Online communication platforms have been used by businesses for years, but until recently, their use in education was limited and primarily for online college classes. The COVID-19 pandemic changed that. Schools had to switch to remote learning with little advanced preparation. Teachers, students, and their families suddenly had to learn a new way of teaching and learning.
For many districts, Microsoft Teams for Education was a natural choice of platform because it could integrate with the programs that educators and students were already using, including the Office 365 suite. Now that in-person learning is available again in most areas, educators are finding that Teams continues to be a valuable platform for communicating and organizing classroom tasks. It enables a hybrid learning model for schools that wish to continue remote learning.
Microsoft lesson plan apps extend the platform’s use in education. Teachers can access their Outlook email, Word Documents, and PowerPoint presentations within the program. Teams of educators can collaborate using chat, audio, and video calls, along with shared OneNote notebooks. Third-party apps can add a new level to Microsoft Teams by turning the platform into an exciting multimedia environment for learning, collaborating, and communicating.
Third-Party Apps That Integrate with Teams
Third-party apps designed to work with Teams enhance the Microsoft lesson plan functionality. Apps such as Pear Deck encourage student collaboration, engagement, and critical thinking with interactive lessons and formative assessments. Flip (formally Flipgrid) is much like popular social media platforms but is confined to a controlled and monitored space where students and educators can safely connect across the globe with video discussions. Even an old millennial standard, Quizlet, is gaining fans among a new generation of learners with its flashcard-style lessons. Educators can create study sets and share them with all students in a team simply by adding a tab to their dashboard.
Despite these exciting possibilities with Teams, many districts continue to use separate dedicated programs for electronic grade books, attendance systems, and student information systems. Microsoft’s programs simply aren’t designed for these specific tasks. Having to continually switch between programs can be unwieldy, and data sets can be incomplete because information is siloed in separate applications. Beedle, an education technology company, has developed a solution.
Streamlining Teaching and Learning in Teams for Education
Beedle is a comprehensive program developed with Microsoft specialists specifically for use with Teams for Education. Teaching, learning, collaborating, and communicating are streamlined in one platform that fully integrates with Teams and Teams Assignments.
With the Beedle app, teachers can complete daily classroom tasks within Teams rather than having to switch programs to create lesson plans and assessments, manage student records, track student progress, document behaviors, and share plans and other information with colleagues and parents.
Expanding Functions of Microsoft Lesson Plan Apps
By default, many teachers use a Word template to write lesson plans, but flexibility can be limited. A drag-and-drop planning module in Beedle enables teachers to create, store, and organize lesson plans along with the resources available within Teams. A hierarchical file system facilitates lesson sequencing and scheduling, and teachers can develop and track learning objectives from within the module. The program includes a shareable calendar for planning a full year of lessons, and teachers can link plans in their library to the class calendar. Plans and assignments can be copied across teams and school years.
Tools to Streamline Tasks
Useful tools in Beedle include a class list feature that has a grouping function to create randomly selected groups within the class and a journaling feature that can record notes on students and lessons. These notes are easily organized with tags and may be shared with students, administrators, colleagues, and parents. The integrated grade book includes spreadsheet functions to perform calculations and comparisons within the module.
Beedle has an attendance function, so absences and tardies may be recorded and tracked within Microsoft Teams. Teachers can add comments, schedule planned absences, and view students’ attendance history.
Technology for Building a Stronger School Community
By facilitating communications and collaboration, Teams strengthens the school community. Beedle enhances this with a separate parents’ app to ensure that caregivers and guardians are “in the loop” when it comes to their child’s education. Parents can access Beedle and check their child’s assignments, due dates, attendance records, and other details. Teachers can directly message parents through the app with concerns, information, and updates on student progress.
Simplify IT While Strengthening Cyber Security
Beedle’s implementation, management, and maintenance are all done within Teams, which simplifies work for the district’s IT department. Beedle utilizes Teams’ security systems and cloud storage to ensure that a district’s data is safe from cyber attacks.
Teams is a powerful platform on its own, and programs designed to work with Microsoft lesson plan apps can get the job done, but Beedle can streamline workflows by providing tools for organizing, planning, and communication in one place. Educators can devote more time to education and spend less time on clerical tasks. Districts will not have to provide training for multiple types of software, and for schools that already subscribe to Microsoft programs, Beedle offers a cost-efficient way of getting more out of these resources.
Beedle is an all-in-one solution for teaching and learning in Microsoft Teams, giving schools the power to leverage Teams for improved resource and lesson planning, class management, insight organization, and more!
If you’re in a Teams district or school and want to unlock the true potential of Microsoft Teams, contact our specialists to maximize the worth of your Microsoft Teams investment today!
