Do you teach the same class to multiple groups of students? Do you find it frustrating to add homework when the classes don’t all meet every day so some students have a different due date than others?

We hear you!  

This post gives a quick walk-through of the easiest way to currently add in those assignments.  I hope it’s helpful :)

OEmbed is now supported by teachers.io making it easier than ever to have the homework for a class published to your wordpress or other site.

The same link that can be used to share any class is now an oembed resource too.  These links look like  https://teachers.io/c/<course_id> and can be found in the share box on the course page.

Here’s a live example using wordpress.com showing an old style link, a widget with the height and width specified and a widget placed using the easiest method where wordpress detects that the link supports oembed.

Here are the different methods to use to display the widget via oembed:

<a href="https://teachers.io/c/SV7Cj7FG2">My Class Link</a> [embed width="400" height="500"]https://teachers.io/c/SV7Cj7FG2[/embed] https://teachers.io/c/SV7Cj7FG2

The image below shows how to enter the three different options using the HTML tab in the editor of wordpress.com.

Hopefully that makes life a little easier!

We quietly rolled out one of our most requested features last week: it’s now possible to select files from Google Drive for assignments, tests, lessons and syllabi when using the Teachers.io website.

This should make using the website quite a bit easier for teachers that use Google Drive for their file storage.

By default, Teachers.io classes and profiles are visible to the public at https://teachers.io/<username> This makes it easy for both students and parents to find classroom information.

As Teachers.io and myHomework have improved, schools have begun to use the apps for many amazing purposes which we didn’t originally expect.  

To help account for this, we’re introducing a profile visibility option which makes a Teachers.io account hidden from the public internet and search engines.

With this setting enabled: 

Teachers can still share links to join their classes.

Teachers can still embed widgets to their courses on other websites.

Only teachers at the same school (if applicable) will be able to see their info at https://teachers.io/<username>

myHomework users will still be able to view and join the teacher's classes.

Here’s a brief video showing how it works:

Now you can add repeating items to your classes!

Entering things like weekly tests, nightly study time or bi-weekly assignments is now as simple as choosing a start date, frequency and end date.

Your students can mark each occurrence complete in the latest version of the myHomework apps.

Here's a quick video on how teachers can enter repeating assignments:

Last night, an update we're pretty excited about was released.  It's based on feedback we've received over the last semester from our teachers.  Thank You for all the feedback! 

With the new update,

Get a quick glimpse of the week by class or assignment type on the new home calendar view.

Schedule things a little further in advance with the ability to hide them until the Show On date.

Get things done quicker with many navigation and usability upgrades: new copy assignment/resource options, website drag and drop items to new dates, and more...

Similar to a Twitter feed, it is possible to embed your Teachers.io homework on other websites.  Google Sites has made this process a bit harder than most other website creators or blogs and requires a few steps beyond when I posted A Widget for your Class Site.

Most of the content for this post is thanks to @TonyAmsler from this post who posted on how to embed a Twitter Feed on Google Sites.

First, prepare a widget.xml file.

1.  Create a new .xml file with the following content:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>      <Module>          <ModulePrefs title="Class Homework Timeline"/>             <Content type="html">                 <![CDATA[ 

This is where you paste the widget code

                  ]]>               </Content>     </Module>

2.  Get the Teachers.io widget code from your class page as described in my previous post  A Widget for your Class Site

3.  Insert the widget code from step 2 into the xml file created in Step 1.  You may also want to edit where it says "Class Homework Timeline" to be about your class.

Here is a working sample file:  https://sites.google.com/site/keithentzeroth/widget22.xml

Then, upload the .xml file as an attachment

1.  In Google Sites, go to settings->manage site and select attachments in the lefthand navigation.

2.  Upload the .xml file you created for your class widget.

3.  Copy the url by right clicking or ctrl+click on the Download link

Finally, insert a gadget by url into your webpage 

1.  In Google Sites, navigate back to the webpage for the class you would like to share homework with.

2.  Choose to Insert->More Gadgets.  Select Add by URL from the lefthand navigation.

3.  Paste the URL you copied earlier into the URL box.

4.  Remove any text that occurs after the .xml on the filename.

Hooray!

Now you can use the Teachers.io app to quickly share information about your classroom and it will also update your course website.

But it didn't work...Common Gotcha

Last week, we launched a new feature that makes it easy to share the homework for your Teachers.io classroom site on another website. This makes it easy to use myHomework and Teachers.io with your existing website whether it was built with Google Sites, Weebly, Wordpress or even Moodle.

Here’s how to add a widget to a site:

1.  Log into your account and from any class homepage look for a link to embed a class widget in the lower left.

2.  View the preview.  Adjust any options and copy the HTML code from the box below the preview.

3.  Paste the HTML code into your other site using a corresponding HTML view.

For visual + audible learners, we've made a quick video available.