Why Should I Use MS Teams?
As stated on Microsoft’s support website (2017), “Microsoft Teams is a digital hub that brings conversations, meetings, files and apps together in a single experience in Office 365 for Education.” Teams is like a one-stop shop for sharing and collaboration, which makes workflow easier and more efficient for staff groups across year levels, departments and other areas, as well as for students in your classroom, so it is certainly worth trying out. There are four different types of Teams. All of them have a conversation thread and a file space, as well as the ability to add new channels and tabs; most also come with an embedded OneNote.
Embedded OneNotes:
When you first open the Class Notebook, Staff Notebook, or PLC Notebook tab within the Team, the embedded OneNote will kick into action and you will be able to interact with this OneNote as normal in the OneNote app, in OneNote in your browser OR directly within the Team. The OneNote will automatically be named the same name as your Team, so it is important to get your naming conventions correct for the Team. If you already have content from existing OneNotes that you would like to copy to the embedded OneNote, you can do this in the OneNote app as per normal.
Files:
You can upload any existing files or folders to your Team OR create a new Word, Powerpoint or Excel directly within the Team. You have the option to edit these files in Teams or Word etc… All members of the Team will have full editing rights to any MS files in the Team. This is great for collaborating on programs and resources, as well as providing opportunities for students to collaborate on whole class documents e.g. for presentations, reflections, sharing findings etc… You can also add one of these files as a separate tab for easy access, by adding a Word, Powerpoint or Excel tab from the list of options – the file must already be uploaded to the “Files” space to enable this.
Conversations:
This is an easy and efficient way to facilitate discussions amongst members of the Team, provide information, conduct quick polls, and much more. Each additional channel in the Team comes with its own “Conversation,” so that discussion can be targeted towards relevant people. This is a far more streamlined and dynamic process than email threads or SEQTA forums. Conversations can be enhanced with emoji, GIFs, links, attachments, stickers, and assorted bots.
Types of Teams:
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Class Team
This is for you to use with your class. It comes with a Class Notebook. Students in your Team will automatically be added to this Class Notebook. Within Teams, you can select the number and names of individual student sections. When you add a new channel in this type of Team, the OneNote component within the channel is pages only and found in the “Notes” tab – notes from these channels then transfer to the Class Notebook as a separate section in the Collaboration Space (each section is named after the respective channel). There is also an “Assignments” tab – this feature is still in its infancy and I have not yet explored this in much detail. If anyone knows more about this, please add as a comment at the end of this post. Only teachers can add new tabs to the Team.
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Staff Team
This can be used by school leaders or Heads of Department if requiring staff to have their own personal section in the OneNote, as it comes with a Staff Notebook. Similar to Class Teams, OneNotes in each channel will transfer to the Collaboration Space of the main Staff Notebook as a separate section (named after the channel).
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PLC (Professional Learning Community) Team
This Team comes with a standard OneNote, called “PLC Notebook”, where all members of the Team will have full editing rights. The OneNote will already be populated with a heap of sections and pages, which might be useful to a PLC Team, which you may want to use or delete. Every channel that you add will come with a “Notes” tab, which will appear as a section of the main PLC Notebook (OneNote). If you add (“+”) an additional OneNote tab, creating a new OneNote within a channel, this will also transfer as a separate section within the main OneNote, but will not create an extra hierarchy e.g. If your channel is called “Blue” and your extra OneNote tab within “Blue” channel is called “Under the Sea,” the section will appear in the main OneNote by the name of “Blue – Under the Sea.” I would prefer it if “Blue” was a section and “Under the Sea” was a sub-section, but at the moment (as far as I can ascertain), sub-sections are not possible within OneNotes in Teams.
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Anyone Team
This type of Team is fairly basic. By default, it only comes with a “Conversation” and “Files” tab, but you can add a OneNote by adding a new tab. However, this OneNote only comes with pages, not sections. All members of this type of Team are equal in terms of editing rights to MS files, ability to add new tabs etc… I would appreciate any suggestions from readers about when they might choose to use this category of Teams.
Other:
Only owners of the Team have the ability to add or remove members. Ownership can be easily transferred, and owners can change the status of individual members to co-owners. There are many bots that can be added, and an ever-increasing range of apps that can be added as new tabs e.g. Mindmeister (mind mapping app – all team members can automatically contribute to the mind map within the Team). Channels can be “favourited” so that you only see the channels that are relevant to you. There is also a chat feature, which you can use within the Team or privately to anyone in your organisation.
Wish List:
As Teams is still in its infancy, its features are regularly being tweaked or enhanced. Currently, each new channel becomes added to the main OneNote as a separate section. I would love the ability to create whole OneNotes within each channel, as I think this would increase the productivity and flexibility of Teams, particularly when wanting to set up an efficient Team for each department or year level. A little birdie tells me that this might soon be possible via a direct link within each channel, which would be really useful.
We would really like to hear from other teachers who have been trying out Teams. What do you like? What don’t you like? What do new users need to be mindful of? etc…
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