Microsoft Teams is a collaboration tool which provides an online space for a group of people working together. The Team provides communication tools, file storage, information storage and a place for video/text/audio messaging and meetings.
You would create a Microsoft Team for a group of people working together – on a project or together in the long term as a group of staff like – Finance, HR, Science Teachers, Leadership Team, Directors, etc etc.
The Microsoft Teams the core features which support collaboration are:
Chat – connect to anyone in your organisation, not just those you are Team members with
Teams – different Teams for different groups of people. Contains Conversations, Files, OneNote, links)
Meetings – host or join online meetings (audio or video) which can be recorded and saved in Teams
Here’s what the Teams interface looks like:
You can see in the layout that once you have selected the Teams module within the Teams window you have sections titled: Conversations, Files and PLC Notebook.
Conversations
The conversations area is where Team members can post new conversations (like posts in a discussion board). Post a New Conversation and team members can reply. Use text, images, emojis, GIFs, and @mention a colleague to alert them that they have been mentioned/tagged in a post.
Files
This is the file storage location for members of this team. Office documents can be edited from within Teams, using the online versions of Office apps, or opened on your computer using installed versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc. This Files section can also be synced to your laptop just like your OneDrive by opening the Files section in SharePoint and clicking the Sync button. Typically the files stored here would be considered working documents – documents which require input from multiple team members. A SharePoint portal would be used to share finalised documents
PLC Notebook
Every Team includes a OneNote notebook. This is a great tool on it’s own and within Teams it provides a shared notebook to store information the team needs. For example the notebook could have sections in it to: store team meeting agendas and minutes; “How to” information for shared or team tasks; project notes; reference information on venues and travel; notes from professional development workshops members have attended;
Microsoft Videos for getting started and using Teams
Follow this link to see a whole swag of helpful videos:
So a couple of great tools put out by Microsoft have the ability to connect and create together – doing something which will make users of both these productivity tools very happy! OneNote Send to Sway addin makes it easy to create a Sway presentation straight from your OneNote notebook.
Microsoft OneNote
OneNote – is Microsoft’s app in Office 2016 which stores your notes, details, web clippings, audio, files – everything – in a NoteBook format organisable using Sections and Pages. If you arent using it and you use Office – then you should really take a look at it. If you are an Evernote Premium user – then you should most definitely take a good look at OneNote and save yourself some money.
Microsoft Sway
Sway – is Microsoft’s quickest content-to-presentation creator. It can import content from other Office apps and create beautiful looking and working multimedia presentations with ease, combining fonts, transitions and images with your content. Students in every subject are being asked by their teachers to create “multimodal presentations” or websites to present their learning – Sway makes that deadset easy as.
So good news now is that Microsoft have created a “OneNote Send to Sway” addin which once installed in OneNote makes it easy to send content from OneNote to Sway. Big win for students is that so many teachers now are using OneNote with their classes. So the publishing stage doesnt become enormous.
How to Send Content from OneNote to Sway
First of all you will need to check which version of OneNote you have installed. Open OneNote, on the menu bar click – File > Account – then click the “About OneNote” button
The OneNote version that I am using is the 32bit version (see below)
Next step you’ll need to download the OneNote Send to Sway Addin.
Go to – https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=50418 and click the download button, then choose the correct version of the Onenote Send to Sway addin for your install of OneNote – for me it is the 32 bit version (also referred to as x86).
Download and then install the addin. Restart OneNote and you will see the “Send to Sway” button on the OneNote Ribbon.
Ready to Send to Sway?
So now youve installed the OneNote addin to Send to Sway, select a Page in OneNote and click the Send to Sway button.
You will need to login to your Sway account, then Sway will start…well,….Swaying……
Once it has finished you can view your sway and make any design changes to the look and feel you like.
Instagram is an app you use to share photos and short videos with your Followers. You can Follow other Instagram users (people or organisations) and view their images and videos. You can Like, Comment on images and tag your followers in image comments.
Introductory video Instagram Beginners (5:30)
My Use of Instagram
I’ve been using Instagram since it came out. I like that its all about Images. No posts about “what am I thinking” just posts from friends and others I follow which are Images or short Videos.
Picture it as a visual Twitter. Where Twitter is a platform for sharing short (140 character) text posts, Instagram is sharing just an Image – with a caption.
Images have captions and you can Tag people who are in the Image. You can say the location and also add some built in filters to modify your original image really easily. Add some Hashtags and you’re an Instagram #pro!
What does the Instagram app do?
The Instagram app is how you connect to your Instagram social network and share images. Open the app, take a photo or find one in your Photo Library, add a caption, add a Filter, tag someone, add a Location, share on Instagram or with other linked sites like Facebook or Twitter.
How can I use the Instagram app?
Instagram is a great way to keep in touch with people through Images. Let others know what you are up to through capturing and sharing images of your activity or to promote what you are doing. If you are a classroom teacher its a dead-set simple way to share what’s happening in the classroom – simply take a photo, use Instagram to share with your Followers – most likely Parents and other Teachers.
Instagram is owned by Facebook and is a trimmed down social media network centred around Images. View and share images from people and organisations you follow without the clutter of everything else Facebook includes. Follow celebs and interest groups for short visual updates.
You’ve heard of VR right? Virtual reality – the experience (at the moment) of viewing a movie which is presented through a headset in a way that you can look around as though you are in the setting. With headphones and sound you can start getting tricked that it’s more real than it is…..
Google Cardboard is a low cost, cheap as kitset you can buy which enables you to use your smartphone and some folded up cardboard to create a VR Headset, download some VR apps, and get into some virtual reality.
So once your cardboard headsets arrive you just put them together, download a few VR apps and off you go.
Well, it took me about 30 minutes to put the first cardboard goggles together – Because they were missing a piece! Once I realised that I requested a refund from the seller and in about 10 minutes had the other set build.
One thing that puzzled me was the magnets that came with it. I had no idea what the heck they were for. Google. Turns out the magnets work with the phone’s magnetometer to act as a button with the headset, so head movements can act like button taps.
And lets be honest here – its $2 worth of cardboard so don’t expect anything amazing. Make some modifications with a bit of sticky tape and rubber bands where you need to!
How does Google Cardboard VR work?
Google cardboard works by putting your phone the right distance away from your eyes so that the lenses can focus it – and with the split screen viewing the image takes on a 3D appearance. Think Viewmaster if you grew up when I did. But movies…..
Developers have made a bunch of apps containing or linking to movies to give you a taste of Virtual reality using Google cardboard – or other VR headsets.
It’d be wrong not to look at the Google cardboard app itself. It’s got a few of the same demo’s as Within mentioned below, but is a good introduction to using the Cardboard VR system.
Virtual Speech VR lets you choose different settings to practice public speaking in. Public hall, Boardroom or interview – plus expect more to come. There are options to animate the audience so there is some natural movement and background noise as well. Fairly realistic looking Im sure it could help someone with a really speaking anxiety to get more used to speaking in public.
Nivral offers a growing list of VR apps – the first, InMind VR lets you experience a scientific-educational activity where you travel inside a human brain on a rollercoaster-like ride zapping bad neurons! This VR app is probably a good starter one where users get a taste of many of the expected VR experiences. There’s also InCell VR…
Within VR provides a series of short VR movie experiences, some of which can also be found in Youtube’s 360 Video Hub. Some cool movies here and easy app to use. What attracted me most of all was U2’s 360 VR version of Song for Someone!
Yeah Im also a sucker for Star Wars. You may already have the Star Wars app on your phone, and inside that you’ll find Jakku Spy which is a VR activity. There’s a lot to download, but this may be the VR you’re looking for. Use the force in your role as a Resistance fighter.
BONUS VR APP TIP!
I realised after publishing this post that I hadn’t included the compulsory Rollercoaster VR app!
Check out Rollercoaster VR by Fibrum, which has cool scenes including jungle and water. Fun times. But you only get 4 free rides, then its $2.99……..
OneNote is a notetaking tool included in Microsoft Office and now available on your web browser or as a mobile app for android and iOS. When using Onedrive you can sync it across computer and mobile devices to record notes which can include text, images, audio, video. Notes are organised into Sections of a Notebook. You can setup any number of Notebooks.
Introductory video from Office 365 (1:16)
My Use of Onenote
Ive been using Evernote Premium since it came out around 2008/2009 and still use it for my personal notes on various devices.
But I started using Onenote in 2016 for work and it’s now my main tool outside of email. Onenote is software from Microsoft which enables me to create digital Notebooks which can contain Sections, each section can be made up of any number of Pages.
Pages can contain, Text, Images, recorded Audio or Video, and are saved instantly as I work. I can move Pages between Sections or Sections between Notebooks. I can even share Notebooks with other Office 365 users.
What does the OneNote app do?
The OneNote app offers me the core features of the full desktop version of OneNote which makes it great to record notes on my iPhone or iPad when getting out the laptop is too much trouble. Because my OneNote notebook files are stored on OneDrive in the Cloud the data syncs and when other devices running OneNote are connected OneNote data is synced, so everything stays up to date.
How can I use the OneNote app?
For my work I currently have around 7 Notebooks on various topics relating to my Role. Each Notebook has a number of Sections and those Sections contain Pages. For example one Notebook titled “Digital Tools” has content on various software and apps that I can share with others when they ask me what something is and how they could use it.
I have my Digital Tools notebook organised into Sections named Social Media, Video and Robotics and then each section contains relevant Pages, for example the Social Media section has pages on Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram.
An example of a OneNote Notebook/Section/Page structure
When I open the OneNote app on my iPhone (below) I can access this notebook and its contents, but the view and features are obviously different because of the device.
OneNote Notebook, Section and Page view on iOS app
One of the great things I use a lot is the iPhone’s camera to add photos of presentation slides during a workshop or presentation. After taking the photo in OneNote you have the option to crop the image by dragging handles to the image corners – OneNote then does it’s best to align the image flat. If its a Whiteboard photo just tap the “Whiteboard” button and watch the magic happen…..
Video: OneNote iPad app (33:16)
Sharing OneNote Notebooks
Once your using OneNote with OneDrive you have the ability to share your notebooks with others. For example, my Digital Tools notebook could be shared with other educators who could then view or contribute to the notebook content depending on what level of sharing I choose. This collaboration feature enables you to use OneNote as a tool for purposes where information needs to be up-to-date and available to a group.
When sharing a Notebook you are also able to protect sections within the notebook with a password, should you not want to share the whole thing.
OneNote is a really great tool for keeping the information you need to keep, organised and synchronised on various devices. The OneNote app makes it easy to access those Notebooks on your mobile devices. If you’re a OneNote user you will value having access via the app.
I am a Learning and Collaboration technologies advisor living in Cairns, Australia. An educational technology leadership background and experience managing a globally located information technology team, has given me wide experience in the application of digital technologies to a variety of educational and workplace contexts.
Certified Microsoft Service Adoption Specialist
Microsoft eSports Leader
Microsoft Innovative Educator
Mountain Biker and Triathlete
Former Asia Pacific Information Services Manager MAFINT
Microsoft Sway
1 Minute Introduction to OneNote
