Whether you’re teaching remotely, hybrid, or back in person, we have some updates this month that are only possible because of your perseverance, great feedback, and flexibility. If there is something you’d like to see more of, please let us know! We’re always listening.

This month, we’re excited to announce the latest updates to the Teams experience to help you:

1. Encourage class participation during synchronous learning
2. Help keep students safe with better meeting controls
3. Create better large meeting and webinar experiences
4. Collaborate across organizational divides
5. Do even more with Assignments in Teams
6. Train yourself on Teams with new resources created for school scenarios

Let’s dive in! (Click here to jump right into a quick list without extra description)

1) Encourage class participation during synchronous learning
Dynamic view
Dynamic view intelligently arranges content and participants during class, showing the important stuff all on the same screen. Comments from the meeting chat will show up, too—giving more visibility to students who might rather use chat over vocalizing their thoughts. This capability can also help participants with hearing impairments: they can use Dynamic view to spotlight their sign language interpreter alongside shared content. If you want to make your meeting window bigger or smaller, the participant gallery auto-adjusts to fit.

Dynamic view is coming soon!

Dynamic view intelligently automatically arranges content so it’s easier to see everything and everyone together.

Presenter mode

Presenter mode gives educators the option to choose how video and content appear to students during class. Standout mode shows your video feed to participants in front of the shared content, Reporter has content as a visual aid above your shoulder, and Side-by-side displays your video feed next to your content. This helps create a more natural classroom or lecture experience and allows students to see their teacher or professor alongside content!

Presenter mode will be available soon.

Presenter mode allows educators to share content and their video to create a more natural classroom experience.

PowerPoint Live in Teams

PowerPoint Live in Teams gives educators even more options for presenting content in one interactive view. Content, notes, slides, and students are all in a single view—keeping you connected with students while on track with material. While students won’t see your notes or upcoming slides, they can personalize their experience by navigating the content at their own pace or using the screen reader to access content according to their learning needs.

PowerPoint Live is available now! Learn More.

PowerPoint Live in Teams gives educators more options for presenting content.

View switcher

The new view switcher in the top bar of your Teams meetings will let you control how you see meeting content. You may want to see your students or peers interact in Together mode, or use a view that helps you concentrate–Focus hides all video feeds and only shows you the shared content. Gallery at top moves all video feeds to the top of your meeting window, allowing more natural eye contact with your students and colleagues. Full screen can help remove other desktop distractions.

View switcher will be available soon.

View switcher PowerPoint Live in Teams gives educators more options for presenting content.

Live Reactions in Microsoft Teams Meeting

Students can now react during class with emojis that show up for all participants! Even without videos turned on, live emoji reactions can keep class interactive and give all participants a voice. Educators do have the option to disable live reactions in meeting options.

Available now in Teams. Learn more.

Live reactions can help keep class interactive and give all participants a voice.

Download Attendee reports after class

Educators will soon have the option to download Attendance Reports after a class meeting is over. Only the meeting organizer will have access to the Attendance Report, which will include join and leave time, email address, and even duration, so educators can track both attendance and engagement.

This feature will not be on by default and must be enabled by IT Admins–learn how to enable Attendance Reports in the Admin Portal once it’s available later this month.

2) Help keep students safe with better meeting controls

Invite-only meeting option

A new lobby setting is now available in Teams Meetings, where only meeting participants who were explicitly invited to the meeting are able to join directly. Any non-invited participants attempting to join will be directed to the lobby. This, along with the student as attendees policy, helps ensure that only students who belong in class are present—and educators don’t have to spend as much time monitoring the lobby.

The invite-only meeting option is now available for private meetings.

The invite only meeting option can help protect online classes from unwanted guests.

Disable student video during class

Disable video will allow a meeting organizer to disable the video of an individual or all attendees. As a meeting safety capability, disable video can help educators manage unwanted class disruptions. Similar to hard mute, once an attendee has had their video disabled, they can’t override the organizer. Disable video will be rolling out in the next few months.

Disabling video is another tool for teachers to help reduce classroom distractions.

Meeting chat moderation settings

Meeting organizers and teachers can now choose from three chat settings to help create a safe and inclusive classroom. Meeting chats can be “Disabled,” preventing the organizer and students from using the meeting chat. They can be set to “Only during the meeting,” allowing students to send messages only during the meeting and the organizer to send messages at any time. Chat will be set to “Enabled” by default—where all students can chat any time.

Meeting chat moderation is available now for private meetings.

Meeting chat moderation gives educators more options for how students engage in chat for online classes.

3) Deliver better large meetings and webinar experiences

Attendee registration and email confirmations

Looking to easily organize webinars within school or with parents? Soon organizers will be able to add a custom attendee registration page to a meeting to better manage attendance before and after an event. After registration, attendees will automatically receive an email confirmation with a calendar invite for a simple join experience.

Attendee registration and email confirmations will be available soon for Microsoft Education A3 and A5 customers.

Event organizers can customize their webinars with a custom sign-up page and automatic confirmation emails to registered attendees.

1,000-person interactive meetings and webinars with moderation control
Beginning this month, Microsoft Teams supports interactive meetings and webinars for up to 1,000 attendees, including rich presentation options, live reactions, and moderation controls to disable chat, audio, and video for the attendees of the event.

This will be available this month for Microsoft Education A3 and A5 customers.

20,000 person view-only broadcasts

Once your webinar grows to over 1,000 attendees, Teams will seamlessly scale to accommodate up to a 10,000-person view-only broadcast experience including host moderation control that automatically disables attendees’ audio and video to prevent accidental presentation interruptions. And during this remote learning time, take advantage of even larger 20,000-person broadcasts through the end of this year.

This will be available this month for Microsoft Education A3 and A5 customers.

Attendee reporting
Following your webinar, you can use reporting to understand attendee participation with data on who attended and how long they participated, then export the data to produce your own custom reports. This functionality will continue to be improved with more detailed reporting within Teams over time.

Attendee reporting will be available for download this month, with additional reporting capabilities available in the coming months for Microsoft Education A3 and A5 customers.

Improved attendance reporting will make it easier to understand attendee engagement.

4) Collaborate across organizational divides
Microsoft Teams Connect
To make it easier to collaborate with people and teams that span different schools, universities, and institutions, we’re announcing Microsoft Teams Connect. With Teams Connect, seamlessly share channels with any user or group with Azure Active Directory identity. Use the same digital environment with all the rich collaboration capabilities that only Teams brings together: chat, meet, collaborate on apps, share, and co-author documents in real time. Admins have access to granular controls, allowing their organization to stay in control of how external users access data and information. Microsoft Teams Connect is available today in private preview and will roll out broadly later this calendar year for non-class teams (Staff, PLCs, and other teams).

Microsoft Teams Connect will make it easier to collaborate with people across different schools, universities, and institutions.

5) Do even more with Assignments in Teams
Link thumbnail preview in Assignments
Now when an educator adds a link as an Assignment resource, students can see a thumbnail preview before clicking to the site or resource. This quick preview helps the student get a quick understanding of the resource before clicking through to the material.

Thumbnail preview gives a quick preview of the web page.

Support for large file sizes when submitting assignments

Sometimes it’s helpful for students to submit a larger file for their assignment, like a video or big PowerPoint file. That’s now possible with increased file size limits from 50 MB to 500 MB for submitting resources in Assignments.

Support for larger files sizes in Assignment submissions are available now.

6) Train yourself on Teams with new resources created for school scenarios
For educators

1. Join us for Microsoft Store’s upcoming virtual event, “For You, By You: A How-To Series for Educators to Supercharge Classroom Engagement.” Taking place on March 4 at 2 PM PST, the event is the first in an ongoing series to celebrate the incredible work that educators around the world have been doing in these extraordinary times with a day of fun, connection, and support—and even a few surprise celebrity appearances! Sign up for the event here.
2. Find what you need to get started on Teams all in one place at aka.ms/TeamsPP
3. Check out this resource about how to have secure online meetings
4. Watch the recordings from the Microsoft Teams for EDU digital readiness event which dive into common scenarios and use cases to support you this school year at https://aka.ms/TeamsEduEvent.

For IT and school leaders

1. Register today to join us at Ignite and watch some awesome Teams sessions, including: The latest innovations with Microsoft Teams, Easy, intuitive webinars with Microsoft Teams: Virtual engagement in the age of remote work and Secure and compliant collaboration with Microsoft Teams
2. See all the latest Microsoft Teams product news from Ignite here, including education specific on demand webinars: https://aka.ms/TeamsSessions
3. Learn which policies to enable to keep students safe when using Teams for remote and hybrid learning with this Policy quick guide.

For parents and guardians

1. Learn about Teams and common classroom scenarios with clickable interactive demos (in English).
2. Quickly get up to speed on Teams Meetings and Accessibility with 1-page guides.
   https://aka.ms/TeamsEduGetStartedParents
   https://aka.ms/TeamsEduMeetingsParents
   https://aka.ms/TeamsEduAccessibilityParents
3. Find resources to keep kids engaged and learning new skills with family-led learning experiences (for children 3-12).

And for those that love lists, here’s a quick review of all the features we shared:

1. Encourage class participation during synchronous learning
   Dynamic view – coming soon
   Presenter mode – coming soon
   Power Point Live in Teams – available now
   View Switcher – coming soon
   Live Reactions during class – available now
   Download attendance after class is over – coming later this month
2. Help keep students safe with better meeting controls
   Invite-only meeting options – available this month for private meetings
   Disable student video during class – coming in the next few months
   Meeting chat moderation – available now for private meetings
3. Create better large meeting and webinar experiences (available for Microsoft Education A3 and A5 customers)
   Attendee registration and email confirmations – coming soon
   1,000 person interactive meetings and webinars – coming this month
   20,000-person view-only broadcasts – coming later this month
   Attendee reporting – downloads coming later this month with more reporting capabilities available in the coming months
4. Collaborate across organizational divides
   Microsoft Teams Connect – coming later this calendar year
5. Do even more with Assignments in Teams
   Link thumbnail preview in Assignments – available now
   Support for submitting large file sizes (500 MB) – available now

We’re always looking to improve the education experience in Teams, and we can only do that with your support and awesome ideas. If there’s something you’d like to see in Teams for Education, please let us know!

This post was originally published on this site.

The post What’s New in Microsoft Teams for Education | February 2021 appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

We so appreciate you sharing your feedback along the way–both the triumphs and frustrations. We’re continuing to improve the Teams experience and make it even better. Here are the latest updates available now to help you make the most of distance and hybrid learning with Teams:

1. Use data insights to improve teaching and learning
2. Encourage class participation with online meetings
3. Maintain student safety with meeting controls
4. Keep students engaged with course content
5. Do more with Assignments in Teams
6. Build an interactive classroom
7. Train yourself and learn more about Teams with additional resources

Let’s dive in! (If you’re just looking for a list without extra description, click here to jump).

1) Use data insights to improve teaching and learning

New Insights app and cards to spotlight student behavior
New updates to Education Insights allow educators to closely track the engagement and progress of students over time and across their classes with the Insights app. This includes seeing the number of inactive and active students per day, missed online classes, and missed assignments. Within a specific class, educators can see spotlight cards to show trending student behaviors they may want to act on. These spotlight cards are rolling out now and will be fully available by mid-December. With access to data that visualizes how students are engaging—like meeting participation, communication, and assignment activities—educators can monitor progress and make faster, more informed decisions on which students need immediate learning support.

To get started, check out these resources:

• Insights quick guide and complete guide PDFs
• Step-by-step video tutorial on how to use Insights
• Free Insights course on the Microsoft Educator Center
• Insights support page for more how-to’s and help
• More about the IT side and data on the Insights IT support page

Educators can view insights into student engagement across classes and drill down to better understand habits and behaviors.

2) Encourage class participation with online meetings

New Together mode scene selection
Educators can choose from new Together mode scenes on desktop and mobile to transport students to a variety of digital places. Together mode reimagines the online class experience to help educators and students feel closer together even when teaching and learning apart. Choose a scene to set the tone and create a unique experience, whether it be a cozy room, outdoor amphitheater, or classroom. Watch the quick tip video to learn how.

New Together mode scenes let you choose different ways for the whole class to learn together.

Live captions with speaker attribution
See who is speaking while you watch live captions, creating a meeting experience that’s more inclusive and easy-to-follow. Watch the quick tip video to learn how.

Live captions with speaker attribution to support learners during online classes.

Spotlight the educator’s video for all students in a Teams online class
Educators and other meeting presenters can now choose an individual video feed for all attendees to see during a Teams online class. Once selected, the individual identified as the spotlight will be the main video shown to the class. Spotlight is available on PC, Mac, mobile (view-only), web (view-only) and Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows. Watch the quick tip video to learn how.

Educators can now select their video for the entire class using Spotlight.

Use Polls in classes and lectures to keep your pulse on student ideas and feelings
Polls in Teams meetings using Forms help educators create engaging virtual classrooms. Whether you’re checking in on your students, surveying opinions on the latest assignment, or asking a fun trivia question, polls help keep classes interactive. For online classes in Teams, the meeting presenter or organizer can prepare, launch, and evaluate polls before, during, and after meetings. Students can easily view and respond to polls in the pop-up bubble or chat pane. Polls in Teams meetings are available in desktop and web for non-channel meetings. Learn more and watch the quick tip video.

Forms for quick polls are now available during online classes.

AI based noise suppression
Our real-time AI noise suppression feature automatically removes unwelcome background noise during your live class or course. The AI-based noise suppression analyzes your audio feed filtering out the noise and retaining only the speech signal. You can also control how much noise suppression you want, including a high setting to suppress more background noise.

Full screen support in new meetings experience
We heard your feedback and are excited to announce that full screen mode is back! With full screen mode on Windows, the meeting window fills up the whole screen, removing all other screen elements, including the title bar on the top and task bar on the bottom. On Mac OS, full screen mode maximizes the meeting window and the title bar is hidden. This helps to reduce distractions and focus attention on learning.

Updated layout for meetings on iOS
Students attending classes from their iOS device can now enjoy an improved Teams experience with a new presentation mode, the ability to view more participants at a time, and the ability to view shared content and a spotlighted meeting participant at the same time.

3) Maintain student safety with meeting controls

Prevent students from unmuting during class
Meeting organizers and presenters can now prevent attendees from unmuting during their online class and enable specific attendees to unmute when they raise their hands. This can be helpful in class where you want to be in control of who’s speaking when. Learn more.

Educators can choose to mute all students during class and then allow specific students to unmute when they raise their hand.

Delete meeting recordings in Teams
Need to delete that recording of class? Now the recording owner (either the person who started the recording or any additional owners named) can delete the recorded class or lecture. Learn more.

4) Keep students engaged with course content

Pinned posts in the Info pane
Keep important information easily accessible and top-of-mind. You can pin any message in a channel so it appears in the channel information pane for all members of that channel to see. Watch the quick tip video to learn how.

Pin a post to the Info pane to keep key class or course information top-of-mind.

More options to use polls, surveys & checklists in Teams
Easily gather information or keep track of things in chat and channels with new app templates for polls, surveys, and checklists in Teams. Once installed and configured by the Teams administrators, these messaging extensions provide a simple and intuitive experience across all platforms without the need to use 3rd party apps. Quickly create and send polls to gather student input, easily create surveys to gather feedback, and work together to keep the class or course on track by creating a shared checklist.

Android on-demand chat translation
Inline message translation ensures that all your team members have a voice, helping to facilitate global collaboration. With a simple click, people who speak different languages can fluidly communicate with one another by translating posts in channels and chat.

5) Do more with Assignments in Teams Updated Assignment Settings
Instead of setting things up on an assignment-by-by-assignment basis, educators can now manage a suite of Assignments Settings in the Assignments tab. Assignment Settings allow educators to set default due times, set preferences on what happens when a new student is added to the class, change the default location where notifications for an assignment will be posted (like an Assignments specific channel), and turn off turn-in celebrations if they’re not age-appropriate for older students. The Parent /Guardian Weekly Email setting has also moved from the Teams Settings to Assignment Settings. (Settings changes will apply to new assignments created after the updated setting selection has been saved.) Watch this quick tip video to learn more.

New Assignment Settings give educators more control.

View assignments across all classes and get to them quickly (again)
Being able to see what’s coming up at a glance is super important to getting a handle on your week…month…or year. Both educators and students can once again view upcoming and turned in assignments by class or view them across all classes. Just visit Assignments in your app bar on the left-hand side of Teams to view assignments across all classes. Watch this quick tip video to learn more.

6) Make synchronous classes and courses interactive with your favorite apps

Add your favorite apps to virtual classes and courses
Now you can use some of your favorite apps before, during and after your virtual classes. Educators can incorporate Buncee and Wakelet and have students work together on content, share and discuss topics, and ask questions during class. Learn more about these new meeting capabilities and watch the Buncee video to learn how.

7) Train yourself in Teams and support students with additional resources

For educators

1. Find what you need to get started on Teams all in one place at aka.ms/TeamsPP.
2. Check out this quick article about how to have secure online meetings
3. Quickly get up-to-speed on Teams Meetings and Accessibility with one-page guides
   https://aka.ms/TeamsEduGetStartedTeachers
   https://aka.ms/TeamsEduMeetingsTeachers
   https://aka.ms/TeamsEduAccessibilityTeachers

For parents

1. Learn about Teams and common classroom scenarios with clickable interactive demos (in English).
2. Quickly get up-to-speed on Teams Meetings and Accessibility with one-page guides.
   https://aka.ms/TeamsEduGetStartedParents
   https://aka.ms/TeamsEduMeetingsParents
   https://aka.ms/TeamsEduAccessibilityParents
3. Find resources to keep kids engaged and learning new skills with family-led learning experiences (for children 3-12),

For IT

1. Check out the Quick Start Guide.
2. Watch the recordings from the Microsoft Teams for Edu digital readiness event which dive into common scenarios and use cases to support you this school year at https://aka.ms/TeamsEduEvent.
3. Learn which policies to enable to keep students safe when using Teams for remote and hybrid learning with this Policy quick guide.

For all -> Check the Teams help homepage. You can also click Help in your Teams app at any time for extra how-to’s and support!

And for those that love lists, here’s a quick review of all the features we shared:

Use data insights to improve teaching and learning

Insights app
Insights spotlight cards (rolling out now, available by mid-December)

Encourage class participation with online meetings
New Together mode scene selection
Live captions with speaker attribution
Spotlight or pin the educator’s video for the whole class
Use Polls in classes and lectures to keep your pulse on student ideas and feelings AI based noise suppression
Full screen support in new meetings experience
Updated layout for meetings on iOS

Maintain student safety with meeting controls

Prevent attendees from unmuting during class
Teams owners can delete meeting recordings in Teams

Keep students engaged with course content

Pinned Posts
More options to use polls, surveys & checklists in Teams
Android on-demand chat translation

Do more with Assignments in Teams

Updated Assignment Settings
View assignments across all classes and get to them quickly

Make synchronous classes and courses interactive with your favorite apps

Add your favorite apps to virtual classes and courses

You’ve got this. And we’re right here if you need us.

This post was originally published on this site.

The post What’s New in Microsoft Teams for Education | November 2020 appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

Thank you for sharing your feedback, triumphs, and difficulties with us along the way. We’re humbled by the ingenuity you bring to improving student outcomes every day and the trust you extend to Microsoft Teams as a part of your learning community. Each new and improved feature we design is inspired by you, and for you.

Now, we’re thrilled to share even more Teams updates for those headed into a new school year or those in the middle of their year. Whether your school is learning remotely, adopting hybrid learning, or adjusting plans week-to-week, we’ve got you covered to:

1) Run engaging classes through online meetings
2) Maintain student safety with control of meetings and classrooms
3) Easily deploy and manage Teams for your school or institution
4) Do more with Assignments in Teams
5) Keep learners engaged and collaborating in the classroom
6) Nurture social and emotional wellbeing outside of the classroom
7) Train yourself in Teams with additional resources

Let’s dive in! (If you’re just looking for a list without extra description, click here to jump.)

1) Run engaging classes through online meetings

Different choices on how to see each other and engage in online classes

Not every class or discussion has the same needs. That’s why you’ll have different options to view your class on desktop and mobile. Turn on Large Gallery view (aka a 7×7 video grid) to see everyone all at once, Together Mode for classroom discussions (read more about the science and use cases here), or Dynamic view to easily track the content or person currently speaking in class. And if a student is signing in from a mobile device, they’ll be able to see more videos on iOS or Android devices, such as 2×4 and 3×3, too.

When: Expected in August

Together Mode makes it easier for students to focus on body language and nonverbal cues.

Dynamic view gives a responsive layout for participants and content.

Updated Attendance Report option

Educators will soon have the new option to download Attendance Reports after a class meeting is over in the meeting chat and channel thread. Only the meeting organizer has access to the Attendance Report, which will cover Join Time and Leave Time, Email Addresses, along with the Duration so educators can more easily track student attendance as well as engagement. This feature is not on by default now and must be enabled first by IT Admins. Learn how to enable Attendance Reports in the Admin Portal here.

When: Expected in early September

Real-time visual collaboration in online classes, with control over when students can add to the whiteboard

Visual collaboration tools can make meetings and teaching environments more effective and inclusive. Whiteboard in Teams now has new features including faster load times, sticky notes, text, and drag-and-drop capabilities. These features enable students who don’t have access to a touch or pen device to participate in whiteboarding sessions during Teams meetings. Plus, educators will also have the option to present the digital whiteboard without students having access to drawing on the board during class.

When: Available now

Whiteboard in Teams for Education gives educators a digital whiteboard for real-time drawing and collaboration.

Allow more students to join large lectures

Starting this month, Teams meetings are now available for up to 300 attendees (up from 250). By the close of 2020, Teams meetings will grow to support up to 1,000 students. When you want to bring in more students or faculty to watch a presentation or discussion, Teams will also support a view-only meeting experience for up to 20,000 participants.

When: Available now and later this year

Break into collaboration with virtual breakout rooms

We heard lots of requests for this one and we’re listening. Educators hoping to split students into smaller groups and discussions for collaborative learning can begin using virtual breakout rooms early in the final quarter of 2020. Educators will be able to pick the number of breakout rooms they’d like, either randomly or manually assign students, move students from one room to the other, send announcements to each breakout group, and bring students back all at once to the main class they’re ready. Breakout rooms will be available in non-channel meetings like scheduled meetings or meet-now.

When: Early in the final quarter of 2020

2) Maintain student safety with controls in meetings and classrooms

Have more control before, during, and after an online class

Students have a way of finding the loopholes, including in online synchronous learning. With Hard Audio Mute, educators can keep collaboration to the right moments and mute students when it’s time to focus. Meeting options will be in place to prevent attendees from unmuting themselves. Mute all participants directly from the Participant pane and control students’ ability to mute and unmute their audio.

When: Early September

Hard audio mute helps educators keep collaboration to the right moments.

IT Admins will soon have the option to control when students can join meetings by policy. This helps keep classrooms and student-to-student interaction secure to designated, supervised time. (For this policy to work, students must have an updated version of Teams.) To help educators have time to prepare their virtual classroom and prevent students joining without permission, Student Lobby gives educators control over when students are admitted to a scheduled meeting.

When: Student Lobby is available now and meeting policies for IT Admins are coming in August.

Student Lobby gives educators time to set up their class and prevents students from joining a meeting until the educator is ready for them.

And finally, although there are some pretty awesome #MicrosoftEDU custom video backgrounds, IT admins now have the opportunity to create a custom video background policy (click here for specifics on the policy).

When: Available now

For more Teams online meeting safety guidance, visit these resources for educators and administrators.

Team owners can delete a cross-post

If a student gets a little too enthusiastic and posts inappropriate content across multiple channels, a team owner can now delete cross-posts. Classroom management in just a few clicks.

When: Available now

3) Easily deploy and manage Teams for your school or institution

Simplify grading with SDS and OneRoster compliant SIS

Say goodbye to the old copy-and-paste routine for grades. With the new GradeSync to OneRoster API, Teams automatically sends grades entered by educators in Assignments to their OneRoster compliant SIS.

When: Early August

Easier Teams policy management for all of your users

Using Group policy assignment, IT Admins can save time and reduce the complexity of managing groups of students or faculty. Instead of changes done student-by-student or in batches, IT Admins will be able to use groups (first-graders or fifth-graders, for example) and implement multiple policy definitions at the same time. If a user is in more than one group, the order that the policies take effect can be ranked. This is great for users who may have mixed roles, such as a university student who is also a part-time employee at their university. And there’s no script involved! The starting six policies (Calling, Call Park, Channel, Meeting, Messaging, Meeting Broadcast) will be available in the Microsoft Teams Admin Center. Read more about group policy assignment and ranking.

When: Early August

Group policy assignments in the Microsoft Teams Admin Center.

More class team creation and management control

Soon, there will be even more (and even more awesome) options for team creation. First, School Data Sync (SDS) is adding back automatic class team creation! Admins can once again automatically bulk-create both M365 Group and class teams for their educators, saving their time and focus for teaching. Even though classes are created automatically, educators maintain control over when students are admitted and can view class content. This allows educators additional time and control to set up their classes before admitting their students into the class team. To schedule Class Team Deployment Assistance with the EDU Customer Success Team, complete the form at https://aka.ms/sdssignup.

When: August

Educator-led team creation is another great deployment option that alleviates work for educators while still granting them control over which classes they want to create and use. Admins can create M365 groups for classes based on student and educator roster information, and the educator will be notified of their suggested class teams. The educator can then decide whether or not to create teams for their suggested classes. This provides flexibility and prevents class teams from being automatically created and turned on when they aren’t needed. This solution is recommended for large tenants (>500,000 teams). To learn more about this feature, please visit the Create a team from suggested class tab.

When: August

Educator-led team creation gives educators control and flexibility over team creation for class.

The Early Class Access API gives additional control to IT Admins to support and create teams with educators. First, IT Admins decide whether or not a class team will be “locked” for early educator access or give immediate student access. Next, Admins use a query to see which teams are active or not activated yet. Then, if needed, IT Admins can activate the class team on the educator’s behalf. Please refer to this documentation for more information about Early Access Class Teams.

When: August

For more information, please read these recommended methods and best practices for creating class teams.

4) Do more with Assignments in Teams

View assignments across all classes and get to them quickly (again)

Being able to see what’s upcoming, whether you’re an educator or student, is super important to getting a handle on your week…month…or year. Soon, both educators and students will once again be able to view upcoming and turned in assignments by class or view them across all classes. Just visit Assignments in your app bar on the left hand side of Teams to view assignments across all classes.

When: August

Quickly preview a linked resource

In addition, when an educator adds a link as an assignment resource, students will be able to see a thumbnail preview before clicking to the site or resource.

When: August

More flexibility and settings for educators

Tackle unconscious bias and even the playing field in class with Anonymous Grading. When enabled in the assignment detail view, students’ names are anonymized and avatars are temporarily removed, presenting a random list of students. This allows educators to review work with identities hidden, no shuffling of paper involved.

When: August

Anonymous Grading helps remove unconscious bias and even the playing field in class.

Instead of setting things up on an assignment-by-by-assignment basis, educators can now manage a set of Assignments settings in the Assignments tab. Assignment settings allow educators to set default due times, set preferences of what happens when a new student is added to the class, change where notifications for the assignment will be posted (like an Assignments specific channel), and turn off turn-in celebrations if they’re not age-appropriate for older students. (Settings changes will apply to new assignments created after the settings have been saved.)

When: August

Assignment settings allow educators to set preferences.

More languages supported in Assignments

Assignments is growing even more globally inclusive with additional languages supported including Croatian, Estonian, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Romanian, Slovenian, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.

When: Available now

Overall improvements to make Assignments better

Kicking off with simplified terms and an icon refresh, several changes will be made to improve readability and functional association for educators. Assignments will soon be able to support larger file sizes (up to 500MB) and more than 10 attachments at a time. There will also be large class UI improvements that improve the speed of viewing and creating assignments for classes of up to 200 students. Lastly, we’re making it easier to tell when students are no longer enrolled in the class and ensuring that they don’t receive assignments after they leave the class.

When: Large class UI improvements available now, others in August

5) Keep learners engaged and collaborating in the classroom

Class Materials is now available on Android

With students working from a variety of devices, including many mobile devices, it’s important that they have access to the core curriculum. To make learning more equitable, the Class Materials folder is now available on Android.

When: Available now

More reasons to feel pretty great about turning in an assignment

If your students are already fans of the dangling pizza slice or swinging sloth animation that play after they click Turn in, they’ll feel extra celebratory after they experience the new turn-in celebrations launching this August. Turning in work is a big deal. We’ve heard from students that Teams’ whimsical animations bring a ‘lil sprinkle of magic to their school day, granting some extra motivation to meet due dates and influence student outcomes. At a time when students may feel disconnected from their vibrant classroom life, the surprise of, say, a disco ball spinning down to sparkle on their screen reminds them to pause and pat themselves on the back for a job well done.

When: August

New Assignment turn-in celebrations sprinkle a little magic into the school day

D2L’s Brightspace Course Connector

D2L’s Brightspace is a learning management system for K12 and higher education teaching. With the D2L Brightspace Course Connector for Microsoft Teams, educators will be able to sync rosters, create private channels for course sections and link back to their course homepage through a tab in Microsoft Teams.

When: August

6) Nurture social and emotional wellbeing outside of the classroom

Gather reflections on how students are feeling and doing in real-time

Emotions are a big part of life at school. How students feel impacts their readiness to learn, their mental wellbeing, and their behavior toward their teachers and their peers.

To communicate in emotionally supportive ways, we rely on many nonverbal cues and real-life opportunities for interaction. If your school is learning remotely, in a hybrid model, or somewhere in between, it can be harder to pick up on the social cues of how students and faculty are feeling.

The Reflect messaging extension gives educators and staff another social and emotional connection with their students and colleagues. Through quick check-in questions and polls, students and colleagues can share how they are feeling in general, or about a specific topic, such as learning from home, an assignment, current events, or a change within their community. Using Reflect to check in with others can help you better understand wellbeing and open a dialogue for social-emotional learning (SEL) with your students by giving them an opportunity to practice self-expression and naming their emotions.

Educators can choose to make the reflection fully anonymous, private to them, or viewable to the entire class. IT administrators can install the Reflect extension from GitHub and then make it available to educators in their organization in the message extension menu. Once installed, the extension provides suggested check-in questions and the ability to add custom questions that students can respond to in a poll-like experience. Check for more scenarios and use cases here.

When: Early August

Reflect messaging extension helps educators stay connected to students’ wellbeing.

7) Train yourself in Teams with additional resources

Learn about Teams and how to get started:

1. Quickly learn about Teams and common classroom scenarios with clickable interactive demos for educators, families, and IT Admins (in English).
2. Check out the Quick Start Guides if you’re an Educator (PDF), Student (PDF), or IT Admin.
3. Train yourself with Professional Development with the popular Microsoft Educator Community course, Transform Learning with Microsoft Teams.
4. Watch helpful “how-to” videos with Teams Quick Tip videos on YouTube (or pick from a different Teams video playlist here).
5. Sign up for the live Microsoft Teams for Edu digital readiness event for both educators or IT Admins on August 11 and 12 that dives into common scenarios, use cases, and how to get ready for the school year at https://aka.ms/TeamsEDULive. (In English, sessions will be recorded.)

Plus, check out these additional resources:

1. Resources for parents, guardians or family members looking to support student learning: https://education.microsoft.com/resource/755e5a8b
2. Teams online meeting safety guidance for educators and administrators.
3. The Teams help homepage. You can also click Help in your Teams app at any time for extra how-tos and support!

And for those that love lists, here’s a quick review of all the features we shared along with their launch dates:
1) Run engaging classes through online meetings

Large Gallery view (aka 7×7) – expected in August
(New) Together Mode – expected in August
(New) Dynamic view – expected in August
(New) See more videos on iOS or Android devices – expected in August
(New) Attendance Report post-meeting download – expected in early September
(New) Whiteboard in Teams features – available now
(New) Digital Whiteboard without student access – available now
(Update) Teams meetings now 300 interactive participants – available now
(New) Teams meetings up to 1,000 interactive participants – coming in the last quarter of 2020
(Update) Virtual Breakout rooms – no later than early Q4 2020

2) Maintain student safety with control of meetings and classrooms

(New) Hard Audio Mute – expected in early September
(New) Control when students can join meetings – expected in August
(New) Students Wait in Lobby – available now
(New) Custom video background policy – available now
(New) Delete cross posts – available now

3) Easily Deploy and manage Teams for your school or institution

(New) GradeSync to OneRoster API – expected in August
(New) Group policy assignment – coming soon
(Update) SDS adding back team creation– expected in August
(New) Educator-led team creation – expected in August
(New) Early Class Access API – expected in August

4) Do more with Assignments in Teams

(Update) View assignments across all classes (again) – expected in August
(New) Link thumbnail preview – expected in August
(New) Anonymous Grading/Marking – expected in August
(New) Assignment settings – expected in August
(New) Four additional overall improvements – expected in August
(New) New Assignment languages supported – available now

5) Keep learners engaged and collaborating in the classroom

(New) Class Materials on Android – available now
(New) New Turn-in celebrations – expected in August
(New) D2L’s Brightspace Course Connector – expected in August

6) Nurture social and emotional wellbeing outside of the classroom

(New) Reflect messaging extension – expected in early August

You’ve got this. And we’re right here if you need us.

This post was originally published on this site.

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