Estimated time to read: 5.5 minutes

Before your first class

Before you teach the first lesson of your GC Flex course, you will need to complete three important tasks:

1. Activate the Class Team that is provided to you by Georgian College IT
2. Create a recurring weekly Teams meeting
3. Share the Teams meeting link with your students

Activating your Class Team

Approximately three days before the semester starts, you will receive a Class Team with your students loaded, just as you receive a Blackboard shell for your course. Open your team and select the purple button that says ‘Activate’.  

Create a recurring Teams meeting for your GC Flex course

Creating a recurring MS Teams meeting linked to your Class Team can streamline items in your GC Flex delivery – including student authentication, pre-set breakout rooms, and student access to recordings.  

1. Open Microsoft Teams, go to your Class Team, and ensure you are in the General channel.

2. Click the drop-down arrow beside the cameron icon button found in the top right corner, and choose Schedule a meeting.

3. Fill in the meeting details. Suggested title: Course code, title, section, CRN. You do not have to add your students as attendees. Enter the date and time for the first class.

4.  Enter the recurrence. Repeat: Custom. Start: First class date. Repeat every 1 week. End: Last class date. Save.

5.  The General channel for your Class Team should already be populated in the Channel field. If not, click the Add Channel field and choose the General channel for your Class Team.  This is also where you can choose whether whether you want to send personal invites to all members of your Class Team (students will receive an email invitation for the meeting). 

6. You can leave the location field blank, or add the classroom location for your face-to-face students. Add details if needed. 

8. If you’d like to further customize the settings of your meeting, click More options, found on the right hand side of the page. You can learn about what options are available at Meeting options in Microsoft Teams. When the settings are as you'd like, click Send. 

Sharing the meeting link with students

In your Class Team

A post for the meeting will be created in the General posts area for the entire team to see.

You can pin this post so it stays visible by using the three dots icon in the upper right corner of the meeting description in the post and choosing ‘Pin’.

Students, and you, can click the meeting bar to join the meeting. 

By email

If you chose to “Send personal invites” when creating the meeting, your students will receive an Outlook calendar invite for the meeting.

In your Blackboard course content

Start by going into your Class Team. Find the General channel where you created your meeting, and click on the 3 dots icon beside the channel name. Choose ‘Get link to channel’.  

This link will direct students to the General channel in your Class Team where they can click on the pinned meeting to join. Posting the link to the channel, instead of the meeting link itself, can help to avoid student authentication issues (e.g. students logging in as guests). 

Now go to your Blackboard course and add the link in the main Content area:

• Under Content, select the plus icon and click create
• Select ‘Link’
• Paste the link in the Link URL section, and then give the link a title under Display Name
• Click Save

You will see your Weekly Meeting Link in your Blackboard Content area 

In your Blackboard course calendar

You can also add this link so that it will appear in your, and your students', Blackboard calendar.

Click on the Calendar tab, click the + button on the top right hand corner, and then choose Edit course schedule. 

Click the + icon beside "Add the times this course or organization meets".  

 The Nickname field will be pre-populated, but you can revise it if needed. Choose the start date, indicate how often it should occur and when the recurrence should end (by number of occurrences or on a specific date), and put the URL for your meeting in the Location field. Click Save. 

If you'd like, you can remove the session that occurs over study week by finding that date in the Blackboard calendar, clicking on that occurrence, and then the little trash can icon in the top right-hand corner. UNCHECK "Delete all events in the series" before clicking Delete.  

Your students will now have access to the meeting link in their Blackboard calendar, as well as from the main menu of the course.

Create a meeting tab in your Class Team (optional)

You can also create a tab in your Class Team for the actual meeting link. Go to the Teams calendar, click on the meeting you created, and copy link. 

In your class Team, click on the + icon to add a new tab.

From the pop-up window, choose Website. You can search for it using the keyword search field.   

Add a name for the tab/website and paste the link. Click Save. 

There is now a tab for your weekly class sessions available in your Class Team. This can be convenient for students even if you do pin the meeting in the general channel. 

If you have any questions, please contact facultyedtech@georgiancollege.ca!