Outschool provides a home page for each class that occurs on Outschool - we call this the Outschool classroom. It's a place for learners and teachers to interact during the class.
How it works
The classroom is for class announcements and discussions.
Each section of a class has its own classroom page, which is accessible to all learners and parents enrolled in that section.
Teachers can create new posts, and learners are notified of new posts.
Learners can add comments to posts, and teachers are notified of new comments.
Teachers and learners both have the ability to attach files and record videos through classroom posts or comments.
There is always a default first post welcoming students to the classroom
For live classes, an automatic post is created in the classroom for each scheduled meeting. This post contains information about who attended the meeting, measured by when they clicked the Join Live Meeting button. Scheduled meeting posts have a gray background and no outline to visually distinguish them from teacher-created posts. If the teacher has opted to share the recording, it will also be included here. Read more about automatic recording sharing.
If multiple learners are enrolled by one parent, then the user identifies themself as the correct learner in order to enter the classroom.
Teachers and learners can access the section classroom indefinitely, but the ability for teachers to post and for learners to comment expires 30 days after the section has ended. The Join Live Meeting button will also expire at this time.
In addition, the classroom provides a link to join video chats in zoom.
Guidelines on use
The classroom is public to all enrolled learners. Posts and comments should be relevant to the whole class. For private messaging with a parent or their learner, you should send a message instead.
Accessing the classroom
The classroom is linked from each section - click the Classroom button at the top of your section page.
Welcome post
Teachers can set a welcome post for all learners to see on the classroom as soon as they enroll. Teachers can also upload a welcome video to appear with this post from their class edit tab or while creating the listing.
The video will appear in the classroom for learners to see alongside your welcome message.
Adding posts
Add a new post to make an announcement, start a discussion, or share resources. When creating a classroom post, you have the option to either publish it immediately, or set a publication date in the future. Many teachers find it helpful to schedule future posts when they’ve run a class before and will be posting regular videos or other content.
We also provide teachers with the ability to copy a previous post from a different section of the same class. You’ll see that option toward the top of the classroom page.
Once you click the link to copy an existing post, you’ll be able to filter by section date and select any post from that particular section. You can also make any required edits to the existing post before publishing it in your current section.
@Mentions
Teachers and learners can send each other notifications during classroom discussions! There are two ways to @ mention a learner on the classroom.
Reply to a classroom comment by clicking on the Reply button. The learner you reply to will automatically be @ mentioned.
Type the @ symbol in your comment and the names of other learners in the section will automatically appear.
When you @ mention a learner in a comment, they’ll receive an email notification letting them know. Please make sure your learners have their emails listed in their profiles from your account settings under Learner Preferences.
File and video attachments
You can attach files or videos to each post you make in the classroom. If you’re attaching a file, the maximum file size allowed is 50MB, whereas if you’re attaching a video, the maximum size increases to 100MB. If you’re using Chrome as your browser, you’ll see an error message when your file is larger than these limitations. The file storage software we use does not show this error on other browsers like Firefox or Safari, so make sure to check your file size if you’re prevented from uploading a file or video and not given an error message.
Best practices for flexible schedule lesson uploading
We encourage teachers to use an outside recording platform instead of the Outschool platform to make any pre-recorded lesson videos. If you’re using a Mac, the built-in iMovie recorder works great. Quicktime is another good, free option for both Macs and PCs. Beyond these tools, you’re welcome to use any other recording app that you enjoy.
Because of Outschool’s file size limit, many teachers like to upload their recordings as unlisted YouTube videos. Unlisted videos are similar to Outschool class recordings in that only those with the link can view them. This will allow you to share a recording of any length with students without worrying about file limitations.