Microsoft supports online learning through Teams

Microsoft announced that it has integrated Teams, a unified communication and collaboration platform with a number of learning management systems (LMS). This is to enable team meetings for teachers and their students from their favorite LMSs, including Canvas, Blackboard, Schoology, Brightspace and itsLearning.

Schools and universities are currently using LSMs to manage and present learning content such as lessons, assignments and tests through a virtual learning environment. However, it can be quite difficult to effectively teach learners through content transfer alone. With Teams, teachers will be able to explain the content they are teaching to students the same way they would in a physical classroom. Students will also be able to speak to educators to ask questions about a particular topic or idea that they are having difficulty understanding or to get clarification on an assignment.

Africa should be one of the biggest beneficiaries because it has the fewest virtual schools compared to the rest of the world, according to this report. This means that making this mass shift to distance learning as easy as possible will be essential to ensure the continuation of quality education and learning.

Educational institutions or teachers with Office 365 accounts will be able to create Teams Meetings for free in Canvas, Blackboard, Schoology, and Brightspace by following a few quick and easy steps. Those who use itsLearning will be able to create a Microsoft Teams meeting anywhere in the tool thanks to its rich text editor. Microsoft has also allowed other LSMs to install the Teams app on their platform and created a guide for developers.

Jared Spataro, corporate vice president for Microsoft 365, said, “As we see many educational institutions moving towards distance education, we know educators and students are going to go through tough adjustments. . Microsoft wanted to make this transition as easy as possible while supporting a truly connected environment that enables quality learning. By partnering with these LSMs and bringing the collaborative power of teams to their platforms, I think we can do it. ”