| Last year was the year of the video call. Video chatting with friends, coworkers, colleagues, full classrooms, and anyone else you have to meet with became the new normal. This new way of living made many tech businesses have to adapt their own video chatting system. Microsoft Teams in 2021 has been adapting since and these are the newest changes that have been released.  1. Breakout rooms  Huge video group meetings are something that hadn’t been used at this capacity before. The addition of breakout rooms will let large groups break down into smaller ones to get a more personalized experience. In Teams, during breakout rooms, the meeting organizer can send announcements to everyone, go between rooms, share files and swiftly bring everyone back to the main room. This is an addition that will greatly help teachers in conducting group projects or getting their students actively talking and doing activities.  2. Call joining experience  Jumping into a video call just got easier. The pre-join experience has been greatly improved with better audio, video and device setting capabilities. You can also now use Cortana and voice commands to join video calls.  3. End-of-meeting notifications  This new notification system will help in timekeeping and overall time management. I know we have all been in meetings that go way over its original scheduled time frame, and this is a way to prevent that. A notification will pop up indicating that the call only has ten minutes left, and when that ten minute is over, it won’t kick anyone out of the meeting but it will be a great way to end meetings in time. With plenty of warning, everyone involved will be mindful of how much time is left and wrap up their thoughts before it is too late.  4. More translations and captions  Microsoft understands that people around the world are using Teams and sometimes international meetings are being held on its platform. It is expanding its languages that can be translated in real time, such as Italian, Swedish, Hindi, Portuguese and German. There are currently 50 languages that can be translated while a meeting is happening. They have also added live closed captions while in a Microsoft Teams call.  5. Dynamic view  Sometimes it is hard to get everyone in the meeting on your screen at one time. This is especially hard when you are sharing your screen and giving a presentation. Microsoft Teams is working ona Dynamic view that will adjust the layout of participants so you can interact with the rest of the group members at all times. These new features are bound to make Microsoft Teams calls even easier in 2021. |
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