MySchool Updates April- June 2020

We just wanted to keep you updated on a few of the key projects we have been working on during the lock down period. We hope that all of you have managed to pull through, and are planning for your end of year shutdown and preparation for roll over to 2020/21.

If you do need any help or advice then please reach out to us as earlier as possible.

Let's look into recent changes and projects that have kept us busy over the last few months;

VLE resources

Although the module has had some major updates since it was launched, our team has released a few patches to address the remaining issues. VLE course resources and the new assignment module are now fully integrated. We still have alot of great ideas that have been logged in our new ideas portal, and we will continue to assess and implement these in the coming months. Here is a list of improved features that were released over the past months :

• Copying resources between courses is now fully functional and works across subjects
• Assignment creation now fully integrated with the new assignment module
• Delete functionality now fully synced with assignment grade grid
• Teachers can now assess assignments within course resources, or within the traditional grade grid
• Students, Parents, Guardians, and Mentors can now access the resources via the new dashlet. My Courses. 
• The new dashlet can also be used as a standalone to work with the new assignment module, should schools prefer to make this available then contact our support for implementation.
• Counters are synced to student activity. Allowing students, guardians and Teachers to have a quick visual check on submission statuses.
• Topics are now fully synced between the assignment and VLE course resource modules. 

We are continuously working with other LTI providers, and have successfully launched some of our schools with video conferencing via Zoom. 

Collaboration, integration and API's

In the past we have received requests to integrate with other third party software, and in the ever changing marketplace, we have established an ever growing need to improve in this aspect. Your feedback is crucial, and although we not have an immediate solution, we have always logged and stored this for future projects. Please check out the article here for LTI collaboration within course resources. We are actively working with the below solutions and will keep you updated with further info when we have more details

• Microsoft - SDS/Teams
• Zoom Video conferencing
• Online payment platforms
• Google classrooms

Assignments

Assignments will only be published after the publish date has passed, most notably in the My Schedule view. We have also improved how assignments were ordered in their grade grid. They will follow a chronological order from the most recent to the oldest. If the teacher has a topic then these will be listed at the end of the grid, and again follow the same chronological ordering.

If you would like to have a default submission status other than Do not accept, then please contact the support team and we can set this to whichever you would prefer. Please note this is a system setting and will apply to all subjects within all the school levels.

We also improved Parent view to show non numerical achievement scales, and improved students submission behaviour. 

Please note that we have tidied up the assignment submission possibilities in the new student facing pages. Now students can still submit  text and files even if the assignment due date has passed. This is designed for students who may not have 100% access to a computer or tablet. 

Lastly for assignments, we have been working hard on a new interface for the grade grid, which will allow Teachers to switch from the default classic view to be able to order the grid by Learning Outcome instead.

Questionnaires

Our questionnaire module is a great way to collect information from your guardian user base. Ask them to complete their information on yearly basis to make this process easier for your school admin team. It can be used to collect consents, and can be saved to student profiles for record keeping.

We have made it possible for guardians to upload documents via their portal and store this infor in their dependant student file tab. If you need your guardians to fill out official documents with a signature, it is a quick and efficient way to gather those forms.

Mail merging with MS office is also a great tip to create individual forms which can be saved in the student profile after creation.

Multi school enrolment

We have amended the security system to allow students to be enrolled in two schools, and still access their MySchool portal. They will be able to switch between schools the same way as a normal staff user with multi school access.

Assessment report and Subject specifications

We are continually improving all aspects of our new assessment module and report template. This year has once again highlighted the benefits of using our new assessment system and template. Schools who have successfully transitioned to this new module can now easily adapt their reporting to suit their needs. They able to customise reports without waiting or frustration.

Please contact our team in support to organise a demo and they will be able to assist you during the process.