Keele Digital Festival - Microsoft Teams for Learning and Teaching - Keynote. An analysis of Microsoft Teams at scale: experiences so far

1. #TeamsUKEd
An analysis of Microsoft
Teams at scale: experiences
so far
Santanu Vasant
Head of the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching
(CELT)
@UEL___CELT | @santanuvasant

2. Santanu Vasant
 I have been working in various Academic
Development Unit roles since 2004 (Baume
and Pope, 2016) as a:
 Assistant e-Learning Technologist
 Learning Technology Adviser
 Learning Technology Co-Ordinator
 Instructional Designer
 Educational Technologist
 Senior Learning Technology Adviser
 Head of the Centre for Excellence in Learning
and Teaching
BSc Multimedia, Technology and Design (Hons) graduate and PGCE in
ICT Secondary, UCL Masters in Educational Technology. Interested in Learning
Spaces and Learning Design. Steering Group Member HeLF, Journal Reviewer for
Research in Learning Technology and Higher Education Pedagogies
Baume, D & Pope, C (2016). Advancing Practice in Academic Development.
1st Edition. Routledge. London.

3. #makeEDUbetter
"Technology won't
replace teachers, but
teachers who use
technology will probably
replace teachers who
don’t” – Steve Wheeler
(2013)
Source: http://www.steve-wheeler.co.uk/2013/03/technology-wont-
replace-teachers-but.html
Image Source: http://www.peterbryant.org/?p=750

4. #PedagogyFirst
"Pedagogy first – Before
selecting your new technology
for interacting and/or
communicating with the
learners, be sure that you fully
understand your educational
goal.” (Mason and Rennie, p51,
2008)
Mason, R.M & Rennie, F (2008). E-Learning and Social Networking
Handbook. Routledge. London.

5. #LearningDesign
"The new field of Learning
Design seeks to develop a
descriptive framework for
teaching and learning activities
(“educational notation”), and to
explore how this framework can
assist educators to share and
adopt great teaching ideas.”
(Dalziel et al, 2016)
Dalziel, J., Conole, G., Wills, S., Walker, S., Bennett, S., Dobozy, E., Cameron,
L., Badilescu-Buga, E. and Bower, M., 2016. The Larnaca Declaration on
Learning Design. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2016(1), p.7.
DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/jime.407

6. Hitting the right
keynote
Lawrie Phipps pointed me to Dr Donna
Lanclos’s blog post on Keynote Typologies.
She says keynotes are one or a mixture of:
 The Provocateur
 The Campaigner
 The Persuader
 The Entertainer
 The Reporter
 The Guru
 The Seller
Source: https://www.donnalanclos.com/a-
typology-of-keynotes/

7. Aims of the
Keynote
The aims of this keynote are:
 To give you a pedagogic rationale of why
you may use Teams (or not)
 To give you UEL’s experiences of
deploying Teams at scale
 Our lessons learnt so you don’t make the
same mistakes
 Our next steps, on our journey with Teams
and using it with other Educational
Technologies

8. Academic
Perspective I
Dan Duran, Cluster Lead for Art and Design (Edited by Kevin Pike)

9. Academic
Perspective II
Julia Papworth, Positive Psychology (Edited by Mauricio McPherson)

10. #TeamsUKEd
The overview…
Why use
Technology?
What was the
pedagogical
rationale /
need?
Why Microsoft
Teams for
Learning and
Teaching?
Which modules
did we pick and
why?
Who were our
key
stakeholders
and roles
What are our
experiences?
How did we
train staff?
What barriers
did we face with
Microsoft
Teams?
What have staff
and students
said of Teams
so far?
Lessons
Learnt?
Planning
Training
Evaluation
Our next
steps?
Planning
Training
Evaluation

11. Timeline so far…
December
2018
University
Stakeholder
Discovery
Day
February
2019
Microsoft
Team Project
starts
April 2019
Pilots in
Graphic
Design and
Psychology
June 2019
Training with
Level 3 and 4
Stakeholders
starts
July 2019 –
September
2019 Training
continues
September
2019
Mental
Wealth Day
September
2019
Teams for
Level 3 and 4
created
October
2019
Use of
Teams in 26
modules to
date

12. Institutional
Perspective
Mental Wealth Development Day, September 11th 2019 organised by Andy Rees
(Director of Learning and Teaching, College of Arts, Technology and Innovation),
Greg Price (Head of Learning and Developlment and myself.

13. #TeamsUKEd
Why use Technology?
Pedagogical Rationale
Why Microsoft Teams for Learning and Teaching?
Which modules?
Key Stakeholders?

14. #TeamsUKEd
Pedagogical Rationale
Background to the use of Microsoft Teams at the University of East London
was a new academic framework (20 credits, with a ‘Mental Wealth’ module at
each level.
• The University is a careers focused University, the new University Executive Board,
decided that a graduate attributes model should be mandatory at all levels of
teaching.
• This rationale was based on the OECD Learning Framework 2030, which looks at skills
needed as the world changes.
• By having the Mental Wealth modules at each level, the introduction can be
measured
• The ultimate aim is to make skills and project based learning explicit for our students

15. Why Microsoft
Teams?
Microsoft Teams is a business communication
tool, for keeping in touch on a project, with a
team etc (the shop window of Office 365 for
Business).
 Firstly, it was part of the Office365 (no additional
cost), so it had the integration with Outlook etc
 It’s more likely students may use it in the world
of work than Moodle, Blackboard or Canvas.
 There was good platform support (Web, Desktop
App, Tablet and Mobile)
 There was Moodle integration, plus connectors
available for other tools

16. #TeamsUKEd
Which Modules and why?
The ‘Mental Wealth’ module at Level 3 and 4 were selected for the first phase
of implementation of Microsoft Teams.
• The reasons for these modules is they are the most distinctive feature of the new
academic framework and where skills and competencies are taught in a project
based way
• There are 60 Mental Wealth Level 3 and 4 modules. There are 26 running in Term 1.
• Some course are also using Microsoft Teams for Teaching and Learning (like Positive
Psychology, Graphic Design), in addition to our other educational technologies.

17. #TeamsUKEd
An analysis of Microsoft Teams at Scale
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
MicrosoftTeams for Learning and Teaching at the University of East London –
September 1st - October 30th 2019
Messages ActiveChannels ActiveUsers

18. #TeamsUKEd
N.B. One of the Live Modules. The
template for all Mental Wealth
modules has Careers Centre,
Moodle, Study Skills and Library
and Learning Services

19. #TeamsUKEd

20. #TeamsUKEd

21. Who were the key
stakeholders and
roles ?
 The key stakeholders were the 60
academic staff, their students, IT, CELT
and Mental Wealth Champions.
 We had a core Mental Wealth team with
 A Project Manager
 A Business Sponsor
 Technical Adviser
 Business Adviser
 The core team met regularly to discuss the
Mental Wealth Project.

22. #TeamsUKEd
What are our experiences?
How did we train staff?
What barriers did we face with Microsoft Teams?
What have staff and students said so far?

23. #TeamsUKEd
How did we train staff?
We had to train approximately 60 academic staff, from February 2019
onwards.
 We used a mixture of training modes, materials and delivery.
 Face to face training (with individuals and with teams and whole departments)
 Microsoft Bootcamps (March, July and October 2019)
 Online materials from Microsoft (curated in a self-enrol module on Moodle) and a SharePoint page.
 A few bespoke materials designed in-house (giving the big picture and the minimum use that was
expected)
 The training was split into 2 types – functional (how to use feature X) vs the how to
make best use of learning and teaching – the former done by IT (and self-help) and
the latter by CELT.

24. #TeamsUKEd
Some resources used for Training…
Sources:
https://teamsdemo.office.com/
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/resources-teams-edu
https://education.microsoft.com/courses-and-resources/resources/microsoft-teams-
university
N.B. The LinkedIn Learning
version used for training is Teams
for Business, a little different to
Teams for Education.

25. #TeamsUKEd
What barriers did we face with Teams?
We are using Microsoft Teams at a quiet a large scale during the initial
rollout. We did find things didn’t quite work as we thought and some features
still missing.
 Teaching with Teams is a shift for academic staff.
 Staff are used to the VLE (Acquisition, Laurillard, 2012) mode of delivery – the VLE as the dumping
ground of files.
 Teams is a more constructivist tool (Collaboration, Laurillard, 2012) type of teaching – co-
constructing meaning of topics.
 Microsoft Teams is not yet a Virtual Learning Environment (no Turnitin integration, no
SCORM, no private channels, lacking in quizzing and assessment). However, as an
addition to a VLE it’s worth using, if it fits your learning design.
Laurillard, 2012 Learning Types, ABC Learning Design https://abc-ld.org/6-learning-types/

26. #TeamsUKEd
Question: What have been
the experiences to Teams
in your organisation?
Answer at: http://www.menti.com
Enter: 76 26 10

27. #TeamsUKEd
What have staff and students said so far?
Largely, staff and students have been positive about Microsoft Teams, as the
two case studies at the beginning highlighted. Below are some of the
emerging staff feedback.
“I need someone to teach the students as I am not yet confident. The year
has been too busy and I just have not had time to practice Teams-the
timescale was unrealistic to expect a tutor to use and teach Teams if they
were no already familiar”
“I have introduced the students to it. I have put up material on the Team
for them to access. Some have written to me. My plan is to keep inviting
them at various points through the academic year.”
We are using Teams a collaborative space for the major group work in the module. Teams is
fine to do this and I have set up templates for students to use etc, but support is need in the
use of OneNote as a delivery mechanism for content - it doesn't appear to have the same
clarity and access that Moodle offers. And I can't see it really replacing it. More
development work needs to be done on this area - particularly when you are dealing with
large cohorts 150 plus.

28. #TeamsUKEd
Lessons Learnt?
Planning?
Training?
Evaluation?

29. #TeamsUKEd
Lessons learnt in Planning, Training and
Evaluation.
There were many things we could have done differently. Some things were
not the decisions of the Project Team. These are a few lessons learnt.
• We needed a full time Project Manager from the start. Someone who’s sole
responsibility was to manage this big ticket priority.
• We could have had longer for the pilots, learnt lessons and then had a ‘Universal
Design for Learning’ (Toolkit) ready for Level 3, 4 and 7.
• We needed to create Teams asap, not rely on IT.
• We should have worked on integration sooner (but the speed of SITS-Teams
integration was 2 days!)
• We should have had more pulse checking (control measures) sooner.

30. #TeamsUKEd
Our Next Steps?
Planning?
Training?
Evaluation?

31. #TeamsUKEd
Next Steps in Planning, Training and
Evaluation.
The Mental Wealth and Microsoft Teams Project continues with Term 2
rollout with lessons learnt from Term 1.
 We plan to do the following as a results of lessons learnt:
 Have a more structured approach to managing the next phase of the Project
 Quickly get feedback from academic staff and students so things can be fixed if needed
 Continue to develop online learning and facilitation resources with local lessons learnt.
 Continue to case study good practice and link to Scholarship of Learning and Teaching Research
 Look at connectors and features to see if we can tweak anything
 Our students need to be taught how to learn in this different way (Martin and Tapp, 2019)
 Continue to communication with the organisation about how project and skills based education and
the tools we use are central to our new Vision 2028.
Martin, L., & Tapp, D. (2019). Teaching with Teams: An introduction to teaching an
undergraduate law module using Microsoft Teams. Innovative Practice in Higher Education,
3(3). Retrieved fromhttp://journals.staffs.ac.uk/index.php/ipihe/article/view/188

32. #TeamsUKEd
Question: What is one thing I
have not covered that you
want to know more about?
Answer at: http://www.menti.com
Enter: 76 26 10

33. #TeamsUKEd
Thank you for listening.
Questions?
Santanu Vasant, Head of the Centre for Excellence in
Learning and Teaching (CELT)
@UEL___CELT | @santanuvasant