Monthly Archives: May 2020

digilearnscot, Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Whiteboard

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This is a blog post about how you can use Microsoft Whiteboard with Teams.  (https://whiteboard.microsoft.com/)

This video shows some of you the choices that you currently have for using Microsoft Whiteboard.

There are two options main options, firstly to share a Whiteboard from a Teams meeting and secondly to create a Whiteboard and then share that link.

Sharing Whiteboard from a Team meeting

Within a Teams meeting you can access a whiteboard by clicking on share and choosing the Whiteboard option usually on the right.

When you choose share Whiteboard you get this screen.

If you use Whiteboard in Teams the options are fairly limited with 4 pens to choose and a rubber.

The Microsoft Whiteboard app is available for Windows or IoS, it is not yet available for android devices.  It can be downloaded from the app stores or https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/microsoft-whiteboard/digital-whiteboard-app

Clicking the open in app option produces more options.  Lots of pen choices in the menu at the bottom, highlighter, ruler, insert images, and an insert menu for lots of file options.

At the top of the screen is also the settings menu with a range of options including post to Teams (a link) and send the link to OneNote.

Microsoft have this video showing all the available features in the Whiteboard app.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UunJleM0m-c

Post to Teams

For within the Whiteboard app you can open up the whiteboard and choose share in Teams, pick a team and a channel of where you want the link shared. 

Here is what the post looks like.

   Share a Whiteboard from Whiteboard app

New whiteboards can be created within the Whiteboard app, they can be renamed and then we can invite students to share the whiteboard app.  When students are invited there is an option to allow them to edit or view.  So using this approach provides an option to have a read only Whiteboard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItSgLDB2GYs&feature=youtu.be

At the moment there is no straightforward option to change a Whiteboard from collaborative to read only, this is being worked on by the Microsoft Team.

Within Glow the setup does not seem to allow the addition of invites by O365 groups or by Team details.

Using more than one device

If as a teacher you join the Team meeting with another device then you can use that one to access the Whiteboard and add resources, inking, etc.  For example join the Team meeting on a PC then use your iPAD to add inking.

Using OneNote

An alternative option to using Whiteboard is to use the OneNote within Teams as a whiteboard.

You could use the the collaborative section within a Team OneNote as a whiteboard for collaboration or could use a page within the content library within a Team OneNote for a read only option.

Using inking in other Office 365 apps (PowerPoint, Word)

An additional option for a read only display would be to use PowerPoint and inking or Word and inking.

Microsoft Teams

IoP Scotland CLPL

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The Institute of Physics are running a number of online learning sessions and offer a range of support for physics teacher.

The Scottish curriculum support resources can be found on Talk Physics in the Teaching Physics in Scotland Group.  This includes a spreadsheet of shared resources including videos, questions, quizzes and simulations useful for remote learning and available for both Google and Microsoft platforms.

There are weekly virtual physics staffroom meetings the next one is tomorrow, Friday 22nd May with one arranged for the following week Friday 29th May.

To get the meeting details please go to:

https://www.talkphysics.org/events/iop-scotland-clpl-virtual-physics-staffroom/

Physics teacher Stewart Gray will be talking about how we can use Isaac Physics to support physics teaching and adapt it for the Scottish curriculum.

https://www.talkphysics.org/events/iop-scotland-using-isaac-physics-in-scotland-clpl/

Finally for the next week we are having our second meeting on using Microsoft tools for teaching physics remotely.  This event will focus on the Microsoft Teams platform, with emphasis on:
• Channels & Posts
• Assignments
• Insights & Grades

You can book this meeting using at:

https://www.talkphysics.org/events/iop-scotland-clpl-teaching-physics-using-microsoft-teams/

 

community, digilearnscot

Collaboration and community

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This post follows a challenging week for myself, I reached out to a colleague sharing these challenges and received the comment from a colleague that I should feel proud of the leadership, compassion and support that I am offering teachers, pupils and parents during these challenging times and that my help and advice guidance have been invaluable to them and many others.

This has led me to reflect on two of the communities that I am proud to be a leading part of.  These are the Microsoft Educator community in Scotland and the Institute of Physics physics teacher community.

The vast majority of members of both these communities are like myself classroom teachers.

Microsoft Educator Community

I have been a user of digital technology for many years and joined the Microsoft Educator Community and became a Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert (MIEExpert) for the first time 6 years ago.

Being part of this community has been invaluable at these times for the transfer of knowledge and sharing of information that takes place on a daily basis.  It is heart-warming to be able to ask questions and get answers from other teachers by sharing our expertise amongst the other 90 staff we are in turn able to support others within our school and local authority.  We have a weekly Teams call to discuss ideas, share practice and solve problems.

I have shared my previous and current experience with my colleagues in school and across the local authority, despite my job role being just a physics teacher.  This has led me to achieving trainer status due to the number of hours and level of support provided.

 I have created Glow help Teams for pupils and for staff and created videos to show both how to do things within Teams.  Videos on my YouTube channel include:

Colleagues, pupils and parents have shared their thanks for my help and assistance.

Physics community

In addition to being part of the MIEExpert community I am also part of the physics teacher community as a physics teacher coach for the Institute of Physics Scotland.

We have been holding webinars and meetings to support physics teachers.  Helping their wellbeing and providing support to build capacity in use of digital skills and advice on how to plan effective digital lessons.  These have been running for a couple of week very successfully with each meeting having at least 50 attendances showing that there is a need for this support.  Topics in the staff meeting included SQA estimates as well as other support.

On Tuesday we held a 90 minute workshop on using Microsoft tools and had over 80 attendees.  The presenters were all Scottish classroom teachers  from across the country:

Mr Burrett, Stewarton Academy, East Ayreshire
Mr Beattie, Inverclyde Academy, Inverclyde
Mrs Clarke, Queen Anne High School, Fife (Biology/science)
Mr McCord, Firrhill High School, Edinburgh

A Wakelet of resources was shared with colleagues with tips and advice.

The session was recorded and details can be found on the Talk Physics website. 

Feedback from the session was really positive and satisfying.  Two that sum up completely positive comments are:

  • This sort of event is invaluable to folks like me who are at the beginning of the journey with this stuff. Thanks so much
  • An excellent session. Presenters were clear, concise and very well prepared. Questions were answered quickly and helpfully. There was a real sense of community surrounding the proceedings. The team is to be congratulated for having the vision to step outside of the Physics environment to bring in experts regardless of their subject and for opening the session to scientists of all denominations. Once again Physics is leading the way. Well done.

The following day other colleagues in the IOPs physics coaching team gave a session for those using Google classroom tools.

Mr Lawrie, George Watson’s college, Edinburgh
Mr Crawshaw, Millburn Academy, Inverness
Mr Burke, Lochaber, Fort William
Mr Browett, Aberdeen

 The Wakelet of resources for this Google Classroom webinar are here.  The session was recorded and details can be found on the Talk Physics website. 

Helping educational partners

Today I have been helping our regional partner from Skills Development Scotland understand how they can use the Teams digital platform to provide careers advice and information to across Tayside.

digilearnscot, Microsoft Teams

Teams Meetings

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If you are looking to arrange Teams Meetings it is important that you use the correct settings.

Within Glow Scotland pupil video during a Teams meeting is switched off at all times.  Teacher video can be switched on. Both teacher and pupil are able to use audio and both are able to share and present their screen depending upon the settings.

It is not currently possible to record Teams meetings as within Glow this functionality is not switched on.  You may see mention of Microsoft Stream in videos shared on the internet.  This feature is also switched off in Glow.

There are several ways of arranging a meeting, using the meet now feature, scheduling in Teams, scheduling via Outlook.

Stewart Brown of Athelstaneford Primary School shows these here.

In general it is not recommended to use the Meet now feature with students.  This is because there are fewer controls in this option in terms of who is a presenter and who is an attendee.  There could also be potential issues with the meeting remaining open or pupils re-joining a meeting after you the teacher leave it.

I would therefore recommend you schedule any meeting.  In either scenario you need to make pupils attendees rather than presenters.  Otherwise you can find pupils can remove other pupils and mute other pupils too.

Here is a video that looks at stopping that.

Teams meetings they can be within a particular Team or channel or can be scheduled directly from Outlook.

If you schedule in a channel then pupils will be able to chat during the meeting and could posts gifs etc unless the channel setup prevents member (Pupil) chat or posting of gifs/memes etc.

If you schedule via Outlook as shown in this next meeting then since the chat in Teams is not enabled for pupils there is no possibility for pupil chat in this situation.  This may well be good for larger meeting like assemblies but might be less useful in teaching situations.

Mrs Barr of St Margaret’s Academy shows:

  • Setting up the meeting using a calendar
  • Sharing the meeting with others
  • Running the Teams meeting

This is a video from Mrs Barr showing how you would join this meeting.

When ending the meeting as a teacher you should click the three dots and click end call rather than use the hang up (red phone) button.  This ends the meeting for all participants.

Microsoft have this advice on their Teams site.

Further advice for teachers on Connected Falkirk from Malcolm Wilson’s and his Falkirk colleagues.