Teams for Synchronous Online Classes

Microsoft Teams is a large App that uses OneDrive, Word, PowerPoint, Teams Video, Outlook, Excel and more to engage and communicate with people. This article looks at Teams and creating a meeting in calendar.

Microsoft Teams is perhaps best known as a meeting space. It does a lot more, but we will try to focus on creating and running a meeting (in this case the meeting is an online class.) Several other parts of Teams will come into play to do this task, which will be explained. All are easy steps, however it just may be a lot of them, so follow along closely.

 

Instructional Video on Teams and Creating an Online Class.

 

Instructions

1. On your StFX device (laptop or computer) find and open Microsoft Teams. This can be done by typing Teams in the search area of Windows, or for Mac - open the app launcher and search for Teams.
2. Teams has several tools in a left-side column. 3 of these can start meetings.
   1. Call feature - can turn teams into a phone system - with video options.
   2. Chat - You can chat with people and if it gets more complex, you can click the call feature in upper right of chat to call the person directly.
   3. The calendar. This is the first feature you will notice about Teams that shows it uses other tools of Microsoft. This is the same as the Outlook Calendar. If you create a meeting in Outlook, it will show up here, and vice versa.
3. Using Calendar, start creating a meeting for the specific date and time of the first class.
   1. There is a toggle option to make this a Teams meeting. Turn that on.
   2. Click on recurring meeting. Select the days of the week ( example Monday and Wednesday) the class will run.
   3. In small print the end time will show a date 6 months into the future. Change this end time to the end of the term.
   4. The time in the recurring may shift to 8am. Double check and change the time again, it should change for all of the dates. CHanging can be just click on the time slot originally created.
   5. To invite students, log into XReports. Select the class, and find the small plus (+) symbol to expand the email list to copy. Copy this and paste this list into the invite list.
   6. Save Calendar Meeting.
4. On the date of the meeting, click on the meeting in calendar. a small window will pop up.
5. There will be a Join button to join the meeting
   1. Side note: to get a "Join Link" for a guest, to the right of the Join button is a small chevron (down arrow or V). This expands to show a copy join link option. Copy and paste in an email or chat/text.
6. There is a start page for Teams to see your microphone choice and Camera choice. Double check these to be sure they work and join the class/meeting.
7. The tools are usually displayed across the top of the Screen. 
8. To Record or Transcribe, click on the ellipses (3 dots) in the top menu options.
9. After a meeting is over and the recording is stopped, the recording link will display in the chat.
10. The Chat will be important. As a recurring meeting, this chat will continue to exist for every class. When the next class starts, the chat simply shows up from before and continues to add on for the new class. With all the students invited to the Teams class, they will also have access to the Recordings, Transcript, and more via the chat.

Related articles (optional)

• Titles/links of related StFX Online Support knowledge base articles.

Resources (optional)

 

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