Formative Feature Updates!

[david]

Hey @new_members @informed_members @Certified_Educators

We are going to start sharing new Formative features/enhancements with you here so that you all can stay updated and make the most of our platform as it continues to evolve! We’ll also be sharing some reminders of existing features that you might have missed.

In addition to informing you, we’ll also provide promotional materials that you can use to help spread the word on social media and within your own schools/districts/organizations. By doing this, you’ll be helping us reach more people, gather more feedback, and continue to build an increasingly useful tool for all teachers!

We are going to make this an “announcements” topic, which means you’ll be able to see the updates but won’t be able to reply directly here. If you would like to share your appreciation for a feature, feel free to hit the “like” button beneath the respective post! If you would like to discuss a specific update that’s mentioned in here, please start a new topic (referencing the update). Taking this approach will help us keep things organized!

Alright…let the updates begin!

[david]

If you have a Formative premium plan, you can now copy items directly from Google Drive and add them directly to Formative! Insert a Google image, drawing, doc, presentation…add questions on top…and gather live responses! Here’s how you can do it!

It would be great if you could spread the word about this new update in your school, district, organizations, and online communities! Below is a poster and some copy that you can use for posting to social media (ex: Twitter).

Have you heard the news? @goformative has a new #google integration! Now you can copy images, drawings, docs, and presentations directly from #googledrive! Gather live student responses based on Q’s that you add on top! Learn more: http://bit.ly/2OtH5Po
#GAFE
#GoogleClassroom

If you or those you share this with have questions related to this update (ex: “how are people using this in their classrooms?”), feel free to start a new topic and everyone can chime in!

Lastly, we’d love to give a shout-out to all the teachers who’ve requested this in the past and to our fantastic Certified Educators for voting this into existence!

[david]

@new_members @informed_members

We’ve got a new update for you all! When you return scores, your students no longer have to click into a formative to see it…scores are now displayed right on the student dashboard! Shout-out to everyone who requested this and our @Certified_Educators for voting for it!

Make sure to let your colleagues know about this new feature and if you want to spread the word on social media, you may use/edit/draw inspiration from the message below if you wish. You may use the poster above too

You no longer have to tell your students to click into a formative to see their score on @goformative. Now, they can see them right from their student dashboard! This saves a ton of time!

#backtoschool2018
#formativetech
#formativechat

[david]

@new_members @informed_members

Here’s another awesome Formative update! Your students can now see if they’ve submitted a formative, right from their dashboard! This will help them figure out which formatives they’ve responded to and which formatives they still need to work on. If you’ve enabled multiple submissions, it’ll show that directly beneath!

Thank you to all the educators who requested this and to our @Certified_Educators for voting for it!

Feel free to tell your colleagues about this update. If you want to spread the word on social media, you may use/edit/draw inspiration from the message below! You may use the poster above too

Here’s a great student-centered update from @goformative! Students can see which formatives they’ve submitted…right from their dashboards! This helps them figure out what they still need to respond to and saves a ton of time!

#studentcenteredlearning
#formativetech
#formativechat

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By the way, we have a FREE, virtual edu conference called #FormativeSummit that’s going on right now! You can learn some really amazing teaching ideas including strategies for using Formative in your classroom! You can learn more and sign up here: bit.ly/formativesummit ! The webinars are only available for the duration of the event period so if you are interested, sign up now!

[david]

@new_members @informed_members @Certified_Educators

Happy Formative Friday! We’ve got an awesome update for you today!

You can now sort students by name and score on the Totals View! This is great for organizing the formative data that you are gathering and spotting trends in learning. For example, if you sort students by score, you can see which students are struggling and where they need help.

Make sure to tell your colleagues about this update! Here’s a message you may use/edit/draw inspiration from to spread the word on social media. Feel free to use the poster above too

Amazing @goformative update! You can now sort students as you view their progress across questions on a formative! This makes it easy to tell which students are struggling and where they need help!

#personalizedlearning
#FormativeFriday
#differentiation

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We also made two other small, but meaningful updates!

• You can now see the title of a formative from any tab within it (the Edit tab, the Assign/Share tab, the View Responses tab). This makes it easier to reference!

• We’ve made a button so that you can easily switch between seeing points and percentage for a formative. It’s accessible on Totals View. This feature used to exist, but it’s now way more obvious with the button!

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[david]

Hey @new_members @informed_members @Certified_Educators

Here’s another quick update! For each question on a formative…you can now see the overall average as well as the average for each class. Previously, you would have to click on a specific class tab to see the average for that class. This update not only saves you clicks, but also allows you to easily to compare different classes:

Feel free to share this update with your colleagues. If you’d like to help us spread the word on Twitter, here’s a message you can use/edit/draw inspiration from. As always, feel free to use the poster above as well

Gauging student progress with @goformative just got even easier! By default, you can now see the overall avg. for all your students and the avgs. for each of your classes. This not only saves a few clicks, but makes it easier to compare how classes are doing!

#formativetech
#formativechat

[david]

@new_members @informed_members @Certified_Educators

The updates keep rolling in!

1. You can now open and close a formative for all of your classes from the Totals view. In the past, you’d have to have to click on each class tab and then select “open/close” for each class…so this definitely saves time

2. The progress bars are back and better than ever! As you view student responses for a question, you can now see the progress of ALL of your classes. You used to have to click on each class tab to see the progress bar for each class so once again…you are saving time!

Just like with all updates we share, we’d greatly appreciate your help in spreading the word about these two updates on social media. This time, we encourage you to use the following sentence starter when posting:

I think this @goformative update is awesome because…

And you can of course you use the posters above too!

[david]

@new_members @informed_members

We now offer the option to print a student’s with formative with their scores! This is available under all our premium plans.

Thank you to everyone who requested this and to our @Certified_Educators for voting for it!

Help Spread The Word

We’d appreciate your help in spreading the word about this update! If you would like to share out on social media, here’s a message you can use along with the poster above:

Sweet Update: Printing a student’s formative with their scores is now available on @goformative premium! Learn more about premium: Formative

#formativetech
#edtech
#formativechat

Alternatively, you can simply click here to like and/or re-tweet our announcement!

[david]

@new_members @informed_members

Partial credit auto-scoring is now available for the advanced Categorize question type! The advanced question types are available under all our premium plans.

Shout-out to everyone who requested it and to our @Certified_Educators for voting on it! This should save everyone quite a bit of time:

Help spread the word

As always, we’d greatly appreciate your help with spreading the word! Feel free to tell your colleagues about this new feature and if you are on Twitter, it would be great if you could click here to like and re-tweet the announcement!

Thank you everyone!

[david]

Hey @new_members @informed_members

We’ve made a few key updates to the assign process so it’s easier to understand what students can and can’t do on their end (ex: see their scores, access the formative itself) when you assign a formative.

Read on below to learn about each update and why we made them! We’d also love to hear any feedback or follow-up questions you have!

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#1: Clarified Un-Assign vs. Close

Over time, we’ve discovered that many teachers were confused by the “Un-Assign” button. They used it to make it so that students could not the view the formative, when in actuality, the close button should be used for that purpose (if you hit that button, it’ll make it so that students can no longer view the formative on their dashboard, unless you are currently returning scores or correct answers).

The only scenario where you should use the “Un-Assign” button is if you’ve mistakingly assigned a formative to a class or to guest students and you want to undo that so nothing shows up on the Live Responses page related to that class!

We’ve worked on clarifying this by putting the close/open toggle in place of where the “Un-Assign” button used to appear and changed the “Un-Assign” button into a trashcan icon:

#2: Updated Wording Of Options To Return Scores and Correct Answers

In the case where you don’t want to return scores or correct answers, you had the option of selecting “Decide Later” from menus. Many users have described this being confusing and so we switched up the wording to be, “Don’t show Answers” and “Don’t show scores” respectively:

Do show scores:

Don’t show answers:

You can always go back and choose to show scores or correct answers by picking one of the other options!

#3: You can now see if a formative is open or closed for a class

As shown below, the lightening bolt symbol signifies that the formative is open for that class and the lock symbol signifies that the formative is closed for the other one. If a formative has not been assigned, it will not show either symbol:

Shout-out to everyone whose given us feedback on the assign process in the past (including our @Certified_Educators)!

Spread the word

We’d really appreciate your support with spreading the word about these updates! Feel free to tell your colleagues about this new feature and if you are on Twitter, it would be great if you could click here to like and re-tweet the announcement!

[david]

Hey @new_members @informed_members

Our advanced, Categorize Q Type just got even cooler! Before you could only use text to create categories, but now you can use images too This is great for making Q’s more visual and allowing Ss to demonstrate their learning in different ways!

If you start using this new update, we’d love to hear how! Feel free to create a new topic in the #specialized-application category of our Community Center sharing your implementation ideas/examples and/or encouraging others to share their’s! We can learn more together!

Also, make sure to tell your colleagues about this latest update! If you are on Twitter, it would be great if you could click here to like and re-tweet the announcement!

[david]

Happy holidays @new_members @informed_members

We just released an awesome new feature that’ll help you gear up for the new year! You can now schedule formatives to automatically open and close (at specific dates & times). This feature is great for planning in advance and ensuring that your classes have the desired level of access to formatives throughout the day.

This feature has been a long time in the making and we appreciate everyone for requesting it! Special shout-out to our @Certified_Educators for helping us prioritize it as part of our weekly feature vote!

Upgrade to premium to get instant access to it!

We’d greatly appreciate your support in spreading the word about this update! Please tell your colleagues and if possible, it would be great if you could like and re-tweet this announcement!

[david]

Happy Formative Friday @new_members @informed_members

We’ve got another update that we think you are going to like You can now use images and GIFs to send students feedback on Formative! This is great for personalizing learning and providing individual students with the visual supports they need to further their learning. It’s also awesome for giving students colorful feedback…memes & GIF’s anyone

Shout-out to everyone who has requested this in the past and to our @Certified_Educators for helping us prioritize it as part of our weekly feature vote!

Upgrade to premium to get instant access to it!

If you like this new feature, it would be great if you could tell your colleagues about it! And if you are on Twitter, we’d greatly appreciate if you could like and re-tweet this announcement!

Lastly, we’d love to hear what you and your students think of this feature once you try it in your classroom. Feel free to share how you are using it (in the #specialized-application category) or ideas for improving it (in the #General-Use category)!

Have a great weekend!

[david]

@new_members @informed_members

You can now rotate images that you upload to the Show Your Work canvas. Your students can rotate images that they upload as well! Thank you to everyone who requested this and our @Certified_Educators for participating in our weekly feature vote!

Feel free to tell your colleagues and it would be great if you could like and re-tweet this announcement as well!

[david]

@new_members @informed_members

We’ve got another awesome update for this Formative Friday! You can now sort the data in your student growth tracker by name! This is great for viewing student progress on formatives and standards!

Reminder

As always, feel free to let your colleagues know about this feature so that they can maximize their use of Formative too! If you are on Twitter, it would also be great if you can take a second to like and re-tweet this announcement!

Thanks, everyone!

[david]

@new_members @informed_members @Certified_Educators

We are pleased to announce that if you are presenting Formative, you can now offer your session participants a certificate of completion which they can submit to a school administrator for PD credit! Simply grab a copy of the updated presentation slides here and have your participants fill out the form on the last slide!

Thank you so much for continuing to spread the word about Formative! It makes all the difference!

[david]

@new_members @informed_members

Update: Students can now see feedback notifications from anywhere in a formative. A notification will show up under the aligned question on the progress bar and stay red (to signify that it hasn’t been read) until a student clicks on the feedback. It then turns grey (to signify that it has been read)!

Here’s a GIF showing it:

We’d really appreciate your help with spreading the word about this new feature! If you are on Twitter, it’d be great if you could simply like and re-tweet this announcement!

P.S. Thank you to everyone who requested this and our @Certified_Educators for participating in our weekly feature vote!

[david]

@new_members @informed_members @Certified_Educators

You can now duplicate questions and content that you place on top of uploaded PDFs/Docs! Thank you to all the teachers who’ve requested this. This is a great timesaver!

Please tell your colleagues about this new feature! If you are on Twitter, it would also be awesome if you could like and re-tweet this announcement!