A guide to Microsoft Teams

Thomas Courtley, ex teacher and LessonUp education specialist

Thomas Courtley

Education Specialist

Cover image blog_ A guide to Microsoft Teams

Online blackboard with Microsoft Teams and LessonUp

Simple. 🎯 Fun. 🥳 Assess as you go. 🚀

LessonUp is putting educators back into the driver's seat. Create, plan and teach your lessons around your students' learning needs and have fun!

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What do you need?

  • Microsoft Teams program installed by your school
  • A Microsoft account, for example, an Office 365 account to sign up or sign in to LessonUp for free

What do your students need?

  • A screen to follow the lesson, preferably a computer or tablet
  • A second screen to participate in interactive parts of the lesson, for example, a phone or using the split screen function on a laptop (optional, and depending on the content and nature of the lesson)
  • Access to Microsoft Teams (with the school details)
  • The LessonUp.app site or the LessonUp app (optional, and depending on the content and nature of the lesson)

How to proceed?

Step 1

Start Teams and log in with your Microsoft credentials. You may have the option to automatically log in with your school credentials (Single-Sign On).

Step 2

Teams will start up. Click on the Team you want to start the session (meeting) with. This is often your specific classes and classroom that are already configured under a school account in Teams.

Step 3

Choose the option “Schedule a meeting.” Once planned, you can check the box that only you have rights to share the screen. If you don't, students can take over the meeting. 

Of course, you can also choose “Meet now." Then you can proceed to step 5.

Step 4

If you created a scheduled lesson with details such as specific participants and time. The meeting will then automatically start at the entered time.

Step 5

To share your screen click on the button with the square and arrow.

Step 6 

At the bottom of the screen, choose the window you want to share. For example, this might be your browser containing LessonUp. Sharing just a tab is easiest to present to students. 

Note: We recommend not having data-sensitive information visible. For example, close all other tabs.

Step 7

Click on the “Teach” button to present the LessonUp lesson to the students. Your students can now participate in the (interactive) lesson just as in a regular classroom setting.

How do students participate in an interactive lesson?

At the moment your students can see your LessonUp lesson, but are not able to participate and provide answers. To participate in an interactive lesson, the student can use any device to join the lesson. 

In that case, advise students to use a computer or tablet to follow your lesson through Microsoft Teams and use their phone to give answers to the interactive components of the lesson. Of course, it’s also possible to use the split screen option on a laptop and some tablets. This allows students to open two browser screens side by side.