At DMU, we have the ability to link our Blackboard Courses to Microsoft Teams. In doing this, we create opportunities to use all of the available Teams functionality, including the use of a OneNote Class Notebook, to enhance the student experience.

Creating a Team in this manner enables students to use features such as Posts and the Files tab in teams; and the OneNote Class Notebook functions such as the Collaborative Space and the Homework section in curriculum. The OneNote Class Notebook is an online space that, once activated by the staff member, can support various collaborative activities such as online group work. It can also be used to provide formative assessment opportunities using quizzes within MS Forms.

Teams and the OneNote Class Notebook include Microsoft’s Immersive Reader function. This is built in to MS365 and can support those with specific requirements regarding text to speech and specific formatting without the need for a third party application or browser plug-in.

DMU staff members can create a Group or Groups in their Blackboard Course with the ‘_msteams’ suffix within the Group name. Overnight, this will create a Team for every Group that is created in this way in Blackboard. Staff (Instructors) and student (Students) enrolments will push through from Blackboard and be replicated as Owner or Member on the Team.

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