Microsoft Teams is going to make me cry with rage

[AssangesCat]

DS has to use it now for school. Neither of us has a clue. Is it me or is it useless? Whoever says on the advert that they are living on Teams must be a poor soul or a liar. It's just a mess. Notifications for everything that happens, whether it's relevant or not. How are you meant to find anything a teacher has said in the screeds of daft messages and emojis from children who are just getting the hang of it themselves? I feel rudely yanked out of the cosy world of a small primary school and thrust into the roiling cauldron of a big high school, and it's my job to help DS through this!

@DrDreReturns the thing is when you use these things in your workplace, if you started before lockdown, if you were new to it, odds are you could ask a colleague for help and they would show you and it would all seem very simple. When you're sat at home having never used it before, with no one to ask and you're meant to also be doing your own job at the same time, it feels very different.

I'm really no expert but I think OneDrive interfaces with teams, so maybe you could use that to upload files?

I’m teaching a full timetable on it - it’s great. 15 channels is too many though and the kids shouldn’t be filling it with chat - that’s a fault of the school in how they are using it rather than Teams. You can turn off notifications and hide channels / teams. How old is your dc? In the moving to secondary issue - you won’t get a personal relationship with the teachers, you will get to know some of them tutors maybe and perhaps subject teachers they have for a couple of years. Generally no news is good news at secondary!

Work installed it shortly after we were sent home and I really like it. There are free tutorials online here and you can Google for answers to pretty much any issue or to find out how to do what you want to do.

There are some good YouTube videos, my school started Teams after lockdown and everyone has got the hang of it now.

You can upload files by dragging them into a chat with whoever you are talking to. It probably isn't practical for a big group chat though - unless the files had a clear name no one would know they were yours.
@AssangesCat it is a learning curve. I still find how it controls the audio / microphones annoying. On the plus side how you can take control of a colleagues computer to demonstrate something is awesome.

It also has this annoying habit of insisting there’s no internet connection, and demanding you log in when you already are!

Oh great DD year 10 has her first lesson on TEAMS this afternoon. I have never used it before but and am a bit of a technophobe but have used SKYPE, Zoom and House party during lockdown. She has dyslexia and DH got her a 2nd hand mac a couple of weeks ago to help with schoolwork. She hates if anything is too busy and or unnecessary/irrelevant. I offered to have a look at it with her at the weekend but she bit my head off, flipped out and didn’t want to know and DH has gone into work today.

I’m using it pretty successfully for teaching. BUT I am very strict about no silly messages /emojis etc. Kids are only allowed to post question/points about the lesson material, otherwise the important text gets lost. They need a very clear protocol set out to them and a reminder that the chat is saved so anyone (parents, head etc can see it). The meeting chat combines very well with video calls for those who don’t have working microphones. It does take a couple of weeks for everyone to get the hang of it, though.

DC’s use for lessons. The notifications were a real drag as they were totally covering the actual messages from the teacher and students whilst in a call but I worked out how to turn them off. We are finding it works well. We literally just look at the calendar and join each video session from there when the time comes and leave when it’s finished.

We are using Show my Homework for uploading work so it’s literally just the video calls on Teams.

One of the problems with it is it was written for adults to use- so assuming that there would be no mucking about muting each other or sending silly messages.

We had every problem you could possibly expect when the kids started using it because if there is one thing that is depressingly predictable about working with kids it’s that they will piss about with anything new until you stop them.

Now most of the ‘features’ have been locked down it is a bit better for teaching with.

I still hate it though. It’s so unintuitive.

Please persevere with it. If actually works really well. It can do everything zoom can do, it’s hopefully just the unfamiliarity of it which is the problem and which will go once you’ve given it a chance.

Teachers should organise work into folders for the week and then for subject so that you can access things easily and not have to wade through the irrelevant stuff.

You can only see 4 people at a time it’s infuriating!

@LiveFatsDieYoGnu, Teams is part of an unholy Trinity with OneDrive and SharePoint so yes, you should be able to easily upload files that way.

But then IT folks' view of SharePoint is that it's a really great place to hide a body - once you put it in there you'll never find it again.

It is awful. Truly terrible. Zoom is so much better, but apparently not secure, so no, we aren't allowed to use it.

It won't be helpful if I say I have never heard of OneDrive. We usually use Ubuntu at home.

At the moment in some cases you wouldn't know who is a teacher and who a precocious child, as we don't know the teachers' names yet.

I suppose we'll get used to it. DH is much better at this stuff than me but he's a key worker and by the time he gets home we've either battled through it all somehow or given up for the day.

Ok so teams OneDrive and sharepoint are all together. Need to find a way for him to save stuff from googledrive there

@AssangesCat has your child not been at that school since September? How come your child doesn’t know the teachers name?

@BigSandyBalls2015

Hate it, prefer zoom but apparently it's not as secure

Zoom has been updating, so is now more secure.

@LiveFatsDieYoGnu

I'm really no expert but I think OneDrive interfaces with teams, so maybe you could use that to upload files?

OneDrive and Teams are both MicroSoft so they do interact.

Zoom is fine now, they've really tightened up their security. I use Zoom, bluejeans and Teams on a regular basis and Webex and Gotomeeting somewhat less frequently.

Agree about all the notifications on Teams but hadn't got round to working out how to turn them all off!

DS uses Google Meet for school.

Not just me then.

Laughing at Sharepoint being a great way to hide a body.

I'm doing a class through teams. Its easy, tutor sends a link, I click, say yes to launching teams and its fine - I'm a "guest" but thats fine.

Sons SN college are trying to use it through their office 365 account. Son and his tutor have spent three meetings trying to get him in. I tried with him today (a different tutor on the phone). Got the invitation on his calendar, clicked join and then just kept going round in circles with nothing happenning. But I looked at "help" later and it seems using firefox may be an issue. So we logged out of everything and tried again via chrome and it seems more promising - but until they set up another meeting we can't test it.

I am using teams and a chromebook. Open one drive and make a folder - e.g. English homework. Open the folder and at the top left of the screen you should see an upload button. Use this to upload from your chromebook to Teams - in the same way as you would attach a file to an email. You will then be able to add the file into chat or wherever in Teams. I am doing this more than 100 times a day at the moment!

Are you all using Windows10? I’m wondering if I’m having problems because I’m not.