Microsoft today announced new ‘Teams for Education’ features to enable remote learning.
The features are in light of the increasing importance of remote and hybrid learning in times of Coivd-19.
“Surveying nearly 500 members of the Microsoft Education community, comprising teachers and institutional leaders from around the world, Microsoft found that there has been a strong uptake in the use of remote learning tools. 61 per cent expect to begin the next school year in a hybrid learning environment—a mix of remote and in-person learning—and 87 per cent said they expect to use technology more in physical classrooms,” Microsoft said in an official statement.
“The new ‘Teams for Education’ features are aimed at increasing student participation and give educators’ new methods to keep students digitally engaged,” it said.
The company on Monday had also introduced a range of new features like live captions, for free version users.
Teams for education
As part of the ‘Teams for Education’ features, Microsoft Team can now accommodate 49 participants at once on a single screen by expanding its grid view to 7x7. Previews will be available later this month. The feature will be available more widely later this year.
Apart from this, the tool has a ‘Virtual breakout rooms’ allowing educators to create virtual breakout sessions for students.
The features also include a things like allowing students to digitally ‘Raise Their Hands’ during class meetings.
“Educators can also see Attendance Reports and, later in the year, view Class Insights, an intelligent data analytics breakdown on student engagement in class, rate of assignments turned in, activity metrics and grades, with a new trends view,” Microsoft said.
Educators can now waitlist students with the ‘Meeting Lobby feature allowing only select kids to attend a particular meeting.
The tool also provides a range of new partner integrations.
“Teams for Education’ now also includes integrations with Kahoot, Prezi, GO1, Nearpod, Piazza, Gaggle, Moodle, Canvas, and others. Microsoft will continue to add partner integrations making it easier for schools and universities to use Teams,” Microsoft said.
Custom backgrounds and other updates
Microsoft Teams had also introduced a range of new features for companies. This includes uploading custom backgrounds.
“A wide array of background collections are available, ranging from the Xbox collection to collection supporting the LGBTQI+ community,” Microsoft said.
Apart from this, Microsoft has also introduced other things as well like: scheduling meetings in advance in the free version of the video conferencing tool. This capability is in addition to the existing ability to “Meet Now.”
Users who schedule the meeting can either copy the meeting link to send it to other participants or send an invite via Outlook or Google calendar.
Teams free users can now also turn on live captions during their calls and meetings. It’s currently available as a preview in US English.