Dear Friends,
We've never had a more successful launch! Our new website went live last week, and the site has been stable, relatively bug free, and has received near universal praise from teachers.
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But instead of me bragging about the website, let's get to the topic of the day!
- Feature #1: Future Assignments
- Feature #2: Universal Captions
Today I want to share a 3rd feature that, while exciting, should be used with a bit of caution.
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Teachers have been requesting a Wooly Coin leaderboard for years. And while leaderboards can be fun, we've always been hesitant.
That's because, although leaderboards can be wonderful motivators for high-achieving students, they often end up demotivating students who feel they don't have a chance. Building this feature was not worth it unless we could do it the right way.
In today's newsletter, I'll give you a walk-through of this very customizable feature.
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To find the leaderboard, locate the trophy icon on the desktop of your teacher account.
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Student vs Class Leaderboard
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The first thing you'll notice is that you can switch between a students leaderboard and a classes leaderboard.
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Some students will never feel comfortable competing at the individual level, but never underestimate the power of the collective! Pitting class against class is sure to get their adrenaline surging.
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How do you make an inter-class competition equitable when Period 1 has 35 students and Period 2 has only 12?
Here's how! Use coin averages!
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In the above gif, Period 1 is leading in total coins, but once we switch to average coins per student, Period 4 takes the lead!
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Changing the number of rows
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You might want to limit the number of rows. Why? Because most likely Tim doesn't want the whole class to see that he's in last place.
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For obvious reasons, choosing "All Rows" is not recommended.
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Nervous about using student names in a leaderboard setting? Here's something fun to try:
Turn off the student names and only show their avatar.
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This way, you can project the leaderboard while students work. The students will secretly know which avatar belongs to them but won't be publicly shamed for having a low (or high) placement.
Then, it's entirely up to you whether you reveal student names at the end of class.
NOTE: Students will almost definitely swap out their avatars during this competition, but that's part of the fun.
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I have barely scratched the surface of what you can do with this feature.
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Want only Period 1 and Period 2 to compete in the leaderboard?
Easily customize this in the Filters menu.
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Want to only show leaderboard progress for the month of October?
Showcase the leaderboard with any date range that you want.
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Want students to compete for Nuggets instead of Coins? Switch it in the settings!
Switching to nuggets is also a great way of leveling the playing field if you have students who are earning extra coins at higher playthroughs.
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This leaderboard feature is quite powerful, and we hope you'll play with it! Please also drop us a line with your thoughts. We want to hear how it goes.
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ONE FINAL, IMPORTANT NOTE!
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IMPORTANT: Leaderboards do not appear in student accounts. They are only available on teacher dashboards.
If we ever choose to include leaderboards directly within student accounts, teachers would first have to enable it, and even then students would only see the leaderboard with specific settings selected by the teacher.
For now, this feature does not have a planned release date.
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Webinar with Jim Wooldridge
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Couldn't make it to last week's webinars on the v3 website? No need to fret! You can watch a recorded version right here:
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NOTE: The webinar only lasts 45 minutes, but there are an additional 30 minutes with a Q&A between me and participants. Feel free to watch the entire thing, or just limit yourself to the first 45 minutes.
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Although we have already fixed the major bugs that arose during beta testing, some of you will inevitably find problems and annoyances.
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NOTE: This feedback link is not intended to handle customer service. If you need assistance, reach out to us at [email protected].
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