Associate Professor Florian Martin-Bariteau (Common Law Section) had a number of events scheduled before the end of the school year. He had been monitoring the COVID-19 situation closely, so when the orders came for a campus shutdown, he was prepared.
Martin-Bariteau had been thinking about how he would stay connected to his students if he had to teach remotely, so he developed a MS Teams how-to guide for them. The work paid off and he successfully enabled remote learning, in addition to hosting events.
A reliable and secure solution for students
“Microsoft Teams was an obvious choice for me. I had already been using it for work, so I knew it was reliable, well integrated with other University systems, intuitive and most importantly, secure. For me, it’s important to use institutionally-supported solutions.”
Martin-Bariteau initially began using MS Teams with his class. It offered him the flexibility to easily present PowerPoint slides, include guest lecturers and even allow his students to present. The availability of a full web version of Teams — in addition to Teams being widely used — made it very easy.
“The process went super well. Students liked interacting with me through Teams, and I could easily involve them in the class. They had no issues presenting slides, even as a group. Because Teams is well integrated with other Microsoft products, it was easy for me to send meeting invitations and reminders to students, too.”
Event hosting made easy
When it came time to host a Government of Canada-funded Copyright Policy Moot, Martin-Bariteau and his colleagues considered many options. The event was going to include 55 participants from the University, the government and other universities across Canada over two days.
Given its ease of use and Martin-Bariteau’s success using it with his students, he decided to host the event on Teams.
“The response was great. Students from uOttawa, McGill, University of Toronto, York University, Université de Sherbooke and policy advisers from the Government of Canada all connected (via web, app and phone) without any issues.”
Teams made it easy to differentiate the roles of participants and offered a multitude of guest/presenter options, while making it easy for participants to connect.
Martin-Bariteau doesn’t know what the future holds, and when he’ll be able to teach in person, but he’s sure he will use Teams to teach and host meetings, talks and other events for the time being. He believes Teams is here to stay and connecting to others (virtually) will get easier — even when we’re back on campus.
Check out Professor Florian Martin-Bariteau’s MS Teams how-to guide for some quick steps to getting started in Teams.