Release Notes

• Fix for the double-click issue when a teacher is creating pairs or groups 

In older Live versions, when a teacher used double-clicking to select a student station to create a new pair or group of 3 or 4, Live became unstable, causing audio issues.

It is now fixed in version 8.43 and newer.

• Mechanism to restart the Student Live after the student's PC loses network access for a long time  

When a student PC loses network access for a long time during a Live class session and the student icon disappears from the Teacher Live, students can restart the Student Live by holding down the right-side CTRL + SHIFT keys and double-clicking on the Student LIVE blue icon. Student LIVE app will restart and reconnect to Teacher LIVE app, keeping the student logged in to the Live class.

• Adjustment to help maintain "Fast Video" playback synchronization on slower networks

• For College Board AP testing 

Alphanumeric numbers are now accepted, and the panel to Review and Export student recordings will open correctly. 

• Added/updated translation files (including French, Japanese and Vietnamese languages)

What's new:

• Size/Maximize/Zoom HUB window

The user has full control of:
1- The size of HUB app window (including Maximize)
2- The Zoom factor to adjust the size of HUB app UI and its content (text, graphics...)

They can now resize HUB app window just like any other Windows application by pressing expand.  
With this functionality there is also an auto-zooming function, meaning that when HUB app window increases/decreases, the app will automatically adjust the zoom of its UI and content depending on the  screen resolution.
However, the user can manually zoom by clicking ctrl + and - or using the mouse scroll wheel to increase/decrease zooming factor by increments of 10% from 100% to 200%. Once the user starts setting the zoom factor manually, the auto-zooming function of HUB app is disabled.
This flexible Sizing and Zooming functionality of Desktop HUB apps required major work in structural changes of the app code. However, as demanded by users, it now delivers a much better User Experience, particularly when running on high-resolution screens 1080p Full-HD and higher.

• Gradebook: 

Teachers now have access to the updated Gradebook concept in the install.

Click on the grade book icon and all information for that folder of activities is compiled in an easy-to-use grade book. See which students are missing which activities at a glance. See which activities need to still be graded by the teacher. See color coding of grades to give an immediate picture of which students or activities may need further attention.

• Filtering Activities:

Teachers can now filter and import activities from selected SmartClass content libraries (including Licensing enforcement). Just like in the web, teachers who are using our content as supplemental materials will easily be able to filter and find activities they can add to their classes, organize in their folders, and then assign to their students. The activities are copied into their Created Activities section of the platform and need to be organized into a folder before assigning. If the teachers want to keep the structure of the content, then we suggest downloading the full curriculum and taking the activities out of the folders that they don’t want to use. 

Improvements:

• Disabled AI Conversation Activities in Install

  The teacher can now delete in one operation ALL the activities inside the selected Folder.

• LTE Grammar Videos - Playable in Install

  Fixed the playback problem of YouTube videos embedded inside instructions of our Let’s Talk! English  activities. As a reminder, many of our grammar charts have a link to a YouTube video where Chelsea breaks down the grammar rules on that topic to assist teachers and students alike for learning the English grammar topic.
  
  

• Translation Files Updated

  All translation files have been updated.

• Student Notifications:
  Just like Student HUB Web app, the Notifications have 4 elements:

   #1) The Folder displays an Activity Counter with the number of Activities Done vs. Total Activities of the folder (example: 3/10).

   

  #2) The Folder also displays an Icon showing the level of completeness of activities (example 6/6 = All Done and the icon is green).

  #3) Font changes: If an activity is new or yet to be done - it will have bold font. Once a student submits the activity, it will have a checkmark and be in regular font. Once a student accepts an auto-graded activity grade OR a teacher grades a non-auto-graded activity, the font turns to bold green. 

   

  #4) A blue dot next to an activity notifies students of a new message from the teacher.

• Maximize Hub Window
  Just like Teacher HUB, the new Student HUB app has a Maximize/Re-sizable and Zoomable UI window. Students can also use this functionality if they are working in a Hub activity that was launched via Live.

• Vertical Activity Scroll
  Activities are presented to students in HUB app as full-width tokens that are scrolled vertically. No longer a horizontal scroll.

• Updated Folder and Activity Behaviors
  Students can now click on the folder or activity icon as well as the folder or activity name in order to open. Before the icon had to be cliced to open either. Now this functionality expands to the title as well. Also, like in the web, students can now collapse and expand all folders by clicking on the respective folder icons above the assigned activities.
  

• Updated “My Performance” Icon
  Students now have the blue circle with the graph icon for their “My Performance” information. It is now consistent to what the teachers see in their Hub.
  

• Better Video and Sound Quality
  When a teacher shares/broadcasts their video and sound, it is now of better quality.
  
  
• Launch Web Link to All Students
  Student Live now allows teachers to easily open URLs in the Edge or Chrome browser and launch it on all student computers. Added as a front layer to the “Launch Application” process.
  
  
• Improved Chat Experience
  The chat box is now 100% bigger vertically with a font size increased from 12 to 14 points.
  
  
• Fixed 3rd Display Connection Issue
  Fixed the problem of Teacher LIVE Dashboard on Monitors with Windows Scaling > 100%           (reference email: "The problem is with connecting the third display")

   

• Student Top Panel
  

  This was flagged as being an issue. The student Live panel would pop up on top and cover browser tabs that students may need to access. The panel can now be moved horizontally out of the way so that students can decide where this tab sits while they are connected. The student just clicks anywhere on the panel, slides left/right, and releases the mouse button.
  

• Improved Chat Experience
  The chat box is now 100% bigger vertically with a font size increased from 12 to 14 points.
  
  
• Launch Application + Launch Web Page
  Student Live now allows teachers to easily open URLs in the Edge or Chrome browser and launch it on all student computers. Added as a front layer to the “Launch Application” process.
  
  
• Disconnect Student Computers
  There is now a way to disconnect a computer in a LIVE setting if the teachers do not need to use it or if a student is in the lab working on something for another class. This was a request from a college as the lab is half used for classes and the other half of the computers are for students from other classes to use throughout the day.

What's new:

• Flexible installation of LTE Libraries:
  Flexible installation of LTE Libraries.LTE Libraries can now be added to Courses/Classes that already have existing Content and/or Students.  Additionally, LTE Library can be optionally installed starting at the designated Folder, leaving preceding folders for teacher-created activities.
• Sharing of LTE Activities within the school:
  LTE activities are now available to share using the "Local Shared Documents" function of the Create Activities section.

Improvements:

• FUNCTIONALITY: The teacher can now delete in one operation ALL the activities inside the selected Folder.
• FUNCTIONALITY: Much faster Opening/Closing of Media Files and  Activities.
  For example, when it used to take up to 6 seconds for a teacher to open (or close) an Activity for Review, it now takes less than 2 seconds.

What's new: 

• New Chat panel option: In Live Chat, the teacher can now send clickable URL links, that students can open directly. No need to use copy and paste anymore.
• New Chat panel option: The student LIVE Panel with Chat open can now be Minimized/Restored by the student. 

Improvements:

• FUNCTIONALITY: Higher-quality 22KHz Audio Broadcasting in LIVE class. (this OPTIONAL setting can work ONLY in LIVE Classes that are using the Student Native Windows LIVE app and are running on high-performance, low-latency wired networks).
• STABILITY (V7.30): Faster student-to-student switching when the teacher is Monitoring individual student screens.

What's new:

• New User Interface for HUB

  The new UI of HUB is much cleaner, and feels more like a Web application than a traditional Desktop app.

• New Fill-in-Blanks Speaking activity:

  Teacher-side activated Checkbox turns the traditional Fill-in-Blanks into a Speaking practice exercise. 
  

   Once “Speak the answers” is activated by the teacher, when students click on fill-in-blank they cannot type in text, but they must use the “Click and Talk” button (same as in Pronunciation activities) to input their textual answers.

  This type of Speaking practice activity is better suited for scenarios where fill-in-blanks answers are in the format of short sentences, rather than being just single words. In Grading, punctuation and upper/lower case are ignored.

• New Redo-by-Student practice functionality:

  Teacher-side activated Checkbox allows students to Redo a done activity to improve their previous Grade.   
  This new Redo-by-Student functionality works only for self-graded Activities. Students can Redo the activity as many times as they want, until they accept the grade. Only at that time, students will be shown the correct responses. Teachers in Review mode always see the most recent Grade obtained by the student. 

Improvements:

• Finally a true User Interface synergy between LIVE and HUB

  The user feels to run the same family of applications, from the login screen to the inside of the app.

• Upgraded teacher Review panel:

  Teachers have an improved Review panel, not only more esthetical but also more intuitive and efficient.
  In this streamlined re-design, teachers don’t need to press extra buttons to go into Grading mode. They simply click on Grade and/or Note input field to make the input/changes that they want. The software automatically saves to the database the last text input done by the teacher.

• SECURITY: Hashed passwords. User passwords are now saved in an encrypted format. Administrators and teachers can decrypt the forgotten password by clicking the view button when necessary. 
• SECURITY: Login credentials sent over the Internet are now encrypted with a 128-bit algorithm.
• FUNCTIONALITY: Support for the Hebrew language in Pronunciation activities.
• FUNCTIONALITY: “Variable Length” is now set as the default for Segmented Recordings.
• FUNCTIONALITY: Titles are now added to the panels in the Hub so that teachers can navigate more easily throughout the platform.

What's new:

• Fill-in-Blanks activities:  Instructions for teachers on how to use brackets [ ]
• Pronunciation: full support (speech-to-text and text-to-speech) of the Czech language in Pronunciation activities.

Improvements:

• Fill-in-Blanks activities:  Texts in brackets “[ ]“ are now visible in Desktop Hub apps.
• Fill-in-Blanks: Remove extra spaces typed by students between words.
• Fill-in-Blanks activities: Students are able to type between the [ ], even if the "Insert" mode is disabled.
• HUB UI: Preventing graphics "artifacts" from appearing in pop-up panels.
• HUB UI: Translation XML for the Czech language updated. 
• Student Recordings: The Hub app prevents students from submitting empty recordings.

What's new

• Teacher Hub: Help buttons for abbreviations in activities creation:
  1- DEF%: text for definition/translation.
  2- URL%URL#Label%  Insert a URL with a display label.
• Teacher Hub: Possibility to resize the window for the teacher Hub app. You can get the windows to a smaller size to fit small screens. Scroll bars will help you move inside the Window.
• Usage Report: Now available for a local SmartClass database (non-cloud) with Web Manager V 6.04  for Teacher Hub and Student Hub on Windows OS. 
• Teacher Hub: New utility to copy LTE Media Files: Faster download of LTE media files after the first download for each level of paid content.

Improvements:

• When exporting students' results to CSV - diacritics (special characters) can now be used.
• Folder active timers: Students will see the folder according to the timer set by teachers, even when the Teacher Hub is closed.  
• The Redo function is now available in the installed Teacher Hub to give a second chance to individual students.
• Student Hub app with "show Activity status" function. The activities will show a green label for done activities and when a teacher has given a grade or a comment.
• In Teacher Hub, when importing a media file or a course, it will show correctly in the good list. No more need to refresh or move to the "Organize and assigned" section.

What's new:

• Teacher Live: The capability of adding new/late students to the class. 
• Teacher Live: Adding a new student to a class that is already launched: The teacher has now an option to activate the "Create Account" function that allows them to add new students to the Live class. 
• BYOD (version 6,21) and Web (version 6,22) Managers now run as a service: Now both of our Managers can be set up to run as a service. Meaning no more need for a user to have an open Windows session. Our Managers will run 24/7 when the Windows session is closed.       

Improvements:

• Windows Student Live: The Live Icon is removed from the task bar preventing students from closing the app.
• Windows Student Live: Screen Monitoring performance and stability updates.
• Student Live: Students that are reconnecting to Live sessions can now log back in. No more message "Student already logged in"
• The button "Close Recorder" was moved to the left so it doesn't overlap with the delete (X) button in the Czech language. 
• The button "Auto-login" was made smaller and moved away from the "Student Login" and Manual Login" buttons.

What's new:

• Teacher Live: New "Archive" and "Restore" functions to move the complete Teacher Live configuration to a new computer or after a reinstallation of the Windows OS. 
• Web Manager: Installed Teacher and Students Windows Apps can now display the Usage report from a local SmartClass database (non-cloud) through Web Manager. Usage report will be available for new data created after the Web Manager version 6.04 or higher is installed.  3 levels are available: Administrator, Teacher and Student.
  

Improvements:

• Improved synergy in User Interface colour scheme between Live and Hub apps.
• Teacher Live:  Removed CD / DVD control in Teacher Live, except for AP Tests. 
• Teacher Live:  Improved Hardware AUDIO/KVM control (green squares in Live) with a refresh button.
• Web Manager: Now complete version of SmartClass web apps for teachers and students can connect with SmartClass local database (non-cloud) through the Web Manager. 

What's new:

• Integration with Google Classroom.
• Integration with GAR in France.
• New SmartClass favicon: The SC logo now shows in the browser tab. 
• Account Portal for SC Cloud users: A new window informs the teachers that they can register to the new SmartClass Account Portal when they open Hub. There is also a new "My Account Portal" button.  Now everything needed to teach with SmartClass can be found in one place.

Improvements:

• Student Recordings: The Hub app prevents students from submitting empty recordings.
• Fill-in-Blanks activities: Remove extra spaces typed by students between Words.
• UI: Activity Wizard Alignment.
• UI: The teacher interface is greyed out when opening an activity.
• UX: When importing a new media file, the Activity Wizard opens so the teacher is ready to create the new activity.