Microsoft Tools
Check out our top tips when working with Microsoft’s vast program/tool collection.
When posting to a conversation in a Microsoft Teams channel, use the format option. You can add a subject to your post and use paragraphs. This will keep your channel organized and make it easier to search.
You can create new assignments in @MicrosoftTeams based on assignments you’ve previously given. Just choose “From existing” and you’ll be able to use the old assignment as a template!
Add any website as a tab in @MicrosoftTeams to leverage to the power of “outside” resources INSIDE Teams! Include frequently accessed websites to give users easy access.
Need the same text format in @Office without manually changing? Highlight the text, click Format Painter on Home ribbon, & highlight text you want to change. Double click Format Painter to use multiple times.
To keep email or calendar notifications from popping up while presenting, use Focus Assist in Windows 10. Select Notifications>Expand>Focus assist to activate.
Design your presentation like a pro! The next time you add to a slide in PowerPoint, click on the Design tab to get the magic started.
Use the screen recorder in PowerPoint to record anything displaying on your screen. This feature can be used to create video tutorials for students, teachers, parents, and more. Check out this video
Save anything on the web to OneNote in one click. Add the OneNote Web Clipper to your web browser so you can save, annotate, and organize anything from the web. Click here for more
Use @OneNote to create a digital recipe book of your favorite recipes for easy access on any device, from anywhere. BONUS – You can also collaborate and share your notebook with others to expand your collection!
Create MP4 videos using PowerPoint. Once you have created and animated your slides, save your PowerPoint as an MP4. Here’s a quick tutorial
Want to crop an image in OneNote? Well… the wait is over! OneNote Online, and within Microsoft Teams, has a crop feature! Simply insert your image, click the picture tab, select crop, and crop your picture.
Do you love the way Snapchat can make you look years younger, just from a single filter? The Microsoft Selfie app has the same effect and it’s super easy.
Be sure you select “Reply” when participating in an existing conversation. This will ensure your comment stays in the same thread as the original announcement or question.
If you like To Do lists, you’ll love the To Do tag (checkbox) in OneNote. Press CTRL+1 to create boxes that you can check off for a sense of accomplishment.
Offering encouragement & feedback is vital to growth. Praise with Teams!
Step 1: Select the ellipsis, then Praise. Step 2: Select a badge. Step 3: Add the recipient and a note. Check out this video.
Whether you’re new to Flipgrid or a #FlipgridFever vet, check out the Disco Library for ready made Topics! Add these educator created Topics to your Grid. Check out more here
Looking for Minecraft lessons and lesson ideas? Visit education.minecraft.net. Refine your search by subject, age, and key words. Some lessons include handouts and premade worlds to share with your students!
Take your Flipgrid Topics to the next level by adding a Topic Attachment to your Topic! You can add links to websites or even Office365 documents to collaborate on.
Use Siri to add to your Microsoft To-Do list in Outlook! SYNC Office365 account w Reminders and you’re all set! Learn more about Siri here
Does a bright computer screen give you a headache or strain your eyes? If so, enable Dark Mode in Windows 10. Select the Windows icon (Start Menu) > Select Settings > Select Personalization > Select Colors > Enable Dark Mode
Microsoft’s Immersive Reader is in Flipgrid. Simply click the Immersive Reader icon and you’re ready to #EmpowerEveryVoice!
Share emails you receive through Teams. From the channel options choose “Get email address”. Email that address and the entire email will post to that channel.
Is your Teams channel list getting out of hand? Pin or hide channels to streamline your workflow.
To draw attention to a post in Microsoft Teams, add it as an “announcement”. In the upper left corner of the text input box, select the arrow next to “New conversation” and choose Announcement. Then type a headline for your message.
There’s a brand-new, exciting feature in class notebook – Bulk Delete a Distributed Page! The process is extremely easy and thorough so you don’t accidentally delete the wrong page.
Teams is a one-stop shop for distance learning. Do live meetings, chat, share documents, and collaborate. It’s free for personal AND school use. Sign your school up, or just getting a personal account, HERE.
Pin most frequently used Teams chats. Click the ellipses next to the chat and choose Pin. Drag pinned chats into the order you want. Do this for several chats and you’ll have all pinned chats within easy reach. Unpin the chat when you don’t need it front and center anymore.
Experience Immersive Reader in the Edge Browser. Click the book icon in the address bar to start. Focus on text as Immersive Reader takes away all distractions. If you do not see the book icon, select the ellipses menu on the right and choose Read aloud.
Private channels in Microsoft Teams create focused spaces for collaboration within your teams. Only the users on the team who are owners or members of the private channel can access the channel. Anyone, including guests, can be added as a member of a private channel as long as they are already members of the team. A private channel is useful when a group of people in a team want a focused space to collaborate without having to create a separate team.
Sway is an amazing presentation tool in Office 365 and includes a Remix button! This Remix button quickly changes the look by changing Style, Font, and Background color. Keep clicking the Remix button to find the best look for your Sway.
Most Office products now have a warehouse of icons that can be inserted into projects for eye-catching appeal. Access them from the Insert ribbon and search for your need.
Presence is part of a user’s profile in Teams (and throughout Office 365) that indicates current availability and status to other users. By default, anyone in your organization using Teams can see if other users are available online. In addition to presence automatically updating, users can also manually set their presence.
Rename group chats in Teams as an alternate for a list of names. Create better organization and quick access. Select the edit icon next to the name and type a new group name.
Working in Teams on a chat and a channel? Right-click on the chat stream and choose Pop out chat to give it its own window.
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Record your screen in Flipgrid! After clicking on the “Record a response” button, you will see the ellipses menu (3-dot menu). Click on it and choose “Record screen.” Create tech help videos, or other resources, and house them in one place.
Add bullet points in Office products by using the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+L. Save time and effort!
Windows 10 has a built-in screencasting tool that is unknown to many, the XBox Game Bar app. Simply press Windows + G to open the app and then press Windows + Alt + R to begin recording. The app was developed for gamers who wished to record their games, but anyone can use the app to record their screens or simply take a screenshot.
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Turn on new meeting experiences in Teams: Profile > Settings > Application. Pop out meetings and calls to separate windows to multi-task. This allows for a larger view of the meeting and you can still navigate through Teams – awesome feature if you have multiple monitors too!
Access Meeting Notes in Teams to collaborate on ideas, gather resources, and organize thoughts. These Meeting Notes will always be available in the Meeting Notes tab and in the Chat history of Teams.
Replay ink strokes in OneNote by selecting View > Replay. Choose the area you want to replay, or replay everything on the page. GREAT MATH TOOL!
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Shortcuts are a huge time saver. Here are 3 of my favs! Alt + Enter – Add a New Line in a Cell. Ctrl + ; – Add Current Date. Ctrl + Shift + : – Add Current Time.
Record audio while note-taking in OneNote by selecting Insert>Audio. Hover over text and select the play button to jump to that location in the audio file.
Microsoft Whiteboard is a great way to interact with your students and allow them to click and drag objects on the screen. Search for Whiteboard on your computer for access.
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The Teacher Only section in your class OneNote is the perfect spot to build lessons. Build, distribute and/or assign pages to students when you are ready. Check out this quick video to learn more.
The Class OneNote notebook in Teams is a game-changer. Create and assign OneNote pages to students to allow them to annotate, dictate and type right on the page. Set the image as a background to prevent the students from moving or deleting it. Check out these videos to learn more.
Noisy room in Teams? No Problem. Select your profile picture and choose Settings > Devices > Noise suppression. In the menu, select the level of background noise suppression you need.
Easily access your Windows 10 Sticky Notes in the OneNote app. Open the OneNote app and tap Sticky Notes at the bottom. Edit on your phone and Windows 10 device anytime!
Did you know that your students can do research & search the web while staying on a tab in Microsoft Edge? Highlight the word on the page, right-click, & search! Check out this video.
Edit PDF files in Word! Open Word, select File>Open and browse to the PDF. A message, “Word will now convert our PDF to an editable Word document” will appear. Select OK and begin.
Add conditional formatting to your inbox messages so you can quickly see what is new or comes from a specific sender or group. Select View>View Settings>Conditional Formatting. Then create a new rule to fit your needs.
Add whiteboard.chat as a top tab in Microsoft Teams so all of your students can collaborate together. Click collaborate> invite and share the link or QR code with students to begin working together in real time on the same whiteboard! Check out this video to see how.
Moving a page to a new section in OneNote is as easy as click, drag and drop! Hold down the Shift Key to select multiple pages.
Transform a Word document into a nicely designed PowerPoint presentation in Office 365 Online. Click on File > Transform > Transform to PowerPoint presentation.
Microsoft Edge has a built in web capture tool. Click the ellipse in the top right hand corner or right click anywhere on the webpage and choose “web capture.” Check out this video to see how.
Trouble seeing the video camera icon when you are holding a Teams meeting on an iPad? Clear the app data for Teams in the settings and it should fix the issue. Learn how in this Quick Tip.
Change the default due date time for all assignments in your class Team. Go into the Assignments tab and click on the ellipses in the right-hand corner > Assignment Settings and set your new default time.
There is a QR code generator built right into Microsoft Edge. Simply enable the QR code in your browser to easily share websites with your audience. Check out this Quick Tip for easy directions.
Create custom Teams announcement headers in Canva. Search for headers, choose a template, edit, resize to 918 x 120, download image, and upload the image to your Teams announcement. See how in this Quick Tip.
Record your Teams meetings for any users who could not attend the live event. It will post the video straight to the channel you were meeting in.
Practice giving your presentation and receive feedback with PPT’s Present Coach. Select Slide Show > Rehearse with Coach to receive feedback on tone, speed, and more!
Save some time and effort. Dictate text into your PPT slidedeck. Access it from the Home tab > Dictate.
Make the start of school easier by creating a class notebook in Teams using content from last year’s notebook. It’s a great way to re-use fabulous lessons from last year.
When inserting shapes in PPT, you can keep the looking perfect by holding the Shift key when clicking/dragging your mouse to draw it out.
Whether you are a student, parent, educator, school leader, or IT professional, Microsoft has an interactive demo for you. Go to Demo Tours | Microsoft Education to refresh your back to school tech skills.
In the high school world, we often have many schedule changes. With Teams Assignments, it is easy to manage. Simply click “edit student assignment settings” and choose “assign to all students added to this class in the future.”
Scan documents easily with the OneDrive app. It’s built in camera allows you to crop your image before saving. You get perfect results each time!
Remove duplicate data from a spreadsheet quickly. Highlight the cells the data is in. Select the data tab > Remove Duplicates. Verify the cells you want to remove, and click OK.
Add a Teams link to your calendar invite with a quick click. Recipients will have a “Join” button in the invite to easily access.
Sync your Sticky Notes across all your devices using the OneNote app. Create in the app or the Sticky Notes option on your Windows device. View and edit anywhere!
Have you ever needed to move a slide to the end of a deck that contains many slides? Simply click Ctrl + Shift + ⬇ or Ctrl + Shift + ⬆ to move it to the top.
You can pop out a Teams chat so that it can stay open while accessing other parts of Teams. Hover over the chat and select the pop out icon. It will have its own window.
Embed an interactive Form right into your PowerPoint presentation. See how here: Form Embed Add-In.
Grading in Teams is easy w rubrics. Convert a paper rubric into a Teams rubric. Select “Add rubric” and get started. Download a rubric as a .csv file to share with co-workers. They can upload it to a Teams Assignment.
Empower your students to track their data and set their own learning goals with #MicrosoftTeams and Microsoft #OneNote. See how in this quick tip.
You can now filter assignments in Teams by class for easy viewing. Select Assignments > All Classes > Filter by Class.
There is a QR code generator built right into PowerPoint? Check out this quick video to learn more.
Wish Teams files from a chat opened in the desktop app? They can! Select the ellipses, Open in, and Change Default.
You can create a visual presentation or web page from a Word document in just a few clicks. Open a Word document. Go to File>Transform. A window will open inside Word on the right. Click Transform.
Show your colleagues some love! Give them praise through your Teams Channel. Select the Praise option in the chat. Then choose which type of praise you want to give, type a short message, and add the recipient’s name.
Apps and Link Shortcuts can be added to the top of your Team. Use the “+” to add files, websites, notebooks, and more!
Edge has a built in password generator that offers suggestions when creating new accounts. Learn more here: Edge Password Generator .
Check out https://stokedeck.io/ for creative ice-breakers and warm-up activities to use with your class or team.
Easily add a list of answer options to a MS Form choice question. Copy the list of answers to your clipboard. Then paste all the answers into choice A of the question. Microsoft will add one choice per option.
Translate within OneNote. Highlight your text and select View>Translate>Selection. Then choose your language and translate.
Want to reply to a specific message from a Teams chat? Right-click on the message and choose reply. A copy of the message will appear in the text wizard and will accompany your reply.
Highlight text in an email and choose the task option to create a task to your Outlook To Do list.
Use the “=Proper” function to capitalize words in a column in Excel. Type “+Proper” into a cell. Add (the cell you want to apply the function to) and select enter.
It’s even easier to add images to a Microsoft Whiteboard. Simply click and drag the image from your desktop or explorer window.
Quickly copy data from one Excel Sheet to another. Right-click on the sheet name and choose Move or Copy. Select the box to Create a Copy and select OK.
Lock an Image onto a Microsoft Whiteboard to keep it from moving as you annotate. Select the image>the ellipses>Lock.
Import an existing quiz into Microsoft Forms. Select the Import button. Then upload a Word or PDF file. Select “See import guidance” for help to get it just right.
A new update turns on a feature in calendar to add a Teams link to every event. It can make things confusing. You can turn the auto-add meeting feature off. Open your calendar options and make the adjustment.
If Microsoft Teams is acting strange, it may be time to check for updates. You can do this by clicking the 3-dot menu in the top right corner. Next, choose “check for updates.”
Add a row in an Excel spreadsheet with this shortcut. Highlight a row. Then press Ctrl, Shift, and the plus key. It will insert a row above the row you highlighted.
Quickly sum up a column in Excel. Highlight a cell in the column below the numbers you want to sum. Then press Alt and the = key at the same time. It will sum up all numbers above it until an empty cell is detected.
Create a number sequence in an Excel column with this shortcut. Type “SEQUENCE(the number you need)” in the cell. It will fill the column for you!
Remember the days of using the spacebar, tab, and enter to try to get your cursor in the right spot to add text to Word? No more…just double-click anywhere on the document and start typing!
Quickly capitalize all words within an Excel cell or column by using the “=proper” function. Add the cell you wish to capitalize inside the parentheses.
Organize your TikTok tips and faves in OneNote. Paste the link in OneNote. It will pull up a player right on the page.
Copy or Move a sheet of data to a new file. Right-click the sheet name, select Move or Copy, and choose a new book.
We know Ctrl +Z to undo, but don’t forget Ctrl + Y will redo anything you just deleted or undid.
Quickly capitalize all letters within an Excel cell or column by using the “=upper” function. Add the cell in which you wish to capitalize all letters inside the parentheses.
Use the Ctrl + E function in Excel to quickly autofill a column with a specific format.
Quickly utilize Forms within Teams to collect data. You can share results in the post! In a new conversation, select the 3-dot menu and choose Forms. Then follow the prompts.
Adjust the widths of all columns in an Excel spreadsheet with the Alt + H O I shortcut.