Microsoft Teams adds handful of new features for educators

Microsoft recently unveiled a handful of new features being added to Microsoft Teams for Office 365 for Education customers to check out. The main thrust of the latest updates is to make collaborating with OneNote in Teams a little easier, along with a focus on new assignment creation and IT features.

Here's a look at what's new with Teams' OneNote integrations, from Microsoft:

  • Starting today, teachers and staff will be able to access Class Notebook and Staff Notebook Settings from right within Teams. This update further simplifies school workflows by allowing teachers and staff-leaders to manage notebook settings such as Teacher-Only section groups, adding new sections, and locking the Collaboration Space, all without ever having to leave Teams.
  • Additionally, all Teams users will now be able to enjoy Class and Staff Notebook in full screen view in Teams and navigate the full notebook to access other sections, spaces, and pages. This also allow the Class Notebook Toolbar to be used from within Teams.
  • Lastly, Class and Staff Notebook now support Edit in Browser, so teachers and staff can quickly navigate to a fully immersive OneNote experience.

As for assignments, Teams will now automatically save new assignments as teachers create them. Teachers can also now export grades from Teams as .CSV files.

Finally, IT administrators are getting some new tools as well. Admins can now enable or disable private chat "at the license level." A block list for third-party applications can also now be created, helping administrators to control which integrations students and staff have access to from within Teams.

Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the former Editor-in-Chief of Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central, Android Central, and iMore as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter @DthorpL and Instagram @heyitsdtl