New Microsoft Teams updates in Office 365 for Education
In June, we announced new experiences in Microsoft Teams designed to help schools achieve more together. Since our release, we’ve been excited to learn how customers have started using Teams to foster deeply engaged classrooms, strengthen professional learning communities, and streamline staff communication. Kurt Söser, Teacher at the Business School in Steyr, Austria, began using Teams as the digital hub for his classroom. He shared that “Microsoft Teams is a true one stop shop. I can plan everything in one place and my students can start right from the app to explore our lessons. The combination and integration of OneNote Class Notebooks, assignments, communication and scheduling makes learning anytime and anywhere easy.” Nancy Bonfiglio-Pavisich, Deputy Principal of Irene McCormack Catholic College in Western Australia, is now using Teams with her staff for professional development and policy management. She shared “Teams is a dynamic, convenient way to bring great minds together. We are currently using Microsoft Teams to review various policies at our school. We are not constrained by day or time. We all feed in and take responsibility for producing a document that reflects real and relevant policies for our school environment.” We love hearing from customers how we can make Teams even better for the education community and are continuously looking for ways to improve the experience. So today, we’re releasing new updates that make it even easier for educators and staff to collaborate with OneNote in Teams, for teachers to create richer assignments, and for IT administrators to manage a safe environment for their school. OneNote Class and Staff Notebook Improvements Starting today, teachers and staff will be able to access Class Notebook and Staff Notebook Settings from right within Teams. This update further simplifies school workflows by allowing teachers and staff-leaders to manage notebook settings such as Teacher-Only section groups, adding new sections, and locking the Collaboration Space, all without ever having to leave Teams. Additionally, all Teams users will now be able to enjoy Class and Staff Notebook in full screen view in Teams and navigate the full notebook to access other sections, spaces, and pages. This also allow the Class Notebook Toolbar to be used from within Teams. Lastly, Class and Staff Notebook now support Edit in Browser, so teachers and staff can quickly navigate to a fully immersive OneNote experience. Coming Soon: In October, the Class Notebook integration with Teams will become even richer. Teachers using Teams will be able to distribute OneNote pages for their class assignments and the Class Notebook addin in will communicate with Teams to allow Teachers to push assignments and grades directly into the Assignments within Teams. Assignment Capabilities And as teachers create new assignments, they can be reassured that their content will now be automatically saved so they never have to worry about losing progress. Also beginning today, teachers can export grades from Teams as .CSV files and import that file into their School Information System (SIS) to maintain a single source of truth for student grades. IT Administrator Controls Starting today, IT administrators can choose to enable or disable private chat at the license level. This enables IT to manage a safer environment for Students while allowing Faculty & Staff to continue using chat for private or smaller group conversations. Additionally, IT administrators can now create a unique block list for 3 rd party applications in their tenant, allowing them to control which apps and integrations their educators, students, and staff can interact with in Teams. Coming Soon: Next week, IT administrators will also have the option to enable or disable assignments for classes in their tenant, providing greater flexibility for schools with existing assignments tools or LMS. These updates are in addition to the controls we introduced in June that allow IT administrators to manage meetings and meet now experiences, as well as enable delete conversation for team owners so that teachers can moderate student conversations. For a full list of IT administrator controls, view the Microsoft Teams Getting Started Guide for IT". We look forward to learning how schools use these new features in Teams to create collaborative classrooms, engage in professional learning communities, and unify staff communications as they head back to school. We will continue to deliver new features updates every month and you can stay up to date on the latest by connecting with us on Twitter @MicrosoftEDU and @MicrosoftTeams. You can also submit feedback on the product by selecting ‘Feedback’ in your Teams navigation bar or going directly to Microsoft Teams UserVoice. Start using Microsoft Teams today!
