Give your students the right tools for collaboration
Are you looking for ways to strengthen your students’ ability to collaborate more independently on their learning? A new course prepares you to use Microsoft 365 for exactly that. The course provides an overview of the features in Microsoft 365 and helps you assess when various features make educational sense, particularly in relation to facilitating student collaboration.
In Brightspace, teachers can structure content and organise courses and activities. At the same time, however, Brightspace is a system where the teacher’s role is typically directive and collaboration between students is not always supported. This has created a need for a supplement, particularly when it comes to group work and co-creation.
“Learning activities and course flows in Brightspace are made available to the students by the teacher. In that sense, there is a kind of hierarchy. For a long time, we have wanted to empower students to take more control. Microsoft 365 offers a range of tools that allow them to take more control of their study group work and project work, by sharing files and folders, communicating via chat, or collaborating on documents,” says special consultant Birthe Aagesen from the CED, who works with the development and implementation of learning designs that integrate digital tools and technologies.
Now that all students at AU have access to Microsoft 365, it is, for example, possible to create collaborative spaces in Teams where permissions and access are managed in an intuitive and secure way.
“The teachers do not have to control everything. Students can set up their own teams and collaborate without the teacher looking over their shoulders,” Birthe Aagesen explains.
A supplement to Brightspace – not a replacement
The need to provide students with better opportunities for collaboration has been on the agenda for some years. Now, the technology and platform are in place, opening new possibilities for teaching.
“We should use the Microsoft 365 suite when Brightspace cannot support what we want to facilitate for students in our teaching. It is not a question of either-or, but of choosing the right tool for the job,” Birthe Aagesen emphasises.
She likens the suite to a Swiss army knife, offering a wide range of solutions in one place. It includes well-known programmes such as Teams, Word and Excel, but also features a variety of lesser-known tools such as Loop, Whiteboard, and Planner, all of which hold significant pedagogical potential.
Among other programmes, Birthe Aagesen highlights Loop, which students can use to build wiki-like structures with subpages and internal navigation. For example, this makes it ideal for shared resource collections. Whiteboard, despite its simple functionality, is a popular collaboration tool among students and allows for visual idea development in groups. Planner can help study groups gain an overview of project workflows.
She emphasises that many features are relatively intuitive and easy to get started with, but that help from the CED is of course available. This includes both technical support from the CED support team and guidance for those who want help with the more educational aspects of integrating technology into their teaching.
A course with room for questions and dialogue
Birthe Aagesen leads the CED’s new course Teaching in the cloud: Introduction to Microsoft 365 and Teams in university teaching, which explores the many educational potentials of Microsoft 365.
“At the course, I demonstrate various tools and present examples of how they can be used in teaching. The course provides an overview and helps participants assess which tools are relevant in which situations. Additionally, there will be an opportunity to experiment and exchange ideas,” she explains.
The course is part of the organisational implementation of Microsoft 365 at AU and aims to support an educationally meaningful transition to the new opportunities. The target group includes both teachers and administrative staff involved in course development.
“The course can also serve as an initial introduction. Participants are always welcome to contact the CED afterwards for follow-up consultancy, local workshops, or technical assistance,” she concludes.