Your Team's Files, where you want them

Even though everything is in the cloud, we really like to have a copy on our computers (we work on public transit, in places with no or poor wifi, and we never really trust the cloud). So when we're working in a cloud space, here's how you can sync the files to your device.
We have a Math Department Team on Microsoft Teams (it is free if you'd like to do the same thing at your school) and a Channel within the Team for each course to discuss, build and share resources.
I teach MPM2D, our Grade 10 course, and so all I really care about is Grade 10 math. Sorry, Calc & Stats!

So, within each Team Channel there's a dedicated file space - and we work on files together there. Course descriptions, tests, projects, you name it. But I don't want to have to go to Teams to get the files! I'd like them on my hard drive and be able to get to them through File Explorer (like I have since 1995!)

Click on the FILES button when you're in the Channel that you want to sync. You'll see all the files that are associated with your Channel. Notice that you can organize things in folders - it's not just one big space. We've been using this Team for the previous academic year so we've pushed that into its own folder and keep the current year in the list.

To start the sync connection to your device, click on OPEN IN SHAREPOINT. A browser window will open and you'll likely be asked to log in. You're now on the "site" that Microsoft Teams is actually hiding from you.

Click on SYNC. A number of pop-ups may show up... accept all as necessary. I think I had "Are you sure you want to switch apps" and "Getting ready to sync".
The last one to show up will be the one below, where you get to choose which of the folders in your Team Channel (notice I don't see all the other channels! No Calc, No Stats, Just Grade 10 Math!).
Go ahead and click on START SYNC and the syncing process will begin down to your device. (Quick hint: always do this at school so that your home broadband isn't counting all this transferring of data!)

If you now go to your Windows Explorer (or your file directory show-er on your device), you'll see a new option in the left column with your school's name (blurred here) and the MPM2D folder synced to your computer. You now have off-line copies of all of your files in your Teams Channel folder on your computer.

You can now open up any files from this folder on your computer and contents will all sync back up to the Teams channel, and any new files will appear on your device.

Comments

Desmos, OneNote & Replay

So using Desmos activities are a great way to encourage exploration and discussion in math class -- if you haven't tried them, I encourage it. They're collected at https://teacher.desmos.com/ But ... Desmos doesn't give you quite enough. It doesn't have a way of capturing the work that the student does within their space, and it doesn't allow for annotation of class contributions as we come together to discuss. Well, not surprisingly, OneNote comes to the rescue. Using the Windows shortcut Windows-Shift-S it is really quick to snag the Desmos screen and pop it into a waiting OneNote page. From there, we can grab our pen and (using wireless projection) talk about what all the different responses mean and where to go from there. (An aside : one of the nice features of Desmos activities are the way you can hit PAUSE and it will pause all the screens of the students working. I always give them a heads up "10 seconds to pause..." and it's refr

So you want to hack your OneNote Class Notebook

Taking a brief break from my "Getting Started with OneNote Class Notebook" series (you can start that one here )... This is a little advanced so if you're not comfortable setting permissions inside of Office365 you may want to avoid this. Or set up a Class Notebook to play with so that it doesn't affect any existing Class Notebooks. Yeah, the latter is a good option. One of the great powers of OneNote is that you can do some really neat permissioning of the Section Tabs. When the Notebook is created, of course, it gives you an "open permissions" on the Collaboration Space and student-read-only on the Content Library. And then each student space is wide open to each individual student. But we've found that occasionally you want to mix up the permissions a little. For example, you could create a space in a student section for your private notes that the student couldn't see, or maybe you want a tab in the Collaboration Space that students cou

Escape Room / BreakOut in OneNote

[[Part 2 of this article is here: Link] ] So when I was visiting Anna in Edinburgh during March Break, she showed me how she used Password-Protected OneNote sections within the OneNote ClassNotebook to help students check their work -- she set the password to the correct answer, so they knew they had it right when the Section opened up. I figured I could use this for Math Review, so I set aside a couple of hours (turned out to be 3 hours but a fair chunk of that was solution-time) the other night to put an Exam Review together for my Grade 10 Mathematics course. I pulled together as many multiple choice questions and short answer questions on the topics as I could Google and tried to balance each Section with a mix of topics and then threw in a couple of pop-culture questions, too. The students worked on the problems in each section and used the answers as passwords to unlock the next section until they got to the Prize section. Result? Near total continual engagement

Continuous formation

Search This Blog