Microsoft Teams: Handy Tips

Below are some handy tips about how to use Microsoft Teams, based on questions people have asked so far.

If you aren’t sure how to do something on Teams, Microsoft have lots of online ‘how-to’ guides. Make sure you add Microsoft Teams on the end of what you search on Google (e.g. ‘logging of Microsoft Teams’).

If you can’t find what you are looking for, you can ask your teacher how to do it and they will try to get back to you. Remember we are still learning too!

Contents

Page 1: Replying to Messages

Page 2: Attaching home-learning or news to a message

Page 3: Saving a word document (or other document type) as a pdf

Page 4: Logging Off

Page 5 - 6: Read messages aloud

Page 7: Finding Quizzes or Online Tasks

Page 8: Turning Off Notifications

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Replying to Messages

You may have noticed that when someone writes a new message, it jumps to the bottom of the page, even if you are in the middle of writing a message!

When someone writes a message and you want to reply, try to keep this within a ‘thread’. This means that you reply to the message that you were sent, rather than sending a message to the whole group.

You reply to a thread by clicking ‘reply’ directly underneath the message you want to respond to.

If you want to write a new message that is sent to everyone, write in the bar at the bottom of the page.

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Attaching home-learning or news to a message

If you want to share a piece of learning, you can attach a video, an audio file or a photo to your message by clicking on the paper-clip icon. Remember to do this only in the channel for Sharing Learning (if your class has one).

If you have typed some learning on a word document or as a PowerPoint, you should be able to share this as well.

However, sometimes the teachers’ laptops have different versions of Microsoft Office to home laptops which can cause issues when opening things.

To get around this, you can save your document as a pdf which can be opened on most devices, including most phones (see the next page).

Saving a word document (or other document type) as pdf2

Firstly, save your document as normal.

Then, go to ‘save as’ again and click on the arrow next to the save button.

Select pdf from the drop-down menu.

Click save.

This should save your document as a pdf in the same folder.

It may automatically open as a pdf after you click ‘save’.

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Logging Off

When you are finished on Teams, you can click the red x in the top right-hand corner to close the website. If your internet is still open on other tabs, Teams will remain logged in.

If you want to log-off teams, click on your initials in the top right-hand corner of the screen and select ‘sign-out’.

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Read messages aloud

If you want some support with reading, Microsoft Teams can read messages aloud.

Hover over a message until the emojis appear.

Then click the 3 dots which will open a menu. Select ‘immersive reader’.

(continued on the next page)

A new screen will appear.

When you press the play button, it will read aloud the text word-by-word.

You can adjust the voice settings and volume by clicking on the volume icon next to the play button.

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Finding Quizzes or Online Tasks

If your teacher has shared a quiz or task via Teams, it will be found in the Assignments section of the General channel.

If your teacher has shared a document with you, it will be found in the Files section in the Class Materials folder.

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Turning Off Notifications

During live-chats, you might have found that you were receiving lots of notifications which could have been hard to manage.

Below is how to turn off notifications for new messages for a channel if you would like to.

If you are using the mobile app, click on the three lines at the top of your screen and go to the notifications section.

On a computer/laptop, hover your mouse next to the channel you want to adjust notifications for. Click on the three dots and a menu should appear.

The menu below will open and you can adjust your settings to what you would like.

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