Need help? Contact the ITS Help Desk at its.help@necmusic.edu or call us at 617-585-1235 (M-F, 9:00 am - 5:00 pm EST)
Frequently Asked Questions
What tools do I have to work and teach remotely?
- Neo is a learning management system, so is a good tool for assigning and collecting assignments from students, maintaining a gradebook, posting resources for your students to use, etc.
- Teams (and Zoom) is a collaboration tool, so it’s good if you want to instant message, voice/video chat, share your computer screen, or work on a document with someone else. (Teams is actually Microsoft’s “upgraded” version of Skype.)
- OneDrive (and DropBox) is good for sharing files and working together (live!) on collaborative Word, Excel, etc., files.
- The Office Suite applications – Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook – are now available for all staff, faculty, and teachers to use, and share for live collaborative documents!
To access Teams, OneDrive, and the Office suite apps, go to portal.office365.com and sign in with your @necmusic.edu credentials.
To access Neo, please reach out to equus.trundy@necmusic.edu to get set up!
You can use all of the above, or anything else you’re comfortable with to continue to work and remotely.
How can I stay in touch with my coworkers and students?
NEC staff, faculty, and students all have access to email, Teams and OneDrive.
- Text chat in Teams (How To document already available)
- Voice/video call in Teams (How To document already available)
- Screenshare in Teams (How To document already available)
- Whiteboard in Teams (How To document already available)
- Staff have access to their usual fileshare folders via GoTo or VPN (How To document already available)
- Staff and Faculty can also create a folder in OneDrive to share documents with other users (How To document already available)
- Faculty have a group in Neo – ask to be added!
How do I create a team in Microsoft Teams?
In order to keep things simple and flexible, teams are currently based on department and organization structure. We will be revisiting creating new teams after the dust has settled, but because of the back-end implications it creates on the the system structure we do not allow the creation of new teams at this time.
Creating a group chat with cross-functional groups has the same collaborative features: file sharing, video calling, scheduling meetings, etc. We recommend that you create a new chat group with everyone you want to include, and then rename the chat to help make it easy to identify!
Will there be training for ___? When?
Yes! We're currently developing training for the new tools and systems – stay tuned for more updates on system training soon.
How can I help?
We are touched by how many people have offered to share their experience and expertise with other members of the NEC community! If you have any experience with distance learning and feel comfortable sharing what has worked for you, please reach out to ITS (its.help@necmusic.edu), as they will be coordinating timing and publicizing training.