Microsoft is preparing a new feature so that chats do not become a distraction among students.
We have already told you about all the functions that Microsoft Teams dedicates to educators and students to facilitate online classes. It has moderation tools, functions to share content in small groups and many options that teachers can activate to customize the dynamics of the classes.
And soon, a new feature will be added that will allow students to communicate privately with educators, without being a source of distraction.
New Microsoft Teams option to communicate between students and educators
While teachers can enable chat so that everyone can communicate privately, this can backfire among students. Students often use chat to communicate with their friends in class, cheat on exams and others take advantage of the fact that it is a private space to harass other students.
Microsoft wants to solve this problem with a supervised chat. The idea is that students cannot participate in chats (individual or group) without supervision. And of course, teachers can turn off chat between students if it is distracting, but leave the line open for them to communicate with the educator.
This new feature, which is still being tested, has generated different opinions among educators. If we take a look at the feedback from users to this announcement from Microsoft, we will see that some users consider that it is not a good option, since the students could generate spam to the educators while they teach the class, and even harass them. And not to mention how privacy will be handled between students.
Taking into account that most of the options offered by Microsoft Teams are configurable, teachers can activate this option or not, depending on the needs of each class. At the moment, this feature is within the Teams roadmap, so it will be added in one of the next updates that will be released in April.
