This user-guide is for those new to TextActivities.
It explains how to create a class and how to create student accounts.
It also shows you what it looks like from a student's perspective when they go to the site for the first time.
1. Creating a class
Click on "Classes" in the top nav menu at the top of the page:
You should then see an empty classes page like this.
Click on the "New class" button to add a new class, and you will see the following pop-up:
Once you have entered the class name and selected the main target language for the class, click on "Create Class" to create the new class. You'll then see your class listed, like this:
Click on the class to navigate to the class page, which looks like this:
2. Creating student accounts
Click on the "Edit" tab, and then on the button to "Create / Add students":
In the pop-up which opens, follow the directions to add student names, adding one student per line.
We recommend adding student names in the format Firstname Lastname. Our class tools automatically split the name entered into 2 using the first space in the name as the breakpoint, and subsequently students are listed (in data for assignments etc) alphabetically by Lastname.
Once you have added the names, click on "Verify student list" to check the student names added against existing students on your subscription, to check for clashes etc. Once this check has been completed, you will see a list like this:
Click on "Create accounts" to complete the generation of student accounts.
N.B. When you do this, the pop-up will close and the page will refresh.
To access the list of usernames and passwords generated for your students, click on the "View / Edit student list" button:
This opens a pop-up like this:
You can click on the yellow "Copy log-in info" button to copy to your device's clipboard a list of students' usernames and passwords, which are listed in the "Log-in" column in the above image.
Student usernames look like this: AB7-FirstnameLastname
Usernames consist of:
- a unique 3-digit alpha-numeric code, which identifies students belonging to your subscription (AB7 in the example above)
- a dash (-)
- a combination of the first name and last name as entered by you (FirstnameLastname)
Passwords are a 4-digit numerical PIN number. You can reset these by clicking on the "Refresh" button next to each student in the "View /Edit student list" pop-up (above image).
Want to avoid using students' full names?
Of course, the names used to set up student accounts need NOT be actual student names, but it goes without saying that whatever is used needs to be recognizable by the teacher at the very least. Here are some examples of various ways of identifying a student called John Smith belonging to a subscription with identifier XYZ (whose username, if the name were entered as "John Smith" would be xyz-johnsmith):
- John Smith >> xyz-johnsmith
- J Smith >> xyz-jsmith
- John S >> xyz-johns
- Jo Sm >> xyz-josm
- J S >> xyz-js
- 7Elm SmithJ >> xyz-7elmsmithj
- Sp1 SmithJ >> xyz-sp1smithj
- Student 1234 >> xyz-student1234
- 1234 SmithJ = xyz-1234smithj
- 1234 SJ = xyz-1234sj
Numbers 2 to 5 take increasing numbers of letters away from either the firstname or the lastname, or both.
Number 8 above uses the student's ID number from your school system, which would obviously be meaningless to us. The only downside with this would be that students would be listed according to this number rather than their names, which may make it more difficult for teachers to access the data themselves. (Unless of course the student number is somehow representative of the student's position within an alphabetical list of all students, according to their surname, in which case it would be just as effective as a system based on their actual names or initials letters of their names.)
Number 9 combines a student ID number + surname + initial. Number 10 uses a student ID number + initials, last initial first so that the student list appears alphabetically by the 1st letter of their last name. You could obviously add variations of this, such as the first three letters of the surname + first letter of first name: 1234 SmiJ >> xyz-1234smij
Another option would be to use the class name as the first name, followed by the students surname and initial, as in numbers 6 and 7 above. Number 6 uses a tutor group name, so it has the advantage of being reusable in more than one language class, whereas number 7 is specific to the student's Spanish class.
(Number 5 above is likely to run into issues with multiple students having the same initials, which would ordinarily lead to multiple students with the same username, which is not acceptable. When the system detects existing usernames, and the teacher indicates that this is an account for a new student and not a pre-existing one, it adds a number to differentiate. So xyz-js1, xyz-js2, etc.)
There is nothing in any of the above that allows us in any way to identify a student personally: no email address, no gmail account, no physical address, no telephone number. Only whatever the teacher chooses to type in to set up the accounts. (To be honest, even when this is an actual name, this is still true -- no email address, no address, nothing that identifies them.)
3. Access from the student's perspective
Students can be told to go to TextActivities.com and click on "Classes" in the top nav menu. If they do this, they will be redirected to the login page, and once they have signed in, they will be redirected to the "Classes" page.
(Or they can go directly to the login page, sign in, then click on "Classes").
They enter the credentials (username + 4-digit PIN) that you have provided for them:
Depending on how they got there, they will either be redirected to "Classes" or they can click on the "Classes" link in the top nav menu, where they will see their class listed:
They click on their class to navigate to the class page, which looks like this (if no assignments have been added yet):
As you can see, students have 2 tabs on their class page: Assignments and Competitions.
Any assignments and compettions that you set for your class will appear in those tabs, and students simply need to follow the directions to complete an assignment or to take part in a competition.
Hope this helps! :o)
VIDEO BONUS!
Here's a short video explaining the contents of this blogpost: