Features Overview

The Absent Students feature lists learners that are not yet in the class and have been added to the roster. This makes it easy for instructors and TAs to understand who is in class and who is absent. Learners can not see who is absent in the class.

The Chat feature allows learners to send messages to instructors and TAs, as well as other learners. These messages can be sent privately or to the whole class. When sharing your screen, the chat is minimized and currently can not be pushed out.

Chat bubbles alert users to any unread private messages with a notification counter on the video display of the sender matching the notification counter in the participant list next to the sender’s name. Chat bubbles are also visible to Instructors and TAs from the master view of enhanced breakout rooms, indicating the number of chats sent within each breakout room.

Once a user selects the chat bubble, the chat menu on the sidebar will open to display the unread messages. Once the message has been read, the chat bubbles will disappear.

Attach File to Thread – Coming Soon

The Class Roster feature allows instructors to invite learners to join a specific class. It maintains the full list of learners that will appear when using other features, such as the class dashboard, attendance feature, and grade book.

The Front of Class feature allows instructors to select a specific set of learners to promote to the top of the classroom view. This is to ensure that it is clear who is speaking or addressing the class when multiple class members may be speaking.

Instructors can provide Gold Stars to learners that stand out in class. Gold Stars will show in a learners profile panel for everyone in the class to see.

Learners can raise their hands if they have a question. The Hand Raise icon is displayed in each learner’s profile panel. Instructors can call on learners to lower the learner’s hand.

The Participation Tracking feature identifies the amount of time a learner talks in class. When activated, the Class app identifies which learners have been speaking the most versus the least by adding a symbol colored either red, yellow, or green to their profile panel. Green means the learner has a greater than average talk time. Orange means the learner has an average amount of talk time. Red means the learner has a lower than average amount of talk time. All participants can be listed in order of their class participation level. Class participation levels are based on a percentage and each color is representative of 1/3 of the class. This allows the instructor to easily identify those learners that are red and actively engage with them.

Teachers can appoint one, or several class members as presenters. This allows teachers to focus the class’ attention, similar to a real-class experience.

Presenting class members are identified in the Class app by a purple border around their profile panel and are displayed in the Presenting Group section on the sidebar.

Learners in the Presenting Group can be moved collectively to the Front of Room.

Learners who should not be in the class for any reason can easily be removed from the class by the teacher.

The Seating Chart feature allows instructors to view the members of their class in different views. The Alphabetical view feature shows all participants listed on the screen in alphabetical order by last name. Hand Raised view lists the learners in order of who has had their hand raised the longest to who has had their hand raised the least. The Feedback view shows first the learners that are displaying feedback for the instructor to see. Newest feedback is shown first and only available for instructors and TAs to see. The Participation view orders learners by the level of participation in class, which reflects the amount of time each learner spoke during the class. The Unverified view first displays learners that have not been verified by the instructor.

The Sidebar feature connects learners who do not have Class installed on their device and instructors who are using Class to run their class session. Upon recognizing that a learner is joining a class session using the standard Zoom application, the Class system will send them a link via Zoom’s chat functionality. The learner is given a set of tools accessed through a standard web browser to allow them to continue participating in class.

The Teacher’s Podium feature creates a prominent space in the top left corner of the Class screen. This allows class members to focus on whoever is currently speaking to the class. Instructors can assign the Teacher’s Podium to other class members when it is their turn to speak.

The Verify Students feature allows teachers to verify and confirm the identity of the learners who join the class. This ensures that only learners who should be present can join the class.

Teachers can also un-verify learners, should they need to.

Learners who are not verified do not have access to the Student Tools and cannot see any of the teaching tools launched by the teacher.

Instructors have an array of quiz, test, and assessment options that can be administered and proctored in real-time. Instructors have the option to review and grade tests and quizzes in real-time. This feature supports multiple question types including True/False, Matching, Fill in the Blank, and others.

Import Functionality – Coming Soon

Instructors can deploy an array of in-classroom assignments in real-time for learners to complete and submit.

The Breakout Rooms feature allows teachers to split the class into separate sessions, same as they would split learners into separate groups in a real classroom.

Teachers can choose to assign class participants to separate breakout rooms automatically or manually, or they can allow participants to select and enter breakout sessions as they please. Teachers can join and leave any of the sessions at any time.

Instructors can easily push websites and other digital content directly to learners. The Browse the Web feature opens a new tab where this digital content is displayed.

The Learning Management System functionality allows instructors to launch their chosen learning management system, such as Blackboard or Moodle, directly from within Class.

The Class App Feedback functionality allows instructors and learners to interact in ways that are more familiar and typical to a classroom setting. Learners provide feedback to the instructor or the whole class in real-time.

The Play Video feature allows instructors to share video streams directly with the learners. The instructor has the ability to decide whether they control the video so the class is viewing it in sync, or the learners can watch at their own pace.

The Polling feature allows instructors to poll learners in real-time. This can spark discussion and engage learners throughout the lesson.

Import Functionality – Coming Soon

Teachers can control whether anyone can share their screens, or only teachers and teaching assistants.

Class participants that are sharing can make annotations on their screen for everyone to see if they need to highlight or emphasize something.

Two-way Annotation – Coming Soon

The Share Files feature allows instructors and TAs to upload files, or link Google docs to launch them to everyone in the class and make them available for download.

Feedback surveys enable instructors to capture or receive feedback, either on the course or their own instruction. Surveys will have the same functionality as any other Moodle teaching tool: they can be imported, launched to the classroom, launched to specific breakout rooms, duplicated, deleted, edited, etc.

Any verified learners/participants will be able to complete the survey, and results will be visible by Instructors and TAs. Feedback surveys will function the same as any other Moodle tool, and can be launched to the main classroom and to breakout rooms. Instructors and TAs can re-launch completed feedback surveys, review results, and export them to either a .csv or .xlsx file.

Instructors can easily view and share the course Syllabus in Class. The Syllabus will remain persistently available. This cuts down on the amount of back and forth between instructors and learners.

The Class Dashboard allows instructors to track attendance, interactions between learners and the instructor, participation level between learners, and more. The Class Dashboard can be segmented to show data by class or by learners. You can track participation for each learner which is tracked by the lose focus tracking feature and how often a learner interacts in Class.

The Grade Book allows instructors to aggregate results and submissions for all Assignments and Assessments. These results are compiled from multiple class sessions within the same course.

The Lose Focus Tracking feature allows instructors to identify learners that do not have Class as their primary (in-focus) application on the screen. The instructor can then re-engage with the learner to get them back on track.

Focus Tracking is calculated by using window visibility tracking on Class for Web. Window visibility checks for the Class application window to be minimized or another tab to be active in order to determine if a user has “lost focus.”

Please Note: There is a 10-second delay for the “lost focus” flag to be activated across platforms, so if a user navigates away to a different window or tab and returns within 10 seconds, they will not be recorded as having lost focus.

Proctor View (Collaboration View in Corporate) allows instructors and assistants to view class participants alongside a view of their screens.

Instructors can invite some or all learners for this view. When the invitation is accepted, the instructor will see a view of the learner’s screen(s) that is refreshed approximately every five seconds.

Out of respect for learner privacy, learners may decline to share their screens and can exit Proctor View if they have accepted. Instructors will be able to re-invite learners in these instances.