Microsoft 365 Teams for Classes

WPI IT has created a Class Team in Microsoft Teams for all WPI courses.

Faculty:

• Are already enrolled in these Class Teams as owners.
• TAs, PLAs, and Graders will need to be manually added to be able to access the Class Team. There are only 2 roles available: Teacher and Student. You will need to determine how you would like to classify them based on tasks you will assign in your Class Team.
  
• Activate their Class Team in order for students to see it by clicking the Activate button at the top of the screen.
• Teams will be archived and become read-only 1 week after the term ends. Teachers may restore a Class Team at any time using the Action Archive or Restore a Team.
  

Enrollment:

• Classes will receive student enrollments one week prior to the start of the term.
  
• Once Workday Student is active rosters will update more frequently.

Teams is part of the Microsoft 365 suite. There are various methods to access it:

• Access Microsoft 365 for the Web (see Actions) and click the Apps button at the upper left corner, then choose Teams.
• From the web version of Outlook or any other Microsoft 365 app, click the Apps button at the upper left corner.
  
• Download Teams for your desktop (see Software).
• In Canvas, use the shortcut to Microsoft Teams in the course navigation menu of your Canvas site and also under Account.  
  

You can share a direct link to your Class Team, or incorporate it into your Canvas class. (See Actions for Invite to a Team with a Code). 

The strength of the Teams platform lies in its collaboration, video, chat, and file sharing tools. There are a number of applications you can integrate into your class team to customize the platform and explore new ways to communicate and work with your class. Each class team is also linked to its own OneNote Class Notebook. 

In addition to the features below, Actions links to Projects, Group Work and Collaboration tips.

Team Email

Every Team automatically has a group email address generated for it. Each channel also has a group email address automatically generated. 

Team Meetings 

Meetings in Teams include audio, video, screen sharing, and breakout rooms. They're one of the key ways to collaborate in Teams. You can share your screen, your PowerPoint slides, or use a Whiteboard to collaborate with your class in real time. Team Meetings can be launched quickly from your Canvas course site or from your Class Team site. 

Group Work 

Create channels within your class team to organize students to work together on group projects. You can create as many as 100 channels per team. All students in the class team can view the team’s channels—notify the students you’d like to work in each one. Use the Files, Conversations, and Notes tabs in each channel to organize group collaboration.  See Actions for Teams Chats, Conversations, Posts (Microsoft). 

OneNote Class Notebook 

Every Class team comes with its own OneNote Class Notebook. This digital notebook is available for the whole class to store text, images, handwritten notes, attachments, links, voice, video, and more. There are 3 components to the Class Notebook:

1. Student Notebooks - a private space shared between teacher and student
2. Content Library - a read-only space for instructors to share documents with students
3. Collaboration Space - a space for the whole class to collaborate and share. 

Teams Meetings & Canvas Integration 

Using Microsoft Teams, you can invite your class to join you in a web conference from your Canvas course site.  

You can either copy your custom Teams Meeting link from your Calendar in Teams and paste it into a Canvas Announcement, or use the Meetings integration in Canvas wherever you see the Rich Content Editor (Announcements, Assignments, Calendar, Discussions, Pages, etc.) .

To open Microsoft Teams Meetings from the Rich Content Editor, click the plug icon in the toolbar, and then select Microsoft Teams Meetings from the list. Depending on your specific toolbar, the plug icon may be under the three dots icon which enables a drop-down menu containing additional actions. 

Students will also be able to use this tool in the Rich Content Editor within their Canvas Groups. 

For more information on the Canvas integration, use the Action for Teams Enabled in Canvas (Microsoft).

Under the Apps tab in your class team, you may add optional integrations and plug-ins to your site. Some are free, and some require accounts or subscriptions. Here are a few suggestions for apps that might be useful in your site: 

Microsoft Planner for team/project management makes it easy for your team to stay organized, assign tasks, and keep track of your progress.

Polly is a native app in teams that allows you to create simple polls and surveys with instant results. Polly can help foster collaboration and productivity and makes it simple for your students to engage with the class and increase participation. 

Whiteboard for the web powers whiteboard integration in Microsoft Teams meetings. It enables participants of Teams meetings to collaborate by drawing, sketching, or writing on a shared digital canvas. After a Teams meeting, its whiteboard will be available to all participants from the Teams meeting chat, in a tab labeled Whiteboard. 

Freehand offers another whiteboard option. Its Microsoft Teams integration allows you to access an infinite whiteboard where users can sketch, draw, and edit things together. Features include: Wireframing, Visual planning, Presentations, Co-drawing, Save collaborations in the cloud. (Sign up needed, but it is a free tool.)