Recently, Microsoft released new site templates for SharePoint and Microsoft Teams specifically for schools and universities. These new templates make it easier than ever for school leaders, staff, and students to share information, learning resources, events, quick links, and more.
A template for schools, staff, and classes were released to help students and faculty stay connected in a single online location, a huge demand as students and staff prepare to return to school during COVID-19. You’ll find more information about each template below.
School Home Page
The school home page serves as the main landing point for students, staff, and visitors visiting the school or university’s website. This page can be customized with the school’s colors, mascot, values, and motto. School leaders and teachers can post announcements, events, and resources, allowing visitors to stay up to date on what’s happening with the school and how it will affect their learning.
Some features of the school home page include:
Mega menu
Header background
Footer
Custom site logo
Staff Home Page
This template was created to be used with a Professional Learning Community (PLC) Team in Microsoft Teams or with a Staff team. When used with Microsoft Teams, the template can be added to your team meetings and discussions, allowing staff members to have fast, easy access to documents or important information. Once set up, this page serves as a dashboard where school staff and leaders can share quick links, events, documents, and learning resources.
The staff home page is also customizable, allowing school leaders to create a uniform, well-branded website. Additional features of this page are:
Event showcasing
Document display
Countdown button to important events
Call to action web parts
Highlighted content
Class Home Page
Also designed to be used by a Class team in Microsoft Teams, the class home page template acts as the main dashboard for a class. It’s a home base for students where they can find class events, helpful learning resources, staff contact information, assignments, important documents, and more.
Along with customizable backgrounds and themes, the class home page template also features:
Section and header backgrounds
Custom site logo
News and events layout
Quick links
Highlighted content
Each of these templates were designed based on feedback from educators and school leaders around the world to ensure that staff and students can stay connected while facing the new challenges of hybrid learning.
How JourneyTEAM can make these Solutions Work for You
As thousands of students and teachers are preparing to return to school, school officials are faced with a unique challenge: ensuring students and staff are taking the necessary precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and staying connected. The release of the new SharePoint templates is a great resource for schools and universities as it keeps everyone connected both on and off campus.
When asked about these new templates and how they could benefit educators, Napoleon Galang, Business Analyst for JourneyTEAM, said: “I think it’s a great step forward into expanding SharePoint into more than just a corporate tool that houses documents and communication. It’s a great addition that can really engage both the students and faculty. There’s great features that SharePoint already has that can really cultivate this new environment for everyone involved in education.”
With the fear and possibility that COVID-19 could potentially shut schools down again, Microsoft created these templates as a way for educational leaders and teachers to share any new information or update with students and parents immediately.
“In the world that we live in now, there’s a lot of information that needs to be sent out and for others to be informed about and to continue to engage with, whether that’s the faculty, staff, or students,” Napoleon stated. “SharePoint has released these templates specifically with schools and universities in mind where that information and communication can happen uninterrupted. Especially now where information changes from day-to-day, that information needs to be kept up-to-date without any delays. Microsoft SharePoint has provided a way for that with these templates, so whether you’re a student or a teacher, you’re going to know how to get the information they need. Regardless of if you’re going back to school in two weeks or in two months, these SharePoint templates solves a communication issue in an efficient and effective manner.”
Brent Tenny, Senior SharePoint Architect at JourneyTEAM stated: “We’ve worked with a number of universities and colleges over the years to help them move to a SharePoint site and to adopt cloud solutions. Currently, with the panic over Corona virus, universities are facing challenges with remote learning and Microsoft has released some solutions to help.”
He went on to speak of JourneyTEAM’s capability of helping other organizations utilize these solutions. “JourneyTEAM is well positioned to help universities and higher education institutions adopt these solutions and implement it into their environment. We’ve got a deep breadth of experience and we can help you deploy these solutions and make them work for you.”
For any additional questions, please contact Journeyteam at (801) 565-9199.