We hope your summer went well, but whoa have we been busy! Our development team has lower back pain now from being at their keyboards for extended times (affectionately called the ‘Hunchbacks of Keyboarding Online’), but we think you are going to like all the new features!
We know many of you are preparing for the start of the new school year (some folks have already started), and we wanted to keep you informed of changes and updates that have been completed. All of the following are now available:
- NEW login options.
- NEW rostering options.
- NEW Teacher Manager features.
- NEW District Manager features.
- Still to come in 2019…new Keyboarding For Kids
New login options:
Students and Teachers can now login with their own email (or unique username). This means students will not see class lists, they will go straight into their program. For teachers this means they will only see the profiles, classes, students, custom lessons, schedules, etc., they have created. This also means teachers can make a change to a setting and only affect his/her own students. In the beginning, teachers will see all information until they start creating classes/students, etc., under their own email login (because all existing classes/profiles/etc. are assigned to all teachers).
If your email is already in the Keyboarding Online (KO) system and you do not know your unique password, just click on the ‘forgot password’ link at the bottom of the login page. This will reset your password.
When students are created in the KO system, if a student email is not entered (these are not required) we create a unique random username for this student. To further make things easier, the login credentials are now matched to an Avery label template. You can print login stickers for each student with their unique credentials. Go to Teacher Manager -> Classes -> (select class) -> Click on ‘menu’ on right corner of your screen.
New Rostering Options:
You might ask, “What is rostering”. This is where class and student lists are automatically created for you. No CSV files, no manual entries, no student self-registrations, etc. The class and student lists create and update automagically.
We now support “GG4L One Roster”, www.gg4l.com. GG4L costs $0 to the school, and KO charges $0. They are a public benefit corporation that provides this service through corporate donations and vendor memberships. This is a fantastic option for schools. GG4L syncs with 100+ student information systems.
We also now support “Classlink One Roster”, www.classlink.com. Many districts already use Classlink and you can find Keyboarding Online in your library for rostering. There is no additional fee ($0) for this option.
New Teacher Manager features:
New Best Scores report. This is an individual report. Go to the Reports Center and select a class and student to see this option.
Print login cards/stickers for your classes right from the Teacher Manager. After selecting a class, look for the ‘menu’ link on the top right of your screen.
New District Manager features:
For districts with multiple sites using Keyboarding Online, the district manager allows staff to move students between schools, pull student reports from different schools, etc. In addition to the reports we already had available, we have added detailed activity reports to the District Manager. Generate lists (classes & students) of active and inactive students, time spent, last worked, etc. The District Manager is free when a district has multiple sites. It only needs to be added by KO staff.
Keyboarding Software Upgrade (Oct 2019):
All keyboarding programs are getting a face lift. Lesson screens, navigation menus, etc. are getting a fresh new look. The Keyboarding For Kids version will be more appealing to younger learners. The core features and functionality will not change. We plan to have this ready before the end of October (you will still have access to the existing versions).