch the records anytime they want.
3. Teaching material in various formats
Teams for students, faculty, and staff is a part of Office 365 Education, a service that enables access to OneDrive and Office software for free. This MS app accepts all types of study materials for remote learning. Share files and receive feedback via Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets, Outlook and calendar, audio records, PDFs, images, etc. Here, you can check 5 programs similar to Microsoft Word for document creation.
4. Different communication modes
Calls technically recreate the face-to-face interactions, just like you attend classes offline and see who you are talking with. Another signature tool of Teams is screen demonstration. Presenting a project or lecture supporting material virtually has never been so easy! Build direct contact with your audience via live chat and messages. The platform gives an ability to chat with instructors and fellow students. Feel free to comment on a group project, clarify a task, or ask questions. You can even cheer up your crew members with emoji reactions and raise your hand to answer quizzes.
5. Perfect for all types of studying
It fits every program: from individual courses to face-to-face group lectures, from hybrid to fully online classes.
6. Completely safe and private
According to Teams privacy policy: “We never use your data to serve you ads. We do not track participant attention or multi-tasking in Teams meetings. Your data is deleted after the termination or expiration of your subscription”.
Step-by-step guide on how to set up Microsoft Teams
- Sign up for Office 365 Education. Enter your corporate email address and the password used to sign in to the account.
- Install the software on your PC, Mac, or smartphone. Once you fill out the registration form, Microsoft redirects you to the download guide.
- Activate your account. This access remains active as long as you are enrolled in school or university.
If necessary, get acquainted with its interface in a 3-min tutorial.
Bring your MS Teams experience to the next level
Here are several hidden tools advanced users found and fell in love with:
- Set up a notebook for more activities and collaboration under Teams. OneNote notebook is a digital store for texts, handwritten notes, attachments, images, videos, links, etc.
- Check up Activity to discover your @mentions, replies, and upcoming events.
- Look through and sort attached files, chats, people, quick actions in the Search box.
- Type “/dnd” in the Search box to change your status to “do not disturb”.
- Not ready to respond right now? Bookmark important messages as unread (Chat).
To sum up, this app is an all-in-one trusted platform for learning management. It is full of benefits for both teachers and students. Lastly, you can easily balance work and study: get access to meetings from wherever they are and even learn missing classes via recordings. MS app makes collaborations with teammates effective. All thanks to instant messaging, virtual meetings, internal and external calls, files in various formats. Educators can set a flexible schedule using MS Teams. Make and customize assignments, plan one-on-one meetings, schedule live calls, or record lectures in advance. There are endless possibilities to engage a team too. Use Forms quizzes, live discussions, OneNote Class Notebook, emoji reactions, make an in-app event, etc. Using all necessary Microsoft software for free is a huge plus for faculty, and staff. Stay informed, organized, and connected in one Team while getting higher education or tutoring.
About the Author
Bertha Graham is an active blogger and expert in the educational sphere. She regularly writes publications in initial journals about the learning environment. Also Bertha works at PapersOwl and has been providing academic assistance to learners for many years. She shares study tips, covers innovative programs, and highlights helpful platforms.