The recent time of Remote Teaching in on-line mode has
realized that there is a great scope of using technology in teaching-learning.
The education in online mode has also introduced some interesting applications
and webtools which can play very effective role in education. Microsoft Teams
is such a digital platform where a teacher can deal with his students including
some interactive activities. Many of the teachers only know MS Teams as a video conferencing tool. And although it makes a great tool for this, especially with
the latest features, the app can help teachers much more as it allows to manage
the classes and learning content without leaving the platform. In fa
ct, MS
teams can work as one of the handy Learning Management Systems in higher
education.
What is LMS (Learning Management System)?
A learning management system (LMS) is a software that
is designed specifically to create, distribute, and manage the delivery of
educational content. The LMS can be hosted as a stand-alone product on the
company server, or it can be a cloud-based platform that is hosted by the
software firm.
- Learning
management system is a technology that can improve learning, make it
faster, productive, cost-effective, and what is more important -
trackable.
- The
most basic LMS contains a core functional platform that enables
administrators to upload learning content, deliver lessons to students,
serving notifications, and share data with authorized users.
- An
LMS most often operates inside of a web-browser, behind a secure sign-on
process.
- It
gives all students and instructors easy access to courses on-the-go,
while administrators and leaders can monitor student progress and
make improvements.
Looking at the above characteristics, we can make most of
the MS Teams as an LSM in higher education. There are different types of LMSs.
MS Teams can fall in to Free, Licensed, Cloud based and enterprise type of LMS.
The following features of MS Teams make it an LSM
Administration Level
- Single
Admin center where users can be added and managed
- Unique
Account and Password for each User
- Allotting
Educational Policies to Faculties and Students
- All
Restriction rights to Head of the Institute
- Daily,
Monthly or Yearly report of activities of each user and entire institute
- Calendar
view of all lectures arranged by Faculty
- Detailed
Attendance report of Faculty and Students
- Space
for Staff meeting
- Office
data management through inbuilt Excel, Word and Forms
- Official
communication through Live meeting, Outlook mail account
For the Teachers
- Virtual
classroom creation which can be joined with LINK or Class code
- Channel
creation for easy classroom access
- Restriction
rights regarding role of students in the virtual classroom
- Video
conferencing for delivering lectures, presentations
- Live
meeting recording, Transcription with download option
- Presentation
with screen sharing, White-board and PPT show
- Attendance
reports with joining time stamp (Daily, Monthly or Yearly)
- Content sharing
in in form of word, pdf, video, audio, image etc. file
- MCQ
test in MS Forms, Assignment submission with dead-line and auto-grading
options
- Test/Assignment
wise Grade reports
- Activities
with Kahoot, Polly, Quiz and many more
- Collaborative
work with One-Note facility
- Providing
Resources with Wikipedia, YouTube and many more
- Space
for activities like online Debate, Discussion, Interview with Meeting Room
For Students
- Personal
account for for learning activities
- Easy
access of classroom and channels
- Interaction
with teachers anytime
- Interesting
and interactive live lecture experience
- Peer
discussion space in channel
- Raise
hand, Chat, Emoji reactions, Pin options in video meetings
- Presentation
with screen sharing
- Collaborative
learning with One-Note
- Auto
grades in assignments and MCQ tests
- Test,
Assignment storage in One Drive account
- Lecture
recordings available anytime
- Accessing
digital content and resources
Actually, MS Teams is much more than this. The above
features are just listed by user experiences. One of the strongest sides of MS
Teams is its security aspect at administration and academic levels. The
institution's control and reporting over faculty and students make it a perfect
tool for administration management system. At the same time, space and scope
for interactive teachers-students activities with numbers of in-built and third
party applications make it an effective Learning Management System. In true
sense it is a platform where Communication, Collaboration and Creation are
possible anytime, anywhere.
(Watch Webinar on 'Teaching Through MS Teams' by Dr.Jignesh Gohil)
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