Tag Archives: #DigiLearnScot

Microsoft Teams In A P6 Classroom.⤴

from @ MIE Scotland

I have learned a lot of digital skills since becoming a MIEExpert in 2016, however I had not had the opportunity to explore Microsoft Teams fully with a class. When we found out that pupils would be learning from home I refreshed my memory of Teams by using the courses on the Microsoft Educator Community. I then took some time to explore using Teams and thought about how I could make it suit the needs of my pupils in a way that was organised and manageable for me.

Class Information Post
Example Of A Class Information Post

Daily Information

I have taken an asynchronous approach to teaching and learning since many families have limited access to devices. Every day I post a class information document in the General channel; this includes the date and a visual timetable, using the same visuals that we have in the classroom. In the class information document I post links to the relevant curricular area channels that the children need to access for their learning for the day.

Use of Channels

Class Channels

I have found that having a separate channel for each curricular area has helped to keep classwork well organised, benefiting both myself and the pupils. When I post daily work I make an announcement in the relevant curricular area channel with the date and attach the relevant documents. This means that pupils can easily look back in the channel if they have missed any work on a certain day.

Initially pupils were having difficulty with accessing PowerPoints so I have switched to uploading PDFs. This has helped the class to easily access the work on the different devices that they use.

Example Work Announcment

Pupil Permissions

The pupils do not have permission to comment or post in the curricular area channels as I felt like their comments would result in the work I was posting getting lost. I still wanted them to have somewhere to socialise with each other and so set up “things to do when you are bored” and “random chat” channels. The pupils can all post and comment on these channels and it has given then a way to share fun ideas with their peers. The pupils can also post in the “questions about work” channel if they need some support. I have found that having this channel ensures that I do not miss any questions from pupils.

Submitting Work

When in school my class use Seesaw to share their learning with their parents/carers. As the pupils and families are familiar with this I decided to carry on using this while schools are closed. Pupils have a home learning code which allows them to post their work directly to me. I can then mark their work and store it in their online journals for each curricular area. Some pupils have opted to post their work to me on Teams and do so using the “submit your work here please” channel. I then transfer their work to Seesaw. Due to the class being used to using Seesaw I have not explored using the assignments feature on Teams, however this is something I would like to use in the future.

Class Calls

Every Wednesday we have a class call on Teams. During this time pupils have time to chat to one another and then we do a class quiz using either Kahoot or Quizziz. When using Kahoot I share my screen in the Teams call so that pupils can see the questions and answer them on their device. If we use Quizziz I share my screen so that the pupils can see the live leader board during the game. The class have really enjoyed these calls as it gives them time to hear the voices of their peers and take part in an activity in a similar way to what we would do in school. It has been lovely to hear their voices and laughter during the calls. I feel like this has helped to maintain positive relationships with the class and helps the pupils to connect with one another during this difficult time.

I have found that organising my class Team in the ways described in this post have helped to keep the Team accessible and organised for everyone accessing it. After a few initial technical issues in the first week the online classroom has been running smoothly and successfully. If you would like to see examples of the work the class have been producing I have been uploading some of their work on Twitter.

Emma Hedges. Victoria Primary School, Falkirk.

Microsoft Whiteboard⤴

from @ Mr Bailey Digital Learning

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.

How I am using Microsoft Teams for physics⤴

from @ MIE Scotland

Being a Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert (MIEE) has allowed me to develop my digital skills over the past five years.  However before this current crisis I had only used Microsoft Teams with a few classes.  One of the first things I did was review some of courses on Teams and Forms on the Microsoft Educator Community to reacquaint myself with some features and to learn new ones.

 

Guided by what makes good teaching and learning and readings such as this one on tips for effective learning at a distance by Paul Kirshner and his comments on the differences between distance teaching and emergency remote teaching.  The Education Endowment Foundation published a paper called distance learning rapid assessment.

My philosophy is that good learning and teaching is good learning and teaching whatever the context and it is about using the digital tools to support our pedagogy choices.

Firstly it is important to have clarity, I mean this both in terms of what you want the students to learn and how and also the clarity of the instructions that you are providing to your students.

Some of my tips for clarity are:

  • Use more than one channel in your Team.  Posts about assignments are made in the general channel.  It can be a good idea to make the general channel so that only owners (teachers) can make posts and have other channels for questions/chat.  This means instructions can be clearly seen.  The latest post is always at the bottom of a team.  If the instructions move up the page you can move them back to the bottom with a short reply to the original post (you can even delete the reply if you want afterwards).
  • Use announcement within Teams, make the tasks explicitly clear and logical for your students.  Try to minimise the number of documents that you want students to access for one task.  Add hyperlinks within your Teams announcements to the resources that you want students to use whether documents or videos rather than instruction pupils to go to the files section and open file X.
  • Avoid making a post to remind about the work that just says complete the work stated in the earlier post.  Instead either move the first post down by replying to it or copy the instructions from the first post and then make amendments for the new post.  Sometimes it can be hard to scroll up the team channel to find where work is.
  • Consider making channels for different weeks of work or topics to help improve the clarity and to put all the questions asked in the same place.
  • Make the learning intentions and success criteria of tasks clear and place these within the wider context to help them scaffold learning to prior knowledge.
  • Give short assignments using teams assignments, these can not only have dates so students can plan their work, but better allow you to see how students are progressing and allow feedback.  My students have indicated to me that they prefer more shorter assignments than one larger one.
  • Be aware of the files that you attach for any student task.  What size are they?  What format are they?  For example a PDF file is difficult to edit and cannot be edited directly in Teams.  Make sure documents attached to assignments are the x version of the Microsoft files, docx, xlsx, pptx etc. rather than doc, xls, ppt.
  • Be aware that a number of learners are using phones as their main device.  Simplifying instructions can help how many clicks they need to follow to read instructions and complete work.
  • Within the Teams assignments I also include all the hyperlinks to the file documents in the same way that I do for the announcement posts in the channel.  These links can be copied from place to place.

Here is an example of one of my Team announcement post with a custom background, hyperlinks to videos and documents and in this case 4 assignment tasks.

The Microsoft Teams structure approach describe in my detail in my blog was informed by Microsoft webinar on remote learning at the University of NSW, Australia.

My approach to planning learning has been to plan student work on a mostly asynchronous basis.

  • Retrieval practice quiz using Forms and sometimes a quiz on prior learning.
  • Introduction video (created using PowerPoint recorder) and shared via unlisted YouTube.
  • Activity task (Quizlet, Quizizz, Animations/Simulations such as PHET, and at home experiments)
  • Diagnostic assessment (Microsoft Form)
  • Consolidation task (Forms, card sorts in Excel, Padlet etc.)

Synchronous activities include:

  • Responses to questions posted on the Teams channel.
  • Weekly catch-up Team meetings with students, answering questions, providing advice and support, modelling tricky problems modelling on paper or using the Whiteboard app or OneNote.
  • Live quizzes on platforms such as Kahoot, Quizlet, Quizizz.

About me

I am a physics and science teacher working in Angus on the beautiful and sunny east coast of Scotland.


In addition to being a teacher, I am a consultant physics teacher coach with the Institute of Physics Scotland and as part of that role have been running webinar training sessions for physics teaching using Microsoft tools.  Details of support being provided for physics teachers by the IOPS can be found in the Scottish Physics teacher group on Talk Physics including shared Microsoft Forms quizzes, videos, introduction videos, simulations and activities.


I have a interest in professional learning, pedagogy, evidence informed teaching and have contributed to Pedagoo and ResearchEd Scotland events.

I tweet on andrewkbailey13

My YouTube channel includes videos for teachers and pupils on Glow. 

My personal digital learning blog can be found at https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/an/digitallearningprototype/

This includes posts on:

Microsoft Forms and Feedback

My Microsoft Team

I have been a Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert since 2016 and am now a Microsoft MIE Master Trainer.

Welcome Everyone⤴

from @ MIE Scotland

MIE Expert Badge unicorn with a scottish flag

Some of the amazing Microsoft Innovative Educator Experts from across Scotland will be sharing their learning success stories in this blog.

This blog is designed for all teachers to see HOW Microsoft technologies are being used in classrooms across Scotland.

Its about the learning and the way these teachers are using technology with their students.

We will have regular updates that we hope will give you some ideas for how you can use tools like Teams, OneNote, Sway, Forms etc in your classrooms.

Also have a look at the bloggers twitter feeds as well as #TeamMIEScotland and #TeamMIEEScotland on twitter for help, support, tips and tricks.

If you would like to develop your skills in the use of any of these tools you can sign up for free CPD on the Microsoft Educator Center https://education.microsoft.com/en-us

We hope you find this blog helpful and please reach out to any of the bloggers

Sarah Clark MIE Fellow Scotland (twitter @sfm36)

IoP Scotland CLPL⤴

from @ Mr Bailey Digital Learning

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/

 

Collaboration and community⤴

from @ Mr Bailey Digital Learning

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.

Feedback from pupils⤴

from @ Mr Bailey Digital Learning

I shared a Forms survey with my pupils to ask them how things were going, 76 pupils responded with feedback and comments.  Here are some images from a presentation I am making for teachers about what they said.  The layout of my Team and the structure is discussed in the post about My Microsoft Team

The top rating is for physics and the bottom one for all other subjects.  

Teams Meetings⤴

from @ Mr Bailey Digital Learning

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.

Digital team schedule now available for SLF⤴

from @ Education Scotland's Learning Blog

The Digital Learning and Teaching team will be at this year’s SLF with an exciting offering of activities available to all delegates across both days.

Visit the Education Scotland Stand

The Education Scotland stand will host a schedule of Glow focused activities available on both days. Digital is about supporting learning and teaching  so we have arranged a timetable of inspirational and practical sessions for you to join in, learn something new and take your experiences back to the classroom.

To allow you to plan ahead we have put together a timetable of activity which will take place on both days. You can find this below.

STEM Expo

On day 2 of SLF visit the STEM expo in the Lomond Auditorium. The team will be leading the Tinker Table to help you can build, create, design and inspire ideas to embed digital in every day learning and teaching.

Sessions run from 10.45 – 11.30 and again 13.15 – 14.00

We look forward to welcoming you to the Scottish Learning Festival.

ES Stand schedule:

Time Presentation
10:00 Improve workload and workflow

Come along and find out about the benefits of using Glow tools to save you valuable time and move towards a better work/life balance.
11:00

 

 Capturing Pupil Voice

Learn about formative assessment tools to capture the learning of young people to inform next steps and give them feedback.
13:00

 

 Internet Safety and Cyber Resilience

Understand the latest risks and threats and gain access to a wide range of resources, support and guidance through Glow.
14:00

 

 Digital Creativity

Create and share interactive stories, animations, personal accounts, presentations and more through the use of Glow tools.
15:00

 

 Parental Engagement

Use Glow tools to share and celebrate pupil learning and build digital learning portfolios.

Learn @ BBC Scotland: How will you be living in 50 years’ time?⤴

from @ Education Scotland's Learning Blog

BBC Scotland Learning and the Glasgow Science Centre invite you to take part in a day of talks and activities to look at the future. There will be a live talk by Scotland’s leading scientists talking about robots, climate and health at the Science Centre on 8 May.

Dallas Campbell will host the event as he speaks to Prof Sethu Vijayakumar, Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics and a Judge on Robot Wars, Prof Lesley Yellowlees, who was the first ever female President of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and geneticist Prof Kevin O’Dell from Glasgow University.

The talk will also be streamed live and you can talk to the expert panel online.

Find out more here.