What you need to know
- Microsoft Teams will soon start letting users view up to 49 meeting participants at once.
- People will appear in a seven-by-seven grid view.
- Microsoft says the increased limit will hit preview later in June and roll out to everyone this fall.
Microsoft Teams is set to boost the number of meeting participants you can view at once to 49. The company announced the feature will be coming to preview later in June in an education-focused blog post today, showing off the new seven-by-seven grid view that will accompany it. Microsoft says it plans to roll the feature out to everyone this fall.
The new limit is something Microsoft confirmed was on its roadmap in early June, but we didn't have a firm timeline for its arrival at the time. Bumping to 49 viewable participants also puts Teams on part with Zoom, whose limit is also 49 viewable participants. The announcements also comes after Microsoft increased the overall limit for meeting participants to 300.
Taking feedback from education users, Microsoft also announced that educators will be able to create breakout room for smaller groups of students to meet this fall. That's in addition to the "raise hand" feature for class meetings, attendance reports, and intelligent class insights to show how students engage with classes and assignments.
Additionally, new meeting options for educators are coming to give teachers more control. One new option will prevent students from starting meetings unattended, while another lets teachers set who is allowed to present in meetings. There's also a "Meeting Lobby" coming that allows educators to make sure that only assigned students will be able to join a meeting.
Because many classrooms are likely to continue remote learning this fall, all of these features should make things a bit easier for educators. For more on Microsoft's insights from the shift to virtual learning, check out Microsoft's full blog post.
