Microsoft Teams has come to the University of Portland campus. Teams is similar to the mega-popular work-based chat app Slack, in that it provides a new way to collaborate and communicate via an interactive chat-based workspace that can integrate with other tools. The idea is to provide 21st-century knowledge workers with a flexible and fun way to stay in sync while cutting down on email overload and never-ending meetings. While this new breed of chat caught on first in the offices of hip start-ups in San Francisco and New York, it’s spreading to many fields as all types of workers become more mobile and more collaborative. Chat has many applications to enhance collaboration in higher education. Colleagues who need to work in close cooperation across departments and disciplines, students who participate in clubs and projects, and even teachers and learners in an academic course can all use Teams to enhance collaboration and engagement.

My colleagues in ATSI and I had been using Slack for quite some time and recently switched to Teams. In this brief guide, I want to share some tips and best practices for those who new to or exploring this new way to communicate professionally.

Download the Apps

For the best experience download the Teams app to your PC or Mac. Running an app version means you don’t need to remember to log in and check Teams for new messages or put your password in every time you want to use Teams. If you’re on the go, there are very useful apps for your iPhone or Android phone too. There’s even an iPad version if you’re into that kind of thing. You should be prompted to download the apps when you log in to the Teams web experience. You’ll also find download links by clicking on your profile picture from within Teams.

Teams and Channels

The basic structure of your Team will consist of “Channels,” which are essentially spaces dedicated to discussing a topic or for a subset of members. When a Team is created, it comes with a single channel called “General.” The General channel is a great space for all-purpose communication, IE “I have a doctor’s appointment and will be in later this morning” or “Happy Friday, everybody!” What other channels you create to organize communication is up to you; you can organize by project, by department, or whatever makes sense for your team. Put some thought into this before you start creating channels, but feel free to experiment. You can always delete channels or add additional channels later.

Notifications

As chat-based alternative or supplement to email, Teams adopts an “opt-in” philosophy when it comes to notifications. It’s clear that the makers of Teams don’t want chat to become a new source of distraction to you when you are trying to focus on other work. This is a smart design choice, especially for large organizations when everyone starts using Teams at once. One can imagine Teams being rolled out to thousands of employees, and the aggravation of being bombarded with notifications anytime anyone had anything at all to say. It would be tantamount to a never-ending group-email thread. So, out of the box, Teams will only send notifications when someone on your Team “@mentions” you or replies directly to a comment you added.

Since we are at a small university and are not going to put everyone on campus in a Team together, we will not likely have the problem of too many notifications. That said, it’s easy to opt-in to notifications for the conversations that are important to you. The first step is to “Favorite” channels you want to stay on top of by clicking the star icon next to the channel name. Favorited channels will be“stickied” to the top of your list, and channels with new comments will appear in bold. You will also get notifications if someone @mentions the channel.

If you want to go a step further, you can “Follow” channels by clicking the ellipses next to the channel name and choosing the Follow option. When you follow channels, you will get notifications for any new activity on the channel.

I primarily use Teams with a small cohort and many channels, so I have favorited all channels and followed the ones I want to stay up-to-the-minute with. Your situation might be different. Either way, understanding how to make notifications work for you is key.

Teams is available for anyone at UP to try. If you’d like more information, feel free to send me an email at kahn@up.edu.

Ready to dive a bit deeper? Check out my Teams Pro Tips below:

Give feedback to your students on assignments.  Ask students to comment on an image or essay.  Better yet, ask them to do an assignment in VoiceThread (yes, it’s in Moodle).  There are many possibilities!  Here are just a few to explore:

• Create a flipped classroom lecture for students to watch before class. You can start with a PowerPoint and add comments to elaborate on key points using your voice. Students can even respond with questions or add ideas of their own to spark additional discussion in class.
• Instead of a traditional text-based discussion forum, use a piece of media as a starting point for conversation. This could be a webcam recording of you delivering a prompt or a piece of media for students to respond to with video or audio comments.
• Have students create their own VoiceThreads from essays, slide presentations, or images. You can then respond and give feedback using your voice.

Because VoiceThread is so versatile, it’s often used by enterprising faculty in unique and surprising ways. It provides a more intimate way to respond to deeply introspective student work for Theology Lecturer Rebecca Gaudino. “There’s a simplicity and immediacy to VoiceThread that I really appreciate”, says Dr. Gaudino. “Students upload a file for me, and I can respond via audio or video, a response that seems fitting for these sorts of reflections. I’ve even had students respond to my comments.”

Commons Administrator and German Instructor Jeffrey White uses VoiceThread to extend the back-and-forth, guided practice needed for language learning.  “I love it because VoiceThread allows for students to practice speaking and interacting in German. I can also interact with them.” He also sees an opportunity for scaffolding as students begin forming ideas and making connections through talk and collaboration, adding that VoiceThread “allows for a lower stakes thinking aloud that can be a precursor to developing ideas in a written form.”

For Dr. Pat Thompson, IAL program coordinator, it’s a way to overcome the barriers that distance, time, and busy schedules create. Because VoiceThread can be used for asynchronous interaction, it doesn’t require everyone to interact at a specific time. And it easily conveys the personal inflection so often missing from text-based communication. “The personalization of VoiceThread is perhaps the best feature,” Dr. Thompson says, “because our feedback ‘comes alive’ with video or audio and promotes an authentic exchange with students that sometimes is difficult to accomplish due to time or distance constraints.”

If you would like to learn more about using VoiceThread at UP, please contact Ben Kahn, Academic Technology Specialist & Trainer at the University.

*Featured Image: Talk by Moiggi Interactive via CC BY-NC 2.0