Teams chat

[Badaz52]

Hi everyone,

 

We are piloting teams with our year 10 and 12 students at the moment. The trial is going well but the private chat function is being heavily used between students and teachers and between students and students. I'm concerned that there is a huge safeguarding concern but our SLT are using it for when students don't like to ask questions in the group chat. I turned it off yesterday and all hell broke loose. I'm convinced that it should be turned off and can see students abusing it to speak to each other at the moment to waste time so I thought is it possible to allow students and teachers to chat privately but not student to student? Staff have the faculty license but students have the license for students.

 

I still think it should be turned off completely, students asking a question 1:1 in a classroom is very different to 1:1 in a virtual environment, you just never know what could happen. We have turned off private calling globally but it is the chat function I'm most worried about now.

 

Thanks!

[Norphy]

Raise the issue with your SLT. This isn't an IT decision, it's a Safeguarding one. Elevate it to them and have them take responsibility.

[Badaz52]

Raise the issue with your SLT. This isn't an IT decision, it's a Safeguarding one. Elevate it to them and have them take responsibility.

 

It is going to be discussed today but I wanted to check before I'm asked if student/teacher chat can be enabled but student/student disabled. Can it do you know?

[CyBeRkId2002]

No, I don't believe you can. Chat is either off or on for a user. Staff to staff would obviously be possible.

[TechMonkey]

We have used the default pupil policies with minor tweaking. That stops private chat for pupils but allows in team chat. It does mean a member of staff can't private chat with a pupil as well but they can private chat with another member of staff.

[CyBeRkId2002]

Quite right... should have added that. It is just private chat that is on or off and teams chat is seperate.

[TechMonkey]

I am looking into Information Barriers to see if there is a way to limit pupil to pupil communication while allowing Staff to pupil communication. Not sure it will do it but haven't had a proper look yet.

[MkII]

We started off disabling 1-1 pupil chat but it's a massive barrier to pupil engagement and well being, so we're now enabling it.

What everyone was doing was setting p private channels for pupils with 2 staff. Sometimes private Teams where staff didn't want extra channels in their Teams. This is hugely unwieldy, and offers no benefits over chat.

Bullying is the main concern but we're disallowing deletion of messages and can easily check what's been said.

[Driftingashore]

I am looking into Information Barriers to see if there is a way to limit pupil to pupil communication while allowing Staff to pupil communication. Not sure it will do it but haven't had a proper look yet.

 

I started looking into this (specifically scoped search) but I think that would also stop students tagging each other. It's really difficult because we want some things, but not others.. and thus, I gave up and just left private chat off. I'd be interested in knowing if you get something working well.

[TechMonkey]

From my initial reading I think the same as you, it would cause more issues than it would solve because it is intended for a very specific, strict use.

[leegcvcc]

I have disabled chat here. I think the issue is auditing of the private chats. I read somewhere that the tracing of private chats via reporting etc doesn't show the sender. It shows the content.

[unmode]

Here are a couple of posts you might find useful:

 

How to turn off chat for students in Microsoft Teams

 

How to search student chat conversations in Teams