2017 Start of Year Release Notes

Transcription

1 2017 Start of Year Release Notes Outside of the standard itslearning bi-weekly change release programme, Start of Year, 2017 marks the inclusion of new features on the platform as well as further enhancements, all designed to create an even better learning experience and to re-energise you for the start of the new academic year. The itslearning learning platform caters for both basic and advanced functions according to need; the scope and breadth of what s attainable is what differentiates us from our competitors. The format of the document consists of a dashboard Menu highlighting all headings of the features being described, followed by detailed information on each henceforth. The Menu facilitates direct navigation to each feature by selecting (Ctrl + Click) each header. At any place in the document you can return to the dashboard Menu by selecting (Ctrl + Click) Return to Menu. The information in this document aims to provide you with the best possible overview of the enhancements we're doing in itslearning to make Start of Year 2017 a great success. Where further clarity is sought please contact your assigned Account Manager or the itslearning UK office at customer.uk@itslearning.com. Any updates/changes to the content within this document will be referenced through a version uplift.

2 Menu Feature Status In Production Plan View for Students (Planner) Quick Add Menu in Courses Task Tool Library Enhancements & Onboarding Updated File or Folder Trends & Progress Report itslearning Mobile App Live Live Live Live Live Live Live Release 86 Activities & Homework Connected to Calendar Event Schedule Bulletins June June Release 87 Gradebook/Assessment Record New Assignment Tool with In-line Assignment Annotation Creating and Viewing Office Documents (Office Online) Third Party Content: LTI Key & Secret Management July July July July Release 88 New File Uploader in Task Tool Onboarding for New Courses Google Apps Integration Linking & Collaboration with Google Documents Tree Menu on Resources Page July July July July July Release 89 Customer Branding Linking & Collaboration with Office 365 Documents Assignment/Homework Submit on Behalf of Student August August August Beyond SoY (Part of General Roadmap) New Test Tool This Week Q3-Q4 Q3-Q4

3 Plan View for Students (Planner) Return to Menu When teachers create a plan, they may have combined resources and activities that together let the students work on the objectives the teacher has planned. We want to make sure that the student can focus on the content of this plan. That's why we've introduced a plan view for students. Students can simply click 'Start' to view the plan from the content block. This label is visible in the content block, but also in the planner itself:

4 This will open a full-screen window where a student can systematically progress from one resource to the next, without the risk of getting lost in the navigation. We've also brought the resources and activities columns of the Planner together, so teachers can create a path that contains resources and activities mixed in the best sequence. When activities in the planner are tagged as homework, this can be seen directly in the planner content block with the 'Homework' label. Quick Add Menu in Courses We've introduced a new quick add menu in courses.

5 Task Tool Custom Activity has been renamed to Task and simplified when it comes to usability and effort required to create. Creating a new Task is quickly done by clicking Task in the new Add menu: The main dialog is simplified and requires only input of task title, description or if desired a specified deadline. The teacher also has the option to tag the new task with Homework, making it appear in the Planner. In addition it will appear on the Home page with visualization of tasks that are students homework. In addition to marking a Task as homework you can also push the Task to a given topic/plan. Clicking Show in plans enable a Topic selector along with Plan selector.

6 Once desired topic/plans are selected and saved, the task is pushed and appears accordingly in the plan: The most common input fields are displayed in the launching dialog while more detailed setup is available via a "Show more options" link that expands the dialog with additional/optional settings for the task.

7 Library Enhancements & Onboarding We want to offer an ecosystem for sharing educational tools and resources and want to make the itslearning Library our teacher's preferred tool for searching, creating, and sharing learning resources. We are improving the search usability to make finding the right content as simple as possible. This includes better searching across the different standard systems used by different districts to improve search results (standards cross-walking). We will extend the options for importing and managing publisher content, and give publishers more viability of usage so they can target their content to better support key educational challenges. The changes include: Key improvements to our library Easier to search for resources in library and add to a course or teaching plan. Onboarding for users to guide them through the library features. Improvements to the versioning and co-authoring features in library. Improved support for LTI integration. Teachers can now enter the Library, search and add learning resources to a course or a course plan. With these new push based workflows, the teacher can explore the Library for content and based on findings select where the resource has value for the students. The current Add to Your collection button is now expanded with a drop-down menu with three choices: Add to course Add to a course plan Add to your collection

8 When adding a resource from the search results to a course the teacher can select which folder within a course the resources shall be added to (by clicking Add to a course ).

9 When adding a resource from the search results to a course plan, the teacher first select target course and then what plan the resource shall be added to (by clicking Add to a course plan ). Both the new workflows are also supported in mobile devices. The example below shows selection of course > course plan:

10 Teachers can also follow the resource added to the target course or course plan: Return to Menu

11 The new workflows of adding resources directly from the Library to a course or course plan are being introduced for our users by an onboarding sequence:

12

13 Updated File or Folder The new File or folder tool (on the add course page and New Task tool) includes a new file uploader with improved interface and better flow. Trends and Progress report This new report provides you with a visual overview of gradebook data, and along with the progress bar allows you to quickly spot students who might be struggling, or improving over time. A distribution of grades (by scale) allows you to see how consistently a student has been performing, or whether their grades vary widely. Using this report you can monitor student progress in your course faster and more effectively.

14 Activities and Homework Connected to a Calendar Event Until now, Task, Assignments and Tests would only show in calendar events if they were connected to a plan. As a follow-up to pushing tasks directly to a given plan, tasks with homework label and activities are now connected to the Calendar events. When teacher creates an event in the organisation, any activities connected to a plan will be visible in the calendar. The activities must either have a deadline with in the timeline of selected plan or have a deadline at a specific event to show in the calendar. Adding a task to the Calendar:

15 Adding an Assignment or Test to the Calendar: If "homework" is checked, we will display a "homework" label in the event box so that the teacher and student can easily see courses with homework in the calendar schedule.

16 itslearning Mobile App We re already offering mobile apps which allows students and teachers to stay up to date through on-demand access to essential information and easy communication through our instant messaging system. We re now facilitating having the full itslearning experience through our apps. Major enhancements to the app features: Improved login process, it is now much easier for our users to log in to their own schools

17 Access to courses and course content directly in the app You can now find a list of your (favourite) courses, and access all the content. We've also included some of the course dashboard features like bulletins, updates, tasks and events An important change is that you will no longer be required to log in when opening itslearning content inside the app. When clicking on an element in the course resources, we will display the content without the itslearning menu, and without switching to an external browser. Every WebView (meaning displaying web content inside the app) will have a button to take you to the same content in the external browser. Our aim is to build at least the most used tools natively in the app, giving an even better user experience.

18 New look and feel Until now the Android and ios versions have been quite similar in appearance. Moving forward we want to change the designs of our app not only to match the changes happening in web, but also to feel natural for our users. The expectations to flows and appearance are different for an ios user and an Android user, and we also want to build on the strengths of each one. We also moved the "More" (which is from now on the Personal Menu) to be accessed from a hamburger icon in the upper left corner. The appearance and content of this will gradually change as we extend and improve the app further. The messaging system will also get a face-lift as we are working to add functionality there. Android: ios:

19 Any user will expect to find similar functionality in the app as in web. For areas like messaging this includes leaving a conversation, editing and deleting messages, and also functionality like forward, direct-reply and starring. ios options for a message: Android Starred messages: Tablet support Our app is now supported on Android and ipad tablets, making itslearning much more accessible for use in classrooms. The functionality is the same as on phones, but adapted to larger screens. Schedule Bulletins In addition to disabling comments, the teacher can schedule when a bulletin shall be visible for students and when it should disappear. This is very useful for planning bulletin posts ahead whilst preparing for activities. Start typing the bulletin and add an image or a resource if needed. In the Options pull down menu select Schedule bulletin

20 Decide when to show and remove the bulletin and click the Apply button. Click Add bulletin

21 A scheduled bulletin will be posted to your students per selected date/time range. You may edit selected range:

22 And a new icon showing when comments are disabled as disable/enable comments are moved to the Options menu: Gradebook/Assessment Record We want itslearning to be a student s one-stop-shop for grades, allowing them to check grades on the device of their choosing. This requires teachers to put those grades in first. To achieve this, we're worked on several improvements to the assessment process, including: A new design and improved UI for entering grades in the gradebook Embedded reports for grade data A new assignment tool, focusing on ease of use and great assessment possibilities A new test tool, with similar main improvements as the new assignment tool For the gradebook we're implementing new features having made major changes in the usability of the gradebook that will make the grading workflow much faster and easier. Your view of students has been updated to include their profile picture. You can add their score or scale grades directly in the Gradebook grid, navigating intuitively with your keyboard.

23 Late submissions are now easy to identify. Their spaces are now shaded if the deadline passed without a submittal. If enabled, you can also exempt assessments. These assessments will be visualized with a yellow background.

24 New Assignment Tool with In-line Assignment Annotation We re implementing a new assignment tool. With the assignment tool used for most assessments, we've worked hard on making content created shareable and to improve the overall user experience across different devices and screen sizes, including mobile phones. Highlights include: Better support for smaller screens Simplified creation process; content to the left, settings to the right Document viewer with annotation options Shareable in library Improved feedback loop with discussion/commenting options Simplified assessment statuses

25 We've also focused on the ease of use of the assignment as a whole; in the new assignment tool we keep the focus initially on the essentials.

26 One of most sought-after features has been the possibility to annotate directly on a student s answer. Now teachers can see submitted documents directly in the browser, without the need to download them. In addition, they can select an area of the answer and insert feedback. In the coming months we will extend the annotation options and optimise the overall assessment experience. Note: Customers that have enabled Office Online for their site can consider using Office online instead of the document viewer. For this, the site setting "Enable Office online" should be enabled, although Office Online can also be enabled in Global Settings by the customer system admin. In addition to annotation, we're introducing the possibility for teacher and students to have a discussion around the assignment answer. It is also possible for the teacher to write notes that on he/she and other teachers that are assessing this answer can see. Another enhancement to the assessment process is the enhanced way to indicate if a student is done with the assignment or needs to resubmit. This is now a simple Yes/No toggle. Note that by default existing customers will still be on the old submission statuses. This can be changed with a site setting.

27 Reusing Old Assignments You will be able to re-use assignments created with the old tool. When copying, the user will end up with the same content and settings, but in the new tool. To guide the user through the changes, a short onboarding tour of the differences is offered. Creating and Viewing Office Documents (Office Online) Highlights: Office icons in the resource section: Teachers can now easily create Office Online documents (Word, PowerPoint & Excel) by clicking the familiar Office icons inside the Resource section in a course Comment: Annotate in Office Online documents to keep track of changes, cooperate with others or give your feedback. Real-time co-authoring: Teacher can collaborate with colleagues on documents or give students access to collaborate in Word, PowerPoint or Excel. Auto save: Office Online documents will auto save while you work on them.

28 Office icons in the resource section and the library Teachers can now easily create Office documents right from within a course or the library and forget about installing office packages on every device. Permissions to read and/or edit the Office documents are assigned the same as with other resources. Office Online documents are stored in itslearning, and can be accessed on your favourite devices. The also auto save while you work on them. Teachers can collaborate with colleagues on documents for real-time co-authoring or give students access to collaborate in Excel, Word or PowerPoint. When multiple users are editing the same document simultaneously, they will see each other s changes in real-time (as long as they are in edit mode).

29 Teachers can annotate in documents to keep track of changes, cooperate with others or provide feedback. Office Online can be enabled by the customers themselves in addition to the site setting. These two settings are mirrored and will always be in sync.

30 A new site setting Enable Office Online has been created, see image below (the old site settings for Office Online have been removed). Customers/Site Administrators will have a new option for managing cloud services for their site in Cloud Services, available from General Settings (Admin - Edit Global Settings). Third Party Content: LTI Key & Secret Management Previously all LTI links were created with key and secret allowing secure communication. However where we import from tool providers with several items, managing keys and secrets becomes challenging. To simplify this and make more content available inside itslearning, we've prepared key and secret management on both domain and organisation level. Administrators can now simply decide which keys and secrets are to be used for an institution and provider, and manage them in one single place for all imported items.

31 New File Uploader in Task Tool Functionality for adding a file to the task by using drag & drop or uploading desired files from device or from cloud repository will also be available. Your system administrator will decide which cloud providers their users can upload files from. Example of students view - task

32 Teachers view: Task vs Assignment The Task Tool offers a quick way to add tasks that are not meant to be handed in. If a hand in is needed, the Assignment Tool is the preferred option.

33 Onboarding for New Courses Return to Menu The new onboarding will guide the teacher through a typical set-up in itslearning. Some steps will depend on the site/customers itslearning system configuration, for example that participants are added. The core of the onboarding is a task list the teacher follows and each step is detected once completed by the teacher. Steps of the course onboarding and task list is as follows: 1. Welcome message (where teacher can take a profile picture on the fly using available web camera) 2. Give your course a friendly name 3. Invite your students 4. Welcome your students 5. Make a plan 6. Give your students a task 7. Send a group message to the participants 8. Completed task list message If one or more steps of the task list in the onboarding is already completed these will be shown with a strikethrough. The last step in the onboarding "Send a group message" is only visible when the new instant messaging system is enabled. Similar for the step "Make a plan", i.e. not visible if Planner is disabled. Google Apps Integration We believe that all users should be able to quickly and easily use their favourite cloud resources in itslearning. We want to remove barriers to accessing Cloud services and make sure that linking accounts from itslearning to the Cloud is as simple as possible. Students and teachers should be able to collaborate on documents in the Cloud directly from itslearning. Everyone can link to, view and edit Cloud files through their preferred Cloud file viewer directly from itslearning. Teachers can easily use Cloud resources in tasks, planner, assignment or course. They can use the great collaboration tools from Google Apps for Education or Microsoft Office to create secure, shared work-spaces for whole classes or groups of students. In the autumn we plan to provide a single place to view all of files you have uploaded or linked to itslearning, making it easier to re-use files from your device or the Cloud.

34 Linking & Collaboration with Google Documentation Highlights: Linking files from Google Drive: Users can link files from their Google drive in the Task Tool and in File or Folder Google Collaboration: Teachers can create Google collaborations in the Task Tool Linking of Google Documents in File or Folder Currently we have the possibility to download files selected directly from Google drive. This functionality is to be extended with file linking putting the user in charge to decide whether he/she wants to work with the files in itslearning or keep them in Google drive. The linked content is then accessible within courses and we will display on course element page.

35 Linking and Collaboration with Google Documents in Task Tool By providing an easy way to use the great features offered by cloud services, teachers can now use the Task tool to create collaborations. The teacher can create a Google collaboration and assign it to all students or a subset of students. To use Google collaborations user must have a Google account (personal or supplied by the school/organisation). How to enable Google linking and collaboration Google linking and collaboration can be now enabled by customers in addition to the site setting. These settings are mirrored and will always be in sync. Customers/Site Administrators have a new option for managing cloud services for their site in Cloud Services, available from General Settings (Admin - Edit Global Settings), where they can enable Google linking and collaboration.

36 Enable Office Online: By default off. Turns on office online (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) for all users on the site. OneDrive for Business: By default on. Allows users to upload a copy of a resource from Microsoft OneDrive. Enable collaboration using Google: By default off. Allows users to create collaborations in tasks that use Google Drive resources/apps. Enable file uploading from Google Drive: By default on. Allows users to upload a copy of a resource from Google Drive. Enable file linking from Google Drive: By default off. Allows users to "live" link to Google Drive resources/apps. Enable file uploading from Dropbox: By default on. Allows users to upload a copy of a resource from Dropbox. We have simplified the process of associating and de-associating accounts. When teachers create a Cloud collaboration for the first time they will be asked to connect to their Google account, if it is not already. Same for students who view the collaboration. The user is only prompted to associate their account if they try to access 'live' Cloud files through a collaboration or through linking to a Cloud document. It is also possible to remove a Cloud connection (e.g. if the user has associated their personal account). The options are in: Your settings >> Connected Accounts

37 All Cloud accounts that can be connected are listed. Users will be asked to select a Google account or asked to log onto Google; you can only associate one Cloud service account from each Cloud provider. Users must give permission for itslearning (site address) to access their files on Google Drive. Once connected the link can be broken at any time. The Task tool will also have support linking files from Google Drive. When creating a task the teacher can select a cloud file for students to collaborate on. Initially Google, but we will soon add Office 365. To use this feature the teacher and students must have an account on Google (personal or via their school/organisation). Google collaboration is a customer setting that needs to be activated (see above). When creating a task by default it is assigned to all course participants, but the teacher can select specific participants or groups Note! The "Assigned to" features is independent of Collaboration and Attachment. By clicking Change, the participant picker opens and the teacher can assign the task to only a selection of students, either individually or as a group.

38 When clicking "Show more options" >> "Collaborate" the teacher can select "Use Google apps" depending on the Cloud service available for the site. Next, the teacher selects a file to be used for collaboration and saves the Task. All students, regardless of connected Cloud service accounts or not, will get permissions access the Task and the collaboration file added by teacher. When a student/participant clicks on collaboration link one of two scenarios will occur: If the student/participant has already connected to their Cloud service account, the collaboration file opens and they can start collaborating If not connected, the student/participant is asked to link the Cloud service account to itslearning. When binding is done, permissions are set on collaboration for the user and collaboration the collaboration file opens when it is clicked. The binding work-flow is only needed once. Students can now participate in collaboration using the file selected for them. Collaborations will open in Google, full screen.

39 File and Folder - Linking to Google Drive Resources/Apps In addition to the existing file upload options, teachers can also can create a "live" link to a resource in file and folder. This is a great way for teachers to share "read only" links to documents they are updating. When linking, the resource stays on in Google Drive, it is not copied to itslearning. Unlike collaboration - all users with access to the Google drive link will be able to open the file. That is, if the link is copied and forwarded to a user outside itslearning, they have access to the file linked. Tree Menu on Resources Page Based on feedback from customers that have moved from itslearning to new itslearning we're now bringing back the tree menu on the resource page. Note This will likely be piloted before being enabled for all customers.

40 Linking & Collaboration with Office 365 Documents Return to Menu Similar to linking and collaboration with Google documents in File or Folder and in the Task Tool. Linking and collaboration with Office 365 can be enabled by the customers themselves in addition to the site settings, the same as with Google integration. You can have Office Services e.g. Google and Office 365 activated at the same time. New Participant Page To ensure a good onboarding experience and prepare for a future Participants section (that will combine Participants, Course groups and Status & Follow up into one), we have created a new Participants page. The new page looks similar to Your students. It has a sortable table with basic information on all course information, and there's a search function that instantly filters the list of participants as the user types. There's no longer a card list; instead we show the profile images directly in the list. There's also an improved Add participants dialog. New Test Tool We're continuing to improve the new Test Tool, which has similar main improvements as the new Assignment Tool: Simplified creation process (content to the left, settings to the right) Easier to understand the different pages Improved experience on mobile devices Shareable in our Library

41 The following question types will be available: Either/or Multiple choice and Multiple response (these have been merged under the Multiple-choice question type, with the option to allow the student to select multiple alternatives) Order Open answer (Open answer and short answer questions have been merged.)

42 Fill in the blank Select from a list Return to Menu New features include: A new scoring algorithm Where students do not have a device at hand, teachers can still use itslearning to create, share and find tests. Instead of offering them online they can print and hand out on paper Teachers can now choose to randomize the alternatives of a question (e.g. alternatives A,B,C,D will be shuffled; one student will see A, D, B, C, the other, D, C, A, B, etc.) Enhanced export of results New set of reports for question and test analysis Assignment/Homework Submit on Behalf of Student In the new Assignment tool, teachers can now submit an answer on behalf of a student, if for example the submission was sent to the teacher via instead. To do this, the teacher can open a student's assignment (who has not submitted a response) and choose 'Answer'. Answering on behalf of a student is currently only available for individual answers, not for group answers. A page will open with the same options as the student has for their answer: The teacher can e.g. upload a file received another way:

43 The teacher will then return to the assess page and can assess the answer. Here it's also possible to request a plagiarism report for these answers (if this service has been purchased): This Week For students to easily find their homework for this week, a new section called "This week" is introduced in students Home page. This week is now being piloted and not will not be ready for all customers for SoY. This section located top left, display tasks and homework from all courses with deadline in current week.

44