As you will be aware from previous communications, Blackboard Collaborate will no longer be accessible after 31 August 2026. If you are delivering live online teaching sessions through Blackboard, these should now be scheduled and delivered using Microsoft Teams via your Blackboard module.
To support colleagues with this transition, the TEL Unit and Digital Services ran a joint LDTE session on 7 July, demonstrating the key tasks involved in using Teams for teaching within Blackboard. The session covered everything from creating meetings and adjusting settings through to managing recordings and making them available to students.
The videos below are taken from the LDTE session and provide a quick reference guide to each stage of the process.
1. Creating a Teams Meeting in Blackboard
Creating a Teams meeting directly from your Blackboard course allows students to access live sessions from a familiar location within their module. This approach helps keep teaching materials, communications and live sessions connected in one place.
In this video, you’ll see how to create and schedule a Teams meeting from within a Blackboard course:
2. Amending Meeting Settings
Teams provides a range of meeting options that allow you to tailor sessions to your teaching needs. These settings can help you manage who can present, control the participant experience and ensure meetings are configured appropriately before students arrive.
This video demonstrates where to find the meeting settings and how to make changes:
3. Using In-Meeting Features to Support Teaching
Teams includes a variety of tools that can help increase engagement and support learning during live sessions. Features such as chat, reactions, screen sharing, breakout rooms, polls and attendance reports can all contribute to an effective online teaching experience.
This video provides an overview of the key in-meeting features available to teaching staff and demonstrates how they can be used during a live session:
4. Accessing, Downloading and Sharing Recordings
Unlike Collaborate, Teams recordings are stored within Microsoft 365 and need to be downloaded before being added to a Blackboard course. Sharing recordings through Blackboard ensures students can access previous teaching sessions alongside other course materials.
This final video explains how to locate a Teams recording, download it and make it available to students within your Blackboard module by using Panopto:
Need Further Support?
If you’re preparing for the transition from Collaborate to Teams and would like additional guidance, please contact the TEL Unit, TEL@worc.ac.uk, or Digital Services.
