Recently, DCPS has made the change from Zoom to Microsoft Teams in online school. People seem to be under the impression that Zoom is superior. This is a blatant falsehood, here’s why.

A key feature that sets Teams apart from Zoom is that Teams was designed for classes. It has assignments, files, and calendar tabs, and everything posted in the chat during classes goes in the general team chat as well. This way you can go back and read through everyone begging to be let into the meeting from the lobby once the class is over (teachers just can’t figure that one out huh). It even has a class notebook, where people take notes for the entire class to use as a resource (it takes a village to pass AP Physics). 

Teams also has a feature which ranks people in the meeting. Owner is the highest, then presenter, then attendee. For the most part, students are attendees. This is really helpful as it allows teachers to control the class and limit their privileges in teams, as opposed to Zoom, where students can more easily take control, wreaking havoc and causing general pandemonium.

This brings us to the next point, which is security. Anyone with a link/password can get into a Zoom meeting. This was a major problem in the beginning of last year, as people would infiltrate Zoom meetings with fake names and disrupt the class. Teams combats this because you have to join with your Microsoft account through the Teams app, and therefore it uses your real name, preventing people from flooding your classes.

Despite rampant Teams slander, what makes it the superior platform are its many features and thorough, thoughtful design for classroom use.