Microsoft added the following features to Microsoft Teams for Education in March 2021

Microsoft Teams has played a pivotal role in Microsoft’s push into the education market, and the company is constantly adding features to Microsoft Teams for Education to match and exceed the competition.

ENCOURAGE CLASS PARTICIPATION DURING SYNCHRONOUS LEARNING

Summary of the meeting

Access all relevant files for the class or meeting, such as recordings, transcripts, notes and files in one clear view. Students can see the recordings, transcripts, and files in the meeting’s chat or channel, or for private meetings by going to their calendar, expanding the meeting, and clicking the “Details” tab at the top. Those who missed the meeting, joined late, or want to revisit what was discussed can play the recording and visit the class transcripts.

Get an easily shared meeting link from the calendar

Users can now copy a meeting link from the Calendar tab and share it with others without starting the meeting. If you’re on an email, chat, or channel conversation and you’ve agreed to meet at a specific time, this is an easy way to copy and paste a meeting link into the conversation.

Enable tenant administrators to configure masking phone numbers of PSTN participants

With schools or institutions that have enabled Audio Conferencing for their Teams meetings, tenant admins now have the ability to control how their Audio Conferencing participants’ phone numbers appear in the schedule view for meetings scheduled within their organization. The options include masked to external users, masked to everyone, or off (visible to everyone). This provides flexibility in securing PSTN subscriber phone numbers. This feature is currently only available through the PowerShell cmdlet.

Video of outgoing participants in meetings in Safari

If you’re using Safari, you can now enable an outgoing video for the class to see your smiling face. Just click the camera icon to enable the video in the meeting. This requires Safari 14 or later on MacOS BigSur.

Touch Bar Meeting Controls for Mac

MacBooks with Touch Bars now have Teams Meeting controls that allow users to quickly access controls without clicking in the window. Users can open the ‘View participants’ panel, open the meeting chat, raise hands, enable video, mute/unmute, open the shared drawer and exit the meeting from one place.

New and dynamic meeting experiences on Android

The recently improved Teams meeting experience on Android devices now allows teachers and students to see up to 20 participants on phones and up to 30 participants on tablets. Just scroll right on your device to see all meeting participants. You can also view shared content and a featured participant at the same time. This improvement allows participants to follow the presentation while continuing to watch the video of the speakers and other participants. This is currently already available in iOS.

SUPPORT ASYNCHRONOUS LEARNING

Android chat translation on demand

Inline message translation ensures that every student has a voice and enables conversations about language barriers or with language learners. With a simple click, people who speak different languages can communicate fluently with each other by translating posts in channels and chat.

Support for file size of 250 GB in Microsoft Teams

The upload file size limits for Microsoft Teams have been increased from 100 GB to 250 GB. This also applies to all other Microsoft 365 services, including SharePoint and OneDrive. That means teachers and students can easily share large files, such as 3D models or large videos for projects. Learn more

Add Microsoft Teams to your SharePoint team site

Now it’s even easier to transfer SharePoint content to Microsoft Teams and add Teams to your team site at the same time. As you connect SharePoint to Teams, choose which lists, libraries, and pages you want to bring to Teams as tabs in the new default global channel.

New file sharing experience

Create a shareable link for any file stored in Teams and instantly set the right permissions, making it a better process for sharing files with the right people. In addition, you can also set permissions on files stored in SharePoint or OneDrive while composing a private chat or starting a channel conversation.

HELP KEEP STUDENTS SAFE WITH BETTER MEETING CONTROL

Bypass New Lobby Option

Before the lesson, it is useful to choose who can bypass the lobby and participate directly in the lesson. There are a number of different options to choose from, and this month you can choose two additional options: “People in My Organization” (excluding guests) and “People in My Organization, Trusted Organizations and Guests.” This provides another level of security and flexibility for Teams users. Available for both private and channel meetings, this provides another level of security and flexibility for schools and universities that use Teams for class.

CREATE BETTER LARGE MEETING AND WEBIN EXPERIENCES.

Live Event Presenter for iPad

Do you like to use an iPad for large meetings? It’s now easy to present live in Teams from your iPad. Just open the Teams for iPad app and select “Join as a presenter” to broadcast content to your class or audience.

IMPROVE COOPERATION AND COMMUNICATION BETWEEN SCHOOL STAFF.

Create a task from a message in Microsoft Teams

Some messages result in follow-up actions. This feature allows you to quickly create tasks directly from any Microsoft Teams chat or channel conversation without having to switch between apps or windows. Select More options for a Teams post to choose ‘Create task from post’ and choose which individual task list or shared plan you want to save the task in. Powered by the new Tasks in Teams experience, you can then track and manage the task in the Tasks app in Teams.

Microsoft says they’re always looking for ways to improve the teaching experience in Teams, and if there’s a feature you want them to add, take it here feedback on UserVoice .

Source: mspoweruser