Microsoft 365 – MDLT Blog

New Teams Default in Glow

From 26^th February 2024, RM Unify are enabling New Teams as the default within Glow. This will allow users to continue to familiarise themselves with the New Teams interface in advance of the retiral of Classic Teams at the end of March 2024.

Users will still have the option to revert back to Classic Teams between 26^th February 2024 and end of March 2024; however as Classic Teams will no longer be available after March 2024 we would encourage all Glow users to explore New Teams as it will be what all users will be utilising moving forward.

Click here for more details on New Teams read our previous Teams post. Or to see the differences in functionality between Classic Teams and New Team click – here

New Teams rolling out in Glow from 7th Dec 2023

The new Teams experience will be rolling out in Glow from 7th December 2023 for all staff and learners to try before it becomes the default experience when Microsoft retire the current ‘classic Teams’ in mid May 2024. The changes will be rolling out on the desktop app and for the web client (Edge and Chrome). Users should start to see the option to switch to new Teams within a few days as a significant update rollout take time across the whole of Glow.

New Teams has many additional benefits including –

The ability to easily switch between Microsoft accounts (e.g. a local authority M365 account and a Glow account) allowing more seamless collaboration and less disruption. This is referred to by Microsoft as Multi Tenant Multi Account (MTMA)
Less resource intensive
Updates such as new channels and chat experience, ability to see raised hands and participants while presenting in a Teams meeting and a new look based on system settings e.g. dark mode or other high contrast settings

Switch to new Teams using the toggle in the top left area of the Teams App.

You can switch back to ‘classic Team’ up until mid May 2024 by visiting the three-dots menu in the top right corner of your Teams window, then toggle the New Teams switch to off. New Teams application will close the Teams classic will open.

For more information and to view a video run-through of all the new Teams functionality visit the Glow Connect help page – HERE

Changes to OneDrive storage in Glow

Microsoft recently announced changes in storage allocation on their A1 Education license, which is the license all users have through their Glow account. As of February 1st, 2024, users will be restricted to a maximum of 100Gb storage within their individual OneDrive. This is a reduction from the 1TB currently available in Glow. The vast majority of Moray users will be unaffected by this change as they are not using anywhere near 100Gb of storage.

Education Scotland have provided the Moray Digital Learning Team with a list of accounts whose OneDrive storage exceed these new limits, as well as users that are close to this limit (i.e. those with storage space of 90Gb and over). We will be contacting these account holders individually.

All Glow users are encouraged to undertake regular housekeeping of their cloud storage to ensure they remain with the limits. These housekeeping tasks can range from, but are not limited to

Deleting unwanted / unused files
Delete unwanted / unused versions
Empty Recycle bin
If the material is still required, consider storing in an alternative location like G Drive
To learn how to review and delete large files in OneDrive, go to this site.

Tips For End Users

How to view your storage usage – Sign into OneDrive on the web. Review storage usage on the bottom left corner.
Clean up your files – Click the storage amount used and view the largest files in your OneDrive you may want to delete to free up space. After deleting the files, empty the recycle bin.

Following the licensing change in February 2024 users will receive warning notifications when approaching the storage limit. At 100% capacity, the user’s OneDrive will be limited to read-only access. Users won’t be able to upload, edit or sync new files to OneDrive but existing files will remain read-only

MIE Expert Self-nominations open!

The MIE Expert programme is operated by Microsoft and connects educators from all over the world. It would be fantastic to have as many of Moray’s amazing educators featured on the 2023/24 official list as possible. There is a vibrant and collaborative MIEE community in Scotland which shares ideas, best practice and offer support to colleagues. Microsoft are looking for self-driven educators who are passionate about teaching and learning, who inspire students with creative thinking, and work in a truly collaborative spirit to share their learning with the world.

Full details of application process can be found – HE RE.

Self-nominations for the 2023/2024 cohort will open on 9th May of 2023 and close 26th June, 2023

Nominate yourself at any time, however, Microsoft will only formally announce those in the program the week of 17th July 2023 in a blog post and by posting the official list (this is 2021/22 list).

Please email the learntech@moray.gov.uk, if you require any support or if you have completed the self-nomination process so we can update our records.

Good luck!

New – Search Coach from Microsoft

Microsoft Education announced a suite of new tools at their ‘Reimagine Education’ event on Thursday. To see the full announcement visit the recording page HERE. The new tools include a new category called ‘learning accelerators’ – in addition to Reading Progress and Coach which is already available. There will be Math, Search and Speaker Progress and Coach.

Most of these tools will not be available until later in the year. However one very useful tool is now available to be added to all class teams. It is called ‘Search Coach’ and it is essentially a search engine designed to teach learners the important skills of information literacy in a safe way.

It is the perfect place to show learners how to research effectively by giving hints about their search queries, allowing them to filter by domain, date and file type. As an educator you can also customise the results learners receive.

Installing Search Coach (instructions from Microsoft.com)

Any class team owner in Microsoft Teams for Education can install Search Coach today!

From the general channel of any class, select +.
Search for and select Search Coach.
Select Add then select Save.
Search Coach will appear as a tab app in your class. Repeat these steps for any additional classes you want students to have Search Coach in.

thumbnail image 1 captioned Select "+" to open the Teams App Catalog

More information about search coach can be found HERE. There is also a Microsoft Learn Course available HERE.

Teams meeting co-organiser functionality in Glow

When scheduling a meeting staff can now add a co-organiser to meetings scheduled within Team in Glow. After inviting people/scheduling your meeting, you can add up to 10 co-organisers to help manage your meeting. Co-organisers can be added in the Meeting Options screen which is accessible after the meeting has been created. Only those who have been added as named attendees can be promoted to co-organisers. Co-organisers are displayed as additional organisers in the meeting participant list and have most of the capabilities of the meeting organizer.

A co-organiser can perform the following actions –

Open the Meeting
Admit people from the lobby and switch off the lobby
Manage Breakout rooms
Present content by default
Change another participants role to allow the to present content
Make changes to meeting options
End the meeting for all

Due to these extra capabilities it is not recommended to add a learner as a co-organiser as this could result in meetings which are only attended by unsupervised learners.

This additional functionality could be very useful in staff meeting or for those who arrange meetings on behalf of other. More details on adding a co-organiser can be found – here.

Microsoft Apps on Android Devices

We have had a few users reporting issues accessing Microsoft apps on their Android devices. This is an issue which does not just effect Glow users, so RM Unify have escalated the issue to Microsoft.

The current advice for users who are unable to access application like Teams or Outlook via their Android tablets or mobiles is to fully log out of the app and the account on your device, you may need to do this in the device settings rather than the app settings. After logging out fully delete the application and then reinstall it, before logging back in with your full Glow email address as your Microsoft account username.

If you can access the app sign out and close down the app on your device
If you are unable to access the menu to sign out inside the app you may may need to do this in your device settings, but make sure you have closed the app down.
In the device settings locate the App settings
Scroll through the list of apps on the device to find the correct one and click to open the details.
Click on the Storage option
Click to clear the data and cache
Uninstall the app from your device and reinstall the latest version of the app from the Play store
When logging in use you Glow Microsoft account username (full Glow email address)

If you have any issues logging out of the application fully please consult your devices manufacturer’s guide on how to do this on your device model.

Reading Progress in Microsoft Teams – Now Live

Reading Progress is a new addition to Microsoft Teams Assignments, which all Glow users should now have access to. It is designed to support learners in building fluency through independent reading practice, and allows educators to review their progress. Within Reading Progress there are the auto-detect feature which educators can use to quickly identify errors such as mispronunciations, repetitions, phrasing, intonation, and omissions, so they can customise instruction for each learner.

Educators can upload a single reading fluency assignment or differentiate assignment for their class as required using Assignments in Teams. Learners record themselves reading and submit it within the assessment. This allow only the educator to view the recording. Educators can chose to require learners to record both their audio and video; however this should be used with caution as there is no background blur option currently available and for learners using the mobile Teams app video is automatically selected. As Reading Progress is developed by Microsoft options for selecting video and audio may change, but learners should always be aware of their surrounding when recording with Reading Progress.

As a tool Reading Progress can be used to assist learners to build confidence in their reading, fluency and can be applied to a number of curriculum areas such as Modern Languages and Drama.

If you wish to learn more please see links below:

- Reading Progress in Teams YouTube Video
- Reading Progress in Teams Article

Coming soon – Microsoft Stream

Stream, which is a video hosting application, will be rolling out to Glow users during February. This is a phased rollout as it involves relicensing users, so will take approximately 3 weeks to complete. Stream will be replacing Office 365 Video, which will be retired on 1st March.

O365 Video content will automatically be migrated to Stream through a Microsoft process. It will not be visible within Stream until the migration is finalised. This would be a good time to do some housekeeping of old video content which may not longer be relevant or required; however O365 Video can continue to be used until the end of February.

While the rollout is completing, Stream will be ‘read only’. Users will not be able to upload content. Prior to the ‘go live’ date further guidance will be issued so please look out for this in our normal communication channels. Once fully enabled only staff members will be able to create content in Stream; however learners will have access to view content.

Any links to or embedded video stored in O365 Video redirect to Stream for a 1 year period. Staff should plan to review and update any links referring to O365 Video during this period or videos will become unavailable.

For more details on Stream and how it can be used click – here

Teams Breakout Rooms

Microsoft have released breakout room functionality within Teams Meetings. This allows meeting organisers to create breakout rooms, and allocate meeting participants for small group working within the main meeting.

Glow’s guidance (https://glowconnect.org.uk/teams-in-glow/teams-meetings-with-learners/) is that for learner safety we recommend that additional staff members are present within meetings and that learners should not be unsupervised within Teams meetings. The introduction of breakout rooms makes this more challenging to achieve, and there is the increased risk of learners being unsupervised with video enabled within breakout rooms. On that basis we strongly recommend that breakout rooms are not used with learners unless staff members are able to constantly be present in all breakout rooms created.

The existing guidance (https://glowconnect.org.uk/teams-in-glow/managing-a-teams-meeting/) is also that the end meeting option should be used by the meeting organiser to remove all participants at the end of a Teams meeting. Please note that this will not end any associated breakout rooms. The separate ‘close rooms’ option within the Breakout room control panel must be used to close the rooms, and remove participants from the breakout rooms before ending the main meeting.

Details on the Breakout Room functionality and how to assign attendees to different rooms can be see in the video below-

Please remember that currently in Glow learners do not have access to Chat functionality after the meeting has ended; however the organiser will be able to view everything.