What’s new in SchoolRack V5!
Monday, August 3rd, 2009Welcome to the new release of SchoolRack! I’ve been meaning to write a walkthrough of all the new features we offer in SchoolRack V5 after launch, and now that things have settled down I’ll jump right in. It’s so exciting to see our users take advantage of these features, but for those that aren’t as familiar, here’s a quick overview of what we added to the service two weeks ago:
- New Student & Parent accounts feature (for access to discussion boards, private messaging, assignment collection, and more)
- New text editor for editing your website posts
- New calendar feature
- More themes for both Free and Plus accounts
- More clip art to choose from for your SchoolRack website
1. One of the main feature additions to SchoolRack is the new section in your Dashboard called Students & Parents. These features offer a communication platform between you, your students, and/or your parents. The premise is simple: you create a private group for either students or parents to join (you are given a code to hand to them), you have your students or parents register their own accounts on SchoolRack with the code you provide, and you now have access to all the group features offered in the menu:
Groups, where you will be able to manage all your different student or parent groups. For example, if you want to create a group for your first period class. You can also create a group for a club you manage at school, there really is no limit to its usage. After you’ve created a group, you can then use all the features available to your in the list above.
Assignments, where you can post assignments to any of your groups. After you post an assignment, students will be alerted of the assignment posting and will be able to view the details in their private accounts (none of this information is available publicly).
Discussion Boards, where members of your groups can reply to any topics you place on your website. You have the option to make discussions private or public, even to approve all posts before they become active.
Private Messaging, for members of your groups to send you messages and vice versa.
2. The SchoolRack text editor has had a major facelift too. You’ll notice the biggest addition to the text editor is the “Insert Image, Media, or File” button where you can easily grab images or files from your account, or embed a YouTube video or other widget directly into a post.
3. The calendar feature now comes standard with the Free account and is available in the list of your account tools.
4. Enjoy more single-click themes in your account, check out some of the new ones we offer.
5. We’ve added to our directory of clip art for you to use on your website.
