Monthly Archives: March 2021

How To Share Pages From Non-Class Notebooks to a Student’s Class Notebook in Teams and OneNote

In this guide, we show you how to distribute a page from a non Class Notebook to a students’ Class Notebook within a Class Team.

Here we have a Notebook that has been stored within an English resources folder on SharePoint. Within the Notebook, there’s a worksheet that we need to distribute to the Year 7 English students’ Class Notebooks.

Select Class Notebook.

Note: If this button is not visible, select Open in Desktop App from the top navigation bar. If the button still isn’t visible, it needs to be activated via the three-dot (…) menu and Settings in the top-right corner of the screen.

Once you have selected Class Notebook, select Distribute page to bring up a number of options.

Choose Cross Notebook Distribution to bring up all the Notebooks of the classes you teach.

From here, you can select the Notebooks you wish to share it to. E.g. “English Year 11”

You must then select a student section in the selected Notebook to share the Notebook to. E.g. “Homework”. This action distributes the worksheet from your Non-Class Notebook to your selected students’ Notebooks. In this case, “English Year 11”.

Head to your selected Class Team to check whether it has been shared to the Class Notebooks. As you can see, the worksheet is now in the students’ Notebooks.

Watch a step-by-step guide on how to lock your collaboration space in Class Teams:

If you have any questions on how to share pages from non-Class Notebooks to a student’s Class Notebook, please contact a member of our team today.

How To Turn Off The Chat Feature in Class Teams

The chat feature in Microsoft Teams is a useful tool that allows students to communicate with their teachers and peers during online lessons. However, there may be times where the chat feature isn’t necessary and is causing distractions during lesson time.

Similar to the mute feature on Teams, this can easily be controlled and turned off, enabling you to teach without any interruptions.

There are two simple ways to turn off the chat function, this can be done before or during your online lesson:

Disable chat function in Class Teams before your lesson.

You can disable the chat function before your lesson starts through Meeting options. This can be accessed on the calendar entry for your meeting.

Meeting options is found under Details on the calendar entry.

When the Meeting options menu appears, you can disable the meeting chat, along with other options for your meeting, such as who can present and allowing your students to un-mute themselves.

To turn off the chat feature, change the Allow meeting chat option from enabled to disabled. Make sure to click Save after – this disables the chat function and activates any other changes you’ve made.

Your students are made aware that the chat function isn’t available in the chat window when the lesson starts.

Disable chat function in Class Teams during your lesson.

Teachers can also disable the chat function during the lesson. This can be useful when you want to disable the chat during certain parts of your lesson.

At the top of your screen, there are a few options that allow you to control your meeting. To disable the chat function, you need to select the more actions menu (…).

When the drop-down menu appears, select Meeting options.

Enable chat function in Class Teams during your lesson.

At some point during your lesson, you may want to turn on the chat function to allow your students to communicate again. This can be done the same way by selecting Meeting options and enabling Allow meeting chat.

Using Meeting options is a great way to control your lessons and prevent any distractions during lesson time. The simplicity of this process also allows you to quickly change these options during your lessons giving you the freedom to activate and deactivate at any time and allowing students to contribute and communicate at the right times to enhance their learning.

Watch our step-by-step video on how to turn off the chat feature in Class Teams:

How To Review and Lock Pages in Class Notebook

Locking a page within Class Notebook is important when marking and assessing work, to prevent the student from editing the document after its deadline. In this guide, we show you how to review students work in Class Notebook and how to lock a page to prevent further editing by a student.

How to review pages within Class Notebook.

Open Class Notebook in Teams and select Class Notebook.

Choose Review student work to open a menu on the right-hand side of the page. Select the Notebook section where the page we need to review is stored.

Select the page you wish to review. The names of your students in the selected Class Team appear in alphabetical order. Simply choose the name of the student whose work you wish to review.

Select Insert to type any notes or add emojis and sticks.

The Class Notebook is updated in real-time so students can log in and see comments as soon as they’re written.

How to lock pages within Class Notebook.

Once the assignment has been graded and returned to the student, the Notebook can be edited by the student. Teachers may wish to lock the page so further editing can not be carried out by the student.

Open Class Notebook in Teams and select Class Notebook.

Choose Review student work to open a menu on the right-hand side of the page. Select the Notebook section where the page we need to review is stored. E.g. “Homework”

Choose the page you wish to lock and then select the Page Locking button at the top of the right-hand side menu.

A tickbox is revealed next to the students’ name. Select either “All students” to lock all student pages, or select individual students to lock specific student pages.

A padlock appears alongside the students’ name to indicate the page has been locked. Select Apply to lock the page(s). The student can no longer edit the page.

How to unlock pages within Class Notebook.

Follow the same process as above, but uncheck the tick box next to the student’s name. Then select Apply to unlock the page(s).

Note: When a page is locked for a student, teachers have full read and write access to the page.

Watch a step-by-step guide on how to review and lock pages in Class Notebook:

How To Lock the Collaboration Section in a Class Notebook

In this guide, we show you how to lock the collaboration section in a Class Notebook.

The collaboration space in a Class Notebook is where all students can edit the same pages and work together on projects. After using it, teachers may wish to lock the section to prevent students from editing the page, or so that the work can be assessed.

When you have finished using the collaboration space, select Class Notebook and choose Manage Notebooks.

Switch the Lock Collaboration Space toggle from unlocked to locked.

Teachers are still able to edit the collaboration space when it’s locked, however, students are denied editing rights.

Students are still able to use other areas within their own Class Notebook, such as the Homework and Class Notes tabs.

There are a few options for what to do with a locked collaboration space:

Teachers can move the locked collaboration space into the Content Library and distribute the page to their students’ Class Notebooks. For example, as a homework or revision task.

Alternatively, teachers can use the page as part of an assignment that can then be formally graded.

Once you have finished working in the collaboration space, set it back to unlocked to allow students to join the next time you need to use it.

Watch a step-by-step guide on how to lock your collaboration space in Class Teams.

If you have any questions on how to lock your collaboration space in Class Teams, please contact a member of our team today.

How To Deal With Unwanted Guests In Class Teams Meetings

In this guide, we discuss how we can prevent unwelcome guests from joining our online lessons in Microsoft Teams.

Enable lobby for all Class Teams meetings in your school.

Making sure the meeting policy for teachers within this school’s tenancy is set so that the lobby is enabled.

Firstly, make sure your meeting policy for teachers is set within the school’s tenancy to enable the lobby.

By default, all attendees enter the session through the lobby, which means you’re able to accept or reject members coming into the session, allowing you to avoid any unwelcome guests attending your session at all.

Enable lobby for a specific Class Teams meeting.

If the lobby isn’t automatically enabled for teachers in your school, you can choose to enable the lobby manually on your meetings and classes.

Once you set up and save your meeting, you can then select Edit.

Select Meeting Options and then set the Who can bypass the lobby? option to Only me.

How to spot an unwelcome guest in your Class Teams meeting.

As students enter the meeting lobby, you can see their names and icons appearing in the Participants panel.

One sign of a user who isn’t supposed to be in the meeting is they will usually have (Guest) after their name.

However, it’s crucial to bear in mind that some legitimate students may appear to be guests for several reasons.

Students may share devices with family members and could be joining on other accounts with names you do not recognise. To prevent confusion, you should remind students to sign into their own accounts before joining Teams lessons. By establishing this rule, you can prevent students from missing out on crucial lesson time and learning resources, as well as keep the class safe from unwelcome guests.

How to remove an unwelcome guest from the Teams desktop app.

Select the red cross beside the user you suspect is an unwelcome guest and that removes them from the lobby and denies them access to the lesson.

Note: They can attempt to rejoin, but they’re flagged up in the lobby area with no access to your online lesson.

Select the green tick beside your students’ names to admit them to the lesson.

How to remove an unwelcome guest from the browser version of Teams.

As students enter the lobby, a notification shows on the navigation bar.

While you can admit students from this notification by selecting Accept, we strongly recommend selecting View Lobby to bring up a list of users in the lobby.

Alternatively, you can also select the View Participants icon on the navigation bar.

When you can view a list of users who are waiting in the lobby and follow the same steps as you would in the desktop app:

Select the red cross beside the user you suspect is an unwelcome guest, and that removes them from the lobby and denies them access to the lesson.

Note: They can attempt to rejoin, but they’re flagged in the lobby area with no access to your online lesson.

Select the green tick beside your students’ names to admit them to the lesson.

What happens if I accidentally admit an unwelcome guest into my Class Teams meeting?

Select the three dots (…) next to the unwelcome guest’s name to bring up several options.

Choose Remove from meeting to kick the unwelcome guest out of the lesson.

Watch our step-by-step video guide on how to deal with unwanted guests in Class Teams meetings:

If you have any questions on how to deal with unwanted guests in Class Teams meetings, please contact a member of our team today.

Wilberforce Sixth Form College Awarded Microsoft Showcase College Status (Microsoft 365 User Adoption Podcast Episode 14)

Cloud Design Box has been working with Wilberforce College, a further education Sixth Form College in Hull, to support them in moving to Microsoft Teams and SharePoint, through training and strategy sessions, as well as software set up and implementation.

Assistant Principal at Wilberforce College Jonathan Butler recently joined us on a webinar to discuss best practices in Microsoft Teams and how working with Cloud Design Box has helped the school achieve their goals with cloud-based learning.

“If you’re thinking about moving over to Teams, you must think about how you’re going to share and store files – it should be your priority. If you don’t have a backend storage system – like SharePoint – linked with Teams, things can become a little bit messy, especially when you enter a new school year,” Jonathan explains.

“Cloud Design Box has helped us to set up Teams and SharePoint in a way that will serve us year after year, with long-term resources that can be reused for each new class you teach.”

The College was crowned a DfE EdTech Demonstrator School and are now part of the network of schools and colleges who have shown they can use technology effectively and have the capacity to help other education organisations do the same.

“We had a head start in moving across to Teams and SharePoint thanks to the long-term strategy and technology rollout implemented by Tony and the rest of team.”

Wilberforce College has witnessed a massive increase in staff engagement and enthusiasm for Microsoft 365.

“After taking part in the informative training sessions with Lloyd at Cloud Design Box, our staff have been inspired to learn more and look deeper into how we can use Teams better in the school. Around 80% of our teaching staff took it upon themselves to seek further training from Microsoft,” Jonathan adds.

“The enthusiasm and uptake of the product sort of snowballed from there. We have now been awarded Microsoft Showcase College status and are the only sixth form in the UK to be awarded this accolade.”

Throughout the pandemic, Teams and SharePoint has transformed the way teachers and school staff collaborate at Wilberforce:

“It’s great to see so many members of staff recording quick training videos and sharing them with colleagues. At the tap of a button, this valuable content can be shared to all staff, or specific groups. For example, we recently had a teacher share a video on immersive reader,” he tells us.

“Teachers are no longer working in isolation – they’re sharing their resources, skills and knowledge. Even when the pandemic is over, we must make sure this kind of collaboration continues.”

Here’s a video featuring the staff and students at Wilberforce College, talking about how Microsoft 365 has transformed learning.