Microsoft wants to make Teams more attractive for use in classrooms. Five new functions will have to provide for this.
Microsoft continues to support Slack competitor Teams. A series of new features should make Teams more attractive for use in classrooms. Microsoft focuses mainly on the relationship between teacher and student, and the simplification of scores and feedback.
The most important novelty is the synchronisation with student information systems (SIS). Assignments given to students via teams can thus be linked to the SIS, after which points are automatically synchronised. For example, an assignment is in one streamlined pipeline, and students are shown how they have performed in a simple way. It also streamlines commands, editing and viewing.
Plagiarism
Giving points also becomes easier with Mobile grading. Thanks to this new feature, you can even enter scores via Teams on your smartphone on the go. To help teachers give those scores, Microsoft provides integration with Turnitin. This is a tool with which assignments are automatically checked for plagiarism.
Microsoft continues to focus on STEM with the integration of MakeCode. This is an online game development system that allows children to create their own games with simple drag and drop commands or JavaScript. The integration via Teams will soon be in beta.
Microsoft’s push into the education market is not surprising. Redmond has to compete more and more with the offer of Google, which with its Chromebooks is becoming more and more entrenched in schools around the world. By profiling itself from the software side, Microsoft can present itself as an interesting alternative.
It’s not the first time that Microsoft has expanded its teams with educational features. On the contrary, education has been an important part of the chat client’s functionality right from the start.
Related: Microsoft Teams embraces schools with new features
This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.