Welcome to the monthly Teams for Education update! We appreciate your participation in Microsoft's expanding community. We are thrilled to announce some fantastic new updates that Microsoft team has been working on, and we are excited to share them with you. Let's dive in and explore what's new this month.

1. Viva Connections for Education

- One connected experience for students

Microsoft Viva Connections for Education is a digital platform that consolidates all necessary resources for students in one place, conveniently located within Microsoft Teams. With a user-friendly design and streamlined access, each student's dashboard is tailored to their individual needs, providing a digital home where they can start and end each day while staying connected to their educational institution throughout their academic journey. Real-time updates can be easily shared by institutions, ensuring students are always informed of important deadlines and upcoming campus events. Students can even choose their preferred language in Teams for a more personalized experience and access the same resources on their mobile devices.

If you’re interested in using Viva Connections for Education, you can learn more about pairing the platform with your existing Microsoft capabilities on the Viva Connections website.

Viva Connections for Education general availability is scheduled for July, 2023.

2. Assignments Updates

• Mark the assignment as Inactive to help organize up the assignments list for educators and students

Educators have expressed a desire to hide assignments from students' view. This feature is particularly useful for optional assignments, those that do not require submission, or assignments that are not completed by all students. By hiding these completed assignments, teachers can avoid having a cluttered list of active assignments, and students can focus on the important ones.

We have now added the feature for teachers to mark the assignment as inactive, which will hide it from the active list for both students and teachers.

Students can still access the assignment and its content in their completed assignment list and gradebook.

• Updated Create Experience for Assignments

The Assignment creation experience has been updated to a modern design, accessible across Mobile, Web, and Desktop. The new design provides additional space for instructions, a more streamlined selection of Assignment options, and a quick and easy way to schedule assignments without the need for separate dialogs. These updates aim to enhance the user experience and make Assignment creation more efficient and user-friendly.

3. An Introduction to “New Teams”

• Reimagined and enhanced with a performance-first mindset:

Microsoft has recently introduced the start of a new era for Microsoft Teams - a complete reimagination of the software for a faster, simpler, and more adaptable Teams experience. They’ve begun rolling out the public preview version of the new Teams desktop app for Windows.

The new Teams experience is set to provide users with numerous benefits, including:

• Double the speed for starting up the app, presenting in meetings, and responding to messages
• 50% less memory, lower CPU and disk usage, and less impact on battery life
• Seamless navigation between multiple accounts and multiple tenants, providing a smoother experience
• Improved reliability, security, and manageability through the use of trusted types, stringent CSPs, and integration with MSIX.

The New Teams interface is available on Windows Desktop only.

• How to Opt In

Once New Teams is released for the Education sector, users will see a Toggle Button in the top left corner of the Teams Desktop in their current version of Teams (Classic). Users can turn this toggle on, when prompted, and can access the New Teams experience by clicking "Get it now" to install the new Teams client.

Users can go back to Classic Teams at any time, simply by toggling off the button in the top left corner.

Please Note: EDU customers will receive New Teams on a different timeline than Enterprise customers in order to serve the unique needs of the education sector.

For more information on New Teams, please visit - The new Microsoft Teams desktop client - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn

4. Apps support in Channel Meetings, including Polls

Available now

As a gold partner for Microsoft, Ctelecoms is at the forefront of providing businesses with the latest Microsoft Teams updates and enhancements. The new Teams experience offers a faster, simpler, and more flexible collaboration platform that is sure to enhance productivity and efficiency. Businesses can integrate the new Teams desktop app for Windows into their workflow seamlessly. Join us on this exciting new journey of fast and flexible collaboration with Microsoft Teams.

In case you have any inquiries regarding the efficient utilization of Microsoft Teams and ensuring an excellent remote learning experience, don't hesitate to reach out to our team of experts.