Body
Connecting a Class Team to your Moodle course gives you one-click access to real-time collaborative tools inside VCC's Microsoft Teams environment. Using Teams helps you create opportunities for real-time interactions, like live video meetings and group authoring of documents - things which Moodle itself doesn't provide.
(Note: This is an experimental, advanced feature. You'll need strong familiarity with Moodle and Microsoft Teams to use this feature effectively.)
Advantages of using Teams with Moodle
Using Teams and Moodle is not a "one or the other" proposition: you can use Moodle for its strengths, like course structure, grading, or enrollment management, while also taking advantage of Teams for its strengths, like real-time collaboration and communication.
This excellent video from University of East London shows the advantages of each platform, and how using them together makes for an even better learning environment:
Usage Examples
Live Interactive Sessions
- In Moodle: Use Moodle to organize course content, assignments, and quizzes.
- In Teams: Schedule live classes and interactive sessions using Teams' video conferencing feature. During these sessions, you can use tools like Microsoft Whiteboard for collaborative brainstorming, breakout rooms for small group discussions, and live polls to gauge understanding in real-time.
Real-Time Collaboration on Projects
- In Moodle: Assign group projects and provide detailed instructions and resources within Moodle.
- In Teams: Create dedicated channels for each project group in Teams. Students can use these channels to communicate, share files, and collaborate on documents using Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Teams' real-time editing capabilities ensure smooth collaboration and immediate feedback.
Enhanced Communication and Support
- In Moodle: Use Moodle to post announcements, course updates, and assignment deadlines.
- In Teams: Use Teams for ongoing communication and support. Instructors can hold virtual office hours, answer student queries through chat, and provide instant feedback on assignments. Teams' integration with Outlook can help manage calendars and schedule one-on-one meetings with students.
Simplify setup and maintenance: Automatic Sync between Moodle and Teams
It's possible to create a real-time connection between your Moodle course and a dedicated Class Team in VCC's Office 365 environment.
Instead of creating a new Class Team yourself and manually inviting your students to be Members, why not automatically synchronize your Moodle course to its own custom Class Team? Let the enrollment in your Moodle course automatically determine the membership in your Class Team, using an automatic connection between Moodle and Teams.
Requesting a synchronized Class Team for your Moodle course
eLearning Support can create a Class Team that's synchronized to your Moodle course, letting your course enrollment determine Team membership in real-time.
- Use the Moodle Class Team Setup request form to ask eLearning Support to activate a companion Class Team for your Moodle course.
- Important: Your Moodle shell must be visible to Students for the companion Class Team to be created. (Once visible, your Class Team is automatically created in about 1-3 minutes. After the Team is created, you can set your Moodle course to "Hide" again if needed.)
- Once your course's companion Team is in place, you and your Moodle Students will automatically be enrolled in it.
- eLSupport will also add the Microsoft block to your Moodle course, giving you one-click access to your Teams from inside Moodle.
Other ways to access Teams inside Moodle
A "Teams Meeting" toolbar button inside Moodle's editor makes it easy to schedule a Teams meeting and add the "Join" link to any Moodle resource or activity.