LearnCube’s Online School is an all-in-one platform that features student and teacher accounts, class scheduling, reporting, and more. It is a versatile tool, so that it can be adapted to suit different schools' needs.
Please bear in mind that because every school is different, your school may have certain features activated or deactivated. While this getting started guide is a useful resource, if you have any questions or doubts, you should refer to your school coordinator, who will be able to help you. :)
Table of Contents
7 - Troubleshooting |
1 - What Is The Online School?
The Online School is your own platform, which students and teachers can log into. The platform is white-labelled, so when students log in to their dashboard, they feel like they are on a different part of your school's website, rather than on a LearnCube site.
Each teacher has a calendar, on which classes and courses can be created.
Students are assigned class credits, which work like enrolment tokens.
Depending on your school's booking flow, students might choose their own classes from your calendar, or students' classes might be created for them for them.
Our award-winning Virtual Classroom is where the magic happens!
The Virtual Classroom has a lot of features which are designed to facilitate a flexible, intuitive learning experience.
You can load lesson materials from your content library, and both you and your student can interact on the whiteboard. After each class, all of the notes, materials, and annotations are saved with our Class Review feature.
Here you can access the notes and materials from past classes, and check attendance, cancellations, and other useful data.
2 - Logging into your Teacher Account
When your Online School is ready, we will send you your login credentials by email.
You will typically receive one admin account, one or more teacher accounts, and a test student account. With your admin account, you can create more accounts as needed.
All users will log in using the same URL, directing them either to their teacher, student, or admin dashboard.
When a new user logs in, there are three steps that should be taken:
Confirm your timezone.
Classes are always shown in your timezone, so it’s important to set this correctly.
Run the troubleshooter tool.
You can find this button at the bottom of your dashboard. The troubleshooter will run you through a few simple checks to ensure that your computer is set up correctly, and you will have a smooth class experience.
Update your profile.
You can do this by clicking on your user icon on the top right, “view profile”, and then “edit”. Here you can add a profile picture, and some “about me” information if desired.
This short video shows the steps for updating your teacher account:
3 - Entering Your First Class
While your student can only enter classes at the class time, you can enter classes at any time, to prepare your lesson and also to explore the classroom.
If you don't have any classes on your dashboard, and cannot create a class, ask your school coordinator to create an empty practice classroom for you.
To enter the class, simply click on the "enter class" button on your dashboard.
When entering a classroom, you will quickly go through some tests that double-check that your mic, camera, and browser* are in order. This will flag any technical issues and helps avoid confusion and frustration for you and your students.
The first time you (or your student) enter a LearnCube classroom, you will be asked for permission to access your microphone and camera. Be sure to click "allow" or "permit".
*Note: While LearnCube works with almost every web browser, to get the best experience, we recommend Google Chrome on a computer. If you're using an iPhone or iPad though, you'll need to use Safari (it's an Apple thing). |
4 - Exploring the Virtual Classroom
Before testing the classroom in a class with a real student, we recommend taking some steps to familiarise yourself with how everything works.
On our YouTube channel, we have this Virtual Classroom Training Playlist on YouTube, which explains all of the Virtual Classroom tools and features in detail:
For now, though, these simple steps should help you to get the hang of things:
Open a new whiteboard by clicking on the "+" icon
Click on the blue pencil button to test out the annotation tools.
You can draw, and add text and shapes.
Upload a few lesson materials (e.g. PDFs or YouTube videos).
5 - Your Content Library
Your content library allows you to upload lesson materials which you can access quickly and easily in class.
From your dashboard, you can click on "Library" to upload, manage, and delete files.
You can also upload lesson materials inside the classroom.
To load lesson materials into a class, click on the green "+" button on the bottom right of the whiteboard.
You can read more about lesson materials and your content library here.
6 - Scheduling and Booking Flows
Table of Contents
6.3 - Creating a class |
6.4 - Creating courses |
6.1 - How are classes scheduled?
There are a number of different ways to manage bookings, either admin controlled flows, student self-booking, or a combination of both. How this works for your account depends on your school settings.
If in doubt about class scheduling, please consult your school coordinator.
Classes in the Online School are structured as follows:
Calendars are associated with a teacher account
Classes are booked on the calendar
Student(s) are enrolled into the class
As a teacher, you may experience one of the following flows:
Students book classes themselves | I manage my own calendar availability OR My calendar availability is set for me |
Classes are scheduled by the school administrator | Usually in this case, I don't need to worry about scheduling |
Classes are scheduled by me | I manage classes on my calendar, but I don't need to add availability |
If you don't need to manage your own calendar or bookings, then you can skip ahead to section 4
6.2 - Setting availability on your calendar
Your calendar allows you to easily manage classes and set your availability, in a visual format. If you have permission, you edit your own calendar.
To access the calendar, go to your dashboard and click on "Calendar" on the top right.
You will see the current week, with classes appearing in blue.
It is possible to drag and drop classes, to reschedule, delete, or change their duration.
Please note though - students will not receive automatic notifications for edits like this, so please be very careful!
If in doubt about your school's protocol, please consult your school coordinator.
If students in your school can self-book classes directly from your calendars, you will need to set availability. You can do this by dragging and dropping the green available box onto the desired time.
You can also click on "Add Recurring Availability" to add repeating slots. On this menu, you will need to choose the start time, end time, which days you'd like the availability to appear on, and set an end date.
You will now see the green available slots appearing on your chosen times and days.
If your students do not have the ability to book their own classes, you should not add any green spaces, as this can cause confusion.
6.3 - Creating a class
This section applies to schools where teachers have the permission to create classes or courses.
From your dashboard, you can click on “add class” and then select “Add a single class.”
On the class creation menu, you’ll need to choose the start time, and end time. Please note that the start and end time will be in your time, so you may need to adjust it accordingly for a student in a different timezone. Students will automatically see classes appearing in their time.
You can also add info such as the subject, level, and a description.
Finally, you should decide whether this is a group or 1:1 class.
When you hit save, you’ll be directed to the enrolment page. You can choose to add a student now, or just click continue, to create a class with empty spaces.
If you want to wait, and enrol students later, you can do so from the "upcoming classes" section of your class admin, or by clicking on the class title (in the case of this example, "English B1") on your dashboard.
Your student will automatically receive a confirmation email, and the class will now appear on your dashboard and your student's dashboard.
6.4 - Creating Courses
This section applies to schools where teachers have the permission to create classes or courses.
If you want to create regular classes on a set schedule, it's possible to do so all at once, rather than creating the classes individually. Again, click on "+ Add Class" on your teacher dashboard, but this time select "Add course schedule."
What is the "Recurring schedule" option? A course is a series of connected classes, with the same students enrolled each time. A recurring schedule is a series of unconnected students. This allows you to create a set of empty classrooms in bulk, and then enrol different students into each one individually or allow them to choose a group class with available spaces |
Setting up a course is the same as setting up a class, but we will also need to add a schedule. To do so, click on "+ Add schedule". You will need to choose the frequency and number of occurrences. Each occurrence is one class, not one week, so in the example below, we are creating a 4-week course with 2 classes per week.
It is possible to choose the end date instead of the occurrences, but occurrences are more recommended, as it makes life easier in terms of class credits. Remember that your students need enough class credits to be enrolled into the full course.
When you click on "Save" you will be brought to the course menu, from where it is possible to further edit your course, enrol students, and add or delete classes.
You will also see the classes appearing on your teacher dashboard. To return to the course menu, click on this icon, beside the class title:
7 - Troubleshooting
In an online class, it's always possible for things to go wrong. That's why we recommend that teachers familiarise themselves with the troubleshooting steps for common problems. That way, you'll be less stressed if something goes awry, and better able to get your class back on track!
We recommend this Troubleshooting Basic Steps article, and you can also find more detailed troubleshooting articles here.
If something does go wrong in class, it's best to report the issue to your school coordinator.
Useful information to include:
The class review link from the affected class (you can find this in your past classes section)
A short description of what happened
If providing screenshots, try to capture the entire screen, as this can help us diagnose the problem faster.