{"id":188,"date":"2020-03-30T05:13:05","date_gmt":"2020-03-30T05:13:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.devopsabcs.com\/?p=188"},"modified":"2023-09-23T03:04:35","modified_gmt":"2023-09-23T03:04:35","slug":"enabling-remote-learning-with-office-365-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog-dev-001-bcdr.devopsabcs.com\/index.php\/2020\/03\/30\/enabling-remote-learning-with-office-365-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Enabling Remote Learning with Office 365 Education"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere during the Spring of 2020 and you are a parent of a school-aged child, then we likely<\/em> have something in common: you’re home-bound and so is your child. The COVID-19 pandemic<\/a> has hit your country as can be seen in the John Hopkins Coronavirus map<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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John Hopkins Coronavirus map<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You probably heard of terms such as “social distancing<\/a>” or more accurately “physical distancing”. You are certainly wondering when will your child go back to school? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every morning, my seven year old face-times his grand-parents, desperately trying to fight the social distancing<\/em> seemingly imposed on him in preference for the social interfacing<\/strong><\/em> he distinctly prefers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It occurred to me, if I’m able to effectively collaborate with my colleagues and customers leveraging Microsoft Teams<\/a>, why couldn’t my son use these very same tools to reach out to his friends and teachers?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, his school has no permanent IT staff and has limited resources. So I spent the last few nights and the weekend to setup and configure Office 365 Education A1<\/a> for my son’s school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this post showcased on Microsoft Premier Developer<\/a>, I will go through the broad strokes of setting up Office 365 Education. As a useful prerequisite, I purchased a domain name for the school for 2 years and donated it to the school. This will allow the teachers and students to use usernames such as teacher@yourschool.education<\/a> or student@yourschool.school<\/a> instead of teacher@yourschool.onmicrosoft.com<\/a> or student@yourschool.onmicrosoft.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The starting point is the Office 365 A1 trial sign up page<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Go ahead and Create a new account. This will be the first Microsoft 365 admin. As a general security best practice, it’s always wise to have 2 administrators<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ensure you are at the “Office 365 A1 for faculty Trial”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Once the first admin account is created, you should setup your domain by following the steps here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Don’t forget to add your domain!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Once the domain is added, the Microsoft 365 admin center<\/a> looks like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Microsoft 365 Admin Center<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Clicking on “Show All” on the left pane opens up much more options:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Show All<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You can follow the documentation and guides listed in the rightmost tile. The links can also be found in the References and Resources section at the end of this post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By and large, the default settings are a great start. There were however two options I needed to enable:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. By default, students can’t use the Teams app until it is enabled in the classic admin interface<\/li>
  2. My youngest son is deaf. He uses Cochlear implants<\/a> in order to hear and is in a special oral school for the deaf. Leveraging the live captions in Teams meetings<\/a> is essential. In addition, turning “Allow Transcriptions” on in the Global Meeting Policy<\/a> is extremely useful.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Enabling Teams app for Students<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

    First, go to the classic admin by toggling off the new admin center on the top right <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    Switching between the New and Classic Admin Centers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Next, go to the services and add-ins and select “Microsoft Teams”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    Secret to enabling Microsoft Teams for students<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    And finally, pick \u201cEducation – Student\u201d in Settings by user\/license type and ensure the Toggle is On.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    The default is off for students. Turn it on!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Don’t forget to re-enable the new admin center as it is much better!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Empowering Teachers and Delighting Students<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    The teachers felt empowered with Microsoft Teams for Education. They were quickly able to create classes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    Classes are special instances of Teams<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Quizzes and Assignments (to the joy of the students) leveraging Microsoft Forms<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    Loads of fun!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Class Notebooks and material:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    Sample Class Notebook that gets generated<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    The students were finally able to see their friends again on a daily basis much to their delight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    They were also assigned Quizzes and Assignments much to the delight of their parents…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    References and Resources<\/h2>\n\n\n\n