Last week, I had the opportunity to work with a class that used Microsoft Teams to manage a group project. Students were divided into 14 groups or (channels) of 5. After establishing group norms, students are given the freedom to complete the group assignment synchronously or asynchronously, depending on their schedules. When they used the video conference features, the instructor was able to see who attended and for how long, if they met within the channel. Students also had the capacity to add the instructor to meetings (if needed; based on availability). All files that were needed for the project were hosted in OneDrive but had a “physical” representation within Teams that students were able to access without leaving the interface. Teams allowed for screen and file sharing, chatting, and Word markups. The course did not create the assignment in Teams, but it is possible to do so, as well as create a rubric within Teams, and import them into Canvas.
While this sounds like an advertisement for Teams, it isn’t. My goal is to let you know (or remind you of) alternatives you can use if you are looking for technological teaching tools that are a better match your pedagogical style than what you are currently using.
There are many free, short tutorials from Microsoft https://support.microsoft.com/
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