HOW TO TEAMS

Microsoft Teams is included within the Office 365 applications that Rutherford County has been using for years. As Microsoft Teams began developing, educators really started utilizing it and receiving training on it around Fall 2018 as a way to implement Blended Learning in the classroom. Since then Microsoft has worked to add features and improve user interface while keeping a very customizable platform that is typical within the Microsoft Corporation.

Although the county has purchased Kiddom, the release of the platform and ability to train educators was not as sufficient as we would have hoped. In light of trying to give our students the absolute best experience of education with the given environments, teachers navigated to the platform they had the most training on and the one that easily synched with students Office 365 account that they already utilize for Word, PowerPoint, or Outlook.

Teams is not a perfect platform. It does get buggy as does any technology and troubleshooting technical issues will ultimately occur with any online platform. Teams is the best tool your child has where the completion of assignments, viewing of grades, communication with the teachers/peers is equitable to the teacher's experience.

While we do not yet have a way for parents to access their child's Teams to check on assignment progress, we do not stop innovating as teachers.

You might need to have more knowledge on the other Office 365 apps to do you assignments. Here are some playlists that will definitely help!

1. Student should save files to their OneDrive this syncs with your student's "single-sign-on" email account. They can access files saved to their one drive through Microsoft TEAMS, Outlook, etc. Sometimes students need help organizing the files in their OneDrive, here is a video on how to help organize OneDrive files.
2. Your child may also be asked to use PowerPoint or Word from time to time. These playlists will help with basic operations.
   
3. Do you need to study, but don't know how or where to start? Here is a helpful video on the Study Cycle that might help point you in the right direction!
4. Microsoft Teams is included in Office 365 and syncs with our district's "single-sign-on" features. Once a student has access to their student account they are able to access Microsoft Teams relatively seamlessly without having to navigate outside of the Microsoft Office Applications. Here is a hefty, yet fantastic video on How To Use Microsoft Teams and yet another great video on how Teams can be utilized for Distance Learning.