MS Teams for education

Teams has many different functionalities which can be used in an educational setting. This table provides an overview of the most important functions.

The table below describes a few examples of ways you can work together in Teams.

Brightspace will continue to be the official online platform for education. Teams is a more informal platform that brings you extra tools and functionalities to use in your (online) classroom. Teams is a new platform within TU Delft, we are continuously working on optimizing the support for our lecturers.

Before you start using Teams for your classroom, please note the following:

• Be aware of what is allowed and what is not allowed when working with Teams.
• Before sharing your screen during a video call: check your current browser windows, browser bookmarks, browser tabs, email notification settings, active programmes or applications and the notification settings of chat programs you might run on your pc like WhatsApp, skype or iMessage for possible privacy-related or sensitive data. Carefully managing your screens and active programmes before you share your screen prevents the unwanted exposure of sensitive data to students or colleagues participating in the meeting while screen sharing.
• Teams is a cloud-based application. Changes, updates and new features will be added regularly. New features can be found in Teams, search for ‘/whatsnew’ in the Teams search bar.
• Brightspace is the official Student Communication Channel. It is fine to share information on Teams but make sure that this information can also be found on Brightspace.
• You need to create teams in Teams yourself, manage the content and add your students and colleagues. It is however possible to let students enrol themselves into a specific Team directly or with approval.
• Grading and assignment features are turned off. The TU Delft offers solutions that are more mature.

TU Delft Teaching and Learning Support aims to support teaching staff regarding the use of Microsoft Teams in education. If you have other questions of more technical nature, please check the M365 support team, review the manuals online or submit a call to ICT Teams.

Go to the Microsoft Teams website to download Teams for your pc. If you have a computer that is managed by the TU Delft ICT department you can find Teams in the Software Center. If you work in Windows 7 you can use Teams in your browser at https://teams.microsoft.com/. You can also install the app on your mobile phone or tablet. Please be aware that Microsoft collects telemetric data (which hardware and software you use) through its mobile apps. This is not the case if you use Teams via your computer.

Manuals for installing Teams per operating system are available on the ICT Manuals page:

Installing Teams on Windows
Installing Teams on Mac
Installing Teams on Linux

When you need help installing Teams on your PC or laptop, please contact your Service Desk or make a call in the Self Service Portal.

Login with [Your NetID]@tudelft.nl and your password.

Teams Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) from Microsoft is used to ensure that (y)our data is properly secured. It is advisable to choose for authentication via the mobile app when activating, that way it is only a one-button operation in the app on your smartphone. Your phone number will be requested so that your account can be authenticated with a code, in addition to logging in with your [Your NetID]@tudelft.nl and password. Please follow the MFA manual for one-time activation.

When you need help logging in, please contact your Service Desk or make a call in the Self Service Portal.

On this page you can find a Tour through Microsoft Teams to learn the basics functionalities. Below is a picture of what Teams looks like:

In the Navigation bar (1) you can navigate to the different screens of Teams:

• In the Activity menu, you will get all your notifications of everything that happens in Teams.
• In the Chat menu, you can see all one-on-one chats as well as group conversations with multiple people.
• In the Teams menu, you can find the Teams (2) that you are part of and create new Teams.
  • Within Teams, you can make Channels (3) for specific topics or projects. You could for example make a channel for every week or lecture of your course.
  • Each channel has Tabs (4). By default, the Post, File and Notes tabs are present. In the Posts tab, Everyone within the channel can start conversations (6) and reply to them. In the Files tab, you can store files that are related to the channel. Every channel has its own file repository. The Notes tab is linked to a notebook in Microsoft OneNote and gives the ability to make collaborative notes. You can add tabs to quickly navigate to apps, or files if you wish.
    Learn more about Notes in MS Teams
  • Within a channel, you also have the possibility to start an online (video) meeting (5).
• You will find that the Calender menu is synced with your Outlook calendar. Here you can Schedule Teams Meetings and Live Events.

At the top of the page, you can find the Search bar (7). You can search for anything or anyone in teams.
Tip: You can type /help in the Search bar to find help on using Teams and /whatsnew to see what new functionalities are added to Teams (new updates are coming very regularly).

When setting up a new team, you can opt for a Class Team, a Professional Learning community or a Staff team.
More information about creating a new team in Teams can be found on this page.

Every (class) team comes with a General channel.

Channels organize all the files, conversations, and apps for a topic in one place. They can be created for group work, topics, weeks, units, and more.

To learn more about how to add a channel to a team, go to this page.

Every Channel has Tabs. Tabs allow you to integrate Tools and Pages into your or channel. Tabs are always visible at the top of the Channel.

By default, every Channel has the following Tabs:

• The Posts tab for all the messages in this channel.
• The Files tab to store and collaborate on files shared in this channel. Files will only be visible in the allocated channel.
• The Notes tab to make Notes together.

Add tab to channel

1. Select the plus-icon + on the Tab bar.

2. Select the App that you want the Tab to go to.

3. Fill in the Tab name  and choose the Content that you want the Tab to point to.
4. Select Save.

Post in Team

1. To create a message for your whole team, click Teams , then pick a Team and a Channel.
2. Select the Posts tab.
3. Click the New Conversation Box  on the bottom, type your message and click Send .
4. Use @ and the name of your Team or Channel to notify everyone of your post.
   Example: @teamname
5. Use the Reply option when you want to reply instead of starting a new chat.

Conversation in a Chat

Chats can be with one student/colleague or a group of students and/or colleagues. To start a new chat:

1. Click New chat  at the top of Teams window under the Chat tab.
2. In the To-field, type the name(s) of the people you’d like to chat with.
3. Optionally give the chat a Group name by selecting the Down arrow to the far right of the To-field.
4. Type your message in the compose box and Click Send .
5. Optionally, you can schedule your message by right-clicking the Send  and setting the date and time you wish to send your message. 

In a chat, you’ll be able to send messages but also include files, links, emojis, stickers, and GIFs.

While hovering over your sent message with your mouse, you can click the three dots:

This opens a dropdown menu:

• By clicking Reply, you can reply to the message, by including the message at the top of your reply.
• By clicking Edit, you can edit your sent message.
• By clicking Delete, you can delete your message for everyone.
• By clicking Pin, you can pin your message to the top of the chat, making it easily accessible by clicking the Thumbtack symbol in the top left of your chat screen.
• By clicking Save this message, you can save the message in the chat.
• By clicking Mark as unread, you can make it so that people you are chatting with cannot see that you have read the message.
• By clicking Translate, you can translate the message to your desired language.
• By clicking Immersive Reader, the message will be read out loud.

Each Channel has its own Files folder where files can be shared for that specific Channel. To access that folder: go to the Channel and select the Files-tab above the conversation window.

Here you can create New files and folders (1) or Upload existing files and folders (2) for students/colleagues to work on simultaneously in the Channel. In the background al files are saved in SharePoint.

Tip: Pin the most used files to the top of your list for easy access. Right click on the file and select Pin to top.

Tip: Organize your files in Folders.

Share a file in a conversation

You can also share files in the Post tab or a Chat. Any file you share here can be opened by all the students in that Channel or Chat.

1. In your Post-tab or the Chat, click the Attach-icon  under the box where you type your message.
2. Select one of the options.
3. Select a file and add it to the post.
4. Click Send .

The file you shared can be found in the Files tab of the Channel or Chat.

Collaborate on files

In Teams you can work on files together at the same time. When you post a file in the Posts-tab, you can start a conversation about a file on which everyone in the Channel can respond.

1. Go to the correct Team and Channel in Teams.
2. In a Posts-tab or in the Files-tab, select More options  next to the file.
3. Choose if you want to Edit in Teams, Open in Browser or Open in Desktop App.
4. Edit the file. Colored flags show who else is working on it with you.
5. When editing the file in Teams you can click on Conversation on the top-left to chat about the document.

Add read only Class Materials

Do you have important files you don’t want students to edit? Use the Class Materials folder in the General channel.

1. Navigate to the General channel in your Class Team.
2. Select the Files tab and go to  Class Materials (Lesmateriaal) folder.
3. Select Upload to add files.

In Teams, with the normal staff-license it is possible to create online meetings with up to 300 participants and record them. Question and Answer (Q&A) can be enabled for online meetings.

For more information, visit the online meetings and lecturers page.

MS Teams Webinars allows you to have a controlled interactive meeting with up to 1,000 participants. If you have under 300 participants, you should consider a normal Teams Meeting. The difference with normal Teams Meeting is that Webinars are more controlled and that the participants have clearer roles. Also, a Webinar requires attendees to register. Webinars differ from Live Events in the fact that participants are able to interact with the presenter; in Live Events participants are only allowed to listen, watch and participate in a moderated Q&A. With the webinar you are able to track registration for the event.

For more information, visit the MS Teams Webinars page.

MS Teams Live Events is an extension of MS Teams Meetings that enables you to broadcast your lecture to up to 10.000 participants. Where Team meetings are interactive, a Live Event is static. Attendees can only listen, watch and -if you enable it- ask questions in the Q&A chat. In between Teams Meeting and Live events there are also Teams Webinars, which allow you to have a more controlled interactive meeting with up to 1,000 participants but require registration.

For more information: visit MS Teams Live Events page.

TU Delft supports different tools for online collaboration/virtual classrooms/online meetings.

For more information, visit the Comparing Online meeting tools page.