How to smash school problems with Microsoft Teams

Blended and online learning is now the focus of many educators during this difficult time. It’s easy to lose track of the bigger picture and the long-term benefits of using EdTech to extend the classroom (even in normal times). A rushed Microsoft Teams rollout can have adverse outcomes, such as creating more work for teachers, poor safeguarding policies, and no long-term plan.

At Cloud Design Box, we know that schools want to have a lasting positive change, one that supports their long-term digital strategy. The solution should focus on reducing teacher workload, providing positive learning experiences for students, and making sure that we take everyone on the cloud journey with us, leaving no one behind.

Saving time for teachers with centralised resources

To avoid teachers uploading resources to each class team they teach every academic year, and to collaborate with other members of the department, it’s important to centralise resources.

At Cloud Design Box, we automate central resource areas from MIS data and integrate them into every class team. This way the teacher only uploads the resources once and can share resources from other members of staff.

Once you have central resource areas for each subject, heads of department can keep track of the quality of these resources without searching through individual class teams.

Build confidence with new technology

As a Microsoft Global Training Partner with our CPD-certified courses, we understand that key to success is a clear, long-term strategy to get all staff confident. That should be more than a single training session: it should be a system that constantly checks and addresses any issues over a long period of time.

Measuring success should also be evidence-based. With our staff assignment analytic tool, you can identify departments that are struggling and focus more CPD time on those areas, maximising benefits.

School leaders can track progress and heads of department can measure individual class usage to address any problems.

At Cloud Design Box, we believe that having Teams-specific support can help with both technical issues and end-user teaching & learning support.

Cloud Design Box are hosting some free webinars for school/MAT leaders, teachers, and technical staff. They cover a range of topics to help you get the most out of Microsoft Teams. You can sign-up using the links below. 

If you want to find out more about Cloud Design Box and how they can help make Teams and SharePoint work better for your school, visit their website https://www.clouddesignbox.co.uk. 

Event sign-up

• Tues 24th Nov at 10am – Planning Long Term User Adoption Strategy for Microsoft Teams in Schools and MATs
• Tues 24th Nov at 3pm – Blended Learning for Primary Schools with Microsoft Teams
• Wed 25th Nov at 1pm – Centralising Resources and Reducing Teacher Workload using Microsoft Teams
• Tues 1st Dec at 1pm – Best Practices with Microsoft Teams
• Tues 19th Jan at 1pm – Centralising Resources and Reducing Teacher Workload using Microsoft Teams
• Tues 19th Jan at 3pm – Planning Long Term User Adoption Strategy for Microsoft Teams in Schools and MATs

Events tailored for Independent Schools – register here: 

• Thurs 3rd Dec at 10am – Introduction to Microsoft Teams 
• Thurs 14th Jan at 3pm – Save time and get more out of Microsoft Teams

If you sign-up but cannot attend, we will send you a video recording of the session. Feel free to share these links, anyone can sign-up.

Looking for CPD and Training Platforms for your school? Check out our full list of the best CPD and Training Platforms on EdTech Impact.

Tony Phillips
Tony Phillips is the founder of Cloud Design Box with over 15 years’ experience with education technology. He writes his own blog, records YouTube videos for teachers and shares open source solutions via GitHub. The company help schools and MATs get more out of Microsoft Teams and SharePoint. The Cloud Box solution includes saving teacher time with central resource areas, saving IT admin time with automated class provisioning plus many other features. As Microsoft Global Education Training Partners, the service focuses on user adoption with CPD certified courses to help schools and MATs meet their long-term digital strategy goals.
https://www.clouddesignbox.co.uk