Using Teams to Teach

You can manage the permissions of a file or a folder full of files, choosing who can edit files and who can just view them. This must be done in SharePoint; it cannot be done through Teams.

1. In your SharePoint folder, find the file you want to manage access to. Click the '...' and choose 'Manage Access'.

This will show you everyone who has access to this file and what their permissions are. You may need to hover over the name to see the full name if it is particularly long. 

A pencil means they can edit; a pencil with a line means they cannot edit. Team owners can always edit all files, but team members can be limited to view-only.

2. Click the chevron next to your 'members' group and choose a permission level.  

You can follow this same process to adjust permissions for entire folders (or Teams channels) full of content. For example, content stored in 'General':

You can also require a password to edit a Powerpoint, Excel, or Word file when you save it. See this video for a demonstration. 

You can add files to your SharePoint Teams site in several ways.

1. Use the 'Files' tab in your Team and upload a file. This will put the file in the folder associated with that channel.

2. Attach a file to a message in Teams. This will put the file in the folder associated with that channel.

3. Upload directly to SharePoint by visiting the 'Documents' tab on your SharePoint Team site, then choosing the appropriate channel folder.

Note here that in addition to my channel folders - 'General' and 'Questions' - I also have a 'Course Materials' folder that is not linked to a channel. Here is where I store materials that I link to in Blackboard. You can organize yours any way you like. 

If your students need to submit large files such as videos or images for an assignment, you have several options. When considering these options, keep in mind two things. 

1. FERPA guidelines allow for students to see each other's work, as in the case of group work or presentations, but they do not allow them to see each other's grades or your comments on each other's work. 

2. You will want to retain a copy of the graded work in a persistent format as a record in case of future grade disputes. 

There is no perfect answer to this problem, so you'll need to decide which works best for you. 

Some options for submitting large files as assignments are: 

• Have students email the file as an attachment. 
  PROS: Easy and familiar to students. Automatically creates an archived copy of the file.
  CONS: May not work for extremely large files. Does not associate the file with a particular class, which may make it harder to track and organize.
   
• Have students share a file via OneDrive's 'share' function.
  PROS: Easy to use. Will work for large files.
  CONS: The links to files shared in this fashion expire after 30 days. Instructors MUST save a copy to their own OneDrive or storage location for an archived file.  Does not associate the file with a particular class, which may make it harder to track and organize.
   
• Create a private channel in Teams for each student and have students upload files to that channels 'File' section. 
  PROS: Easy to use. Will work for large files. Documents are associated with the class Teams SharePoint site and clearly organized. 
  CONS: Time-consuming to set-up. Teams only allows 30 channels per Team, so it will not work for larger classes. 
   
• Create a private folder in SharePoint for each student and have students upload files to that folder.
  PROS: Will work for large files. No folder limit. Documents are associated with the class Teams SharePoint site and clearly organized.
  CONS: Time-consuming to set-up. May be confusing to students.

You may want to embed a file so that it's visible in your Blackboard course rather than requiring students to click a link. The finished product looks like this: 

The menu at the bottom gives students options to view and download the file. 

NOTE: If you have not restricted the editing settings, students will be able to edit your original files stored in SharePoint. Be sure to manage the file permissions - or better yet, restrict permissions for an entire folder and store all your course materials in that folder.

Embed a file like this following these steps: 

1. In the online version of Microsoft 365, choose 'File', 'Share', 'Embed' (this option is not present in the desktop version). These screenshots are from Word, but this also works in Powerpoint and Excel.

2. Adjust your height and width settings, then copy the embed code in the box. 

3. In Blackboard, create an item in which to embed your document.  Click on the HTML option on the toolbar.

4. You'll now see an empty box. Paste your embed code into that box and save. 

5. You're done! When editing, you'll see the embedded document as a blank yellow box, but when you save, your document will be functional and embedded.