History of Product Updates

January 2024

• We’ve updated our Administrator Reports to save administrators time and provide a more complete view across their district! In admin reports users can now:
  • View district-wide data in each report
  • Load reports almost instantly
  • Generate custom reports for specific date ranges and/or specific schools

December 2023

• New features are available for videos, PhETs, TUVAs, and slide decks. Teachers can now drive engagement, promote collaboration, and scaffold learning for every student in EVERY assignment in Actively Learn by creating Teacher’s Guides, Extra Help summaries, and annotations. Students can also create notes, and share them with peers, in every assignment.

September 2023

• Administrators can use the Emulate feature to log in as any teacher in their district (district admins only) or school. While emulating as a teacher, the administrator can see class- and student-level data and easily take actions the teacher can, such as adding a co-teacher to their class or assigning texts for students

July 2022

• Teachers can now integrate with Open Learning

May 2022

• Added alerts for delete actions in the Workspace
• Improved printing layout of classification questions

April 2022

• Added ability for teachers to see student drafts to questions in the grading panel.
• Added the info icon on assignment tiles in the student view so students can also access an assignment's essential question, description, and other data at a quick glance.

March 2022

• Added ability for teachers and students to move their notes within an assignment .

February 2022

• Added new info icon on assignment tile in catalog to allow for a quick glance view of the assignments essential question, description, and other data. 

January 2022

• Updated the assign modal to allow for teachers to assign to individuals (Prime feature), set start and due dates, and select optional assignment settings.
• Added Grade and Lexile level information to teaching ideas within all assignments. 

December 2021

• Updated lock/unlock feature to allow teachers to set start and due dates
• Added support for multiple languages in closed captions on videos when available 

November 2021

• Updates to our search bar making it more prominent
• Added support for teachers to export standards from assignments
• Added support for administrators to export standards data

October 2021

• Added translation support for all languages currently supported by Google Translate
• Filter sidebar now supports filtering by assignment type
• New Present Mode added making it easier than ever to share your screen without giving away answers.
• Teachers can bulk lock and unlock the same assignment across multiple classes

September 2021

• Added support to grant partial credit for questions that have more than one correct answer. 

August 2021

• New question types added
• New Summative Assessments added across all subject areas. 

July 2021

• Updates to the Actively Learn workspace, catalog, and class view

February 2021

• Revamped student data page with more actionable recommendations

July 2020

• Revamp of Admin Dashboard

June 2020

• Toggle between subjects

April 2020

• Optimized navigation on mobile

February 2020

• Cleaned up formatting for printing text

January 2020

• Captions added to videos
• Sync assignments and grades with Schoology

December 2019

• Integration with Schoology now available for full school plans

November 2019

• Featured "New Deep Dive" articles on catalog main page
• Optimized workspace for mobile 

September 2019

• Teachers can update their title and grade level under their profile section
• Districts may request (via our support team) disabling Independent Reading Library
• Students can now join Google classroom synced classes via a class code
• Languages added to our translation feature
  • Telugu
  • Gujarati
  • Tamil
  • Igbo
  • Armenian
  • Georgian
  • Slovak
  • Malayalam

August 2019

• Integrate with Schoology

July 2019

• More "Extra Help" features
  
  • Rocket ship icon on cover tiles of text to indicate text includes extra help 
  • Easier access to roster for turning on "Extra Help"
• Curriculum Units 
• Admin report: New column added for admin to track "Extra Help" usage

June 2019

• Lexile Levels have been added to text in our catalog
• Sub-menus added to our catalog for an easier browsing experience
• Updates made to Edmodo login process

April 2019

• Teachers can remove embedded videos with our white out feature
• "Extra help" removes one incorrect choice from multiple choice questions
• Co-teachers can now import Google classroom course
• Suggested grading (beta)
• Small group discussions
• Add videos from Google drive
• Edit imported Google docs within Actively Learn

March 2019

• Haitian and Creole languages added to our translation feature
• New assignment type in our catalog: PhET simulator
• New extra help feature: Add text summary

February 2019

• Ability for teachers and students to tag other students and teacher in notes
• You can now split and assign Simon and Schuster text
• Improved catalog search
• Added "My data" tab for students
• Teachers can now import "flex books" from CK12
• Hungarian and Romanian languages added to our translation feature

January 2019

• You can now split and assign HarperCollins text
• Purchasing single lessons for We the People has been removed
• Text published by Highlight now available for purchase by international users
• Improvement to school and district admins signups using Clever
• Check out our text pairings in our catalog

December 2018

• Thai added to translation feature
• Teacher can import their own videos!
• Split longer free text by text sections
• Teachers on the Actively Learn free plan can now integrate with Clever through the Clever Library
• Admin report: Admins now able to view students' Proficiency by Standard across grade level or subject
• Teaching ideas available to help teacher get started with our popular text

November 2018

• Admin report: Teacher Activity Reports now display co-teaching reading times in parentheses
• Admin report: Admins can view "Proficiency by standard" for each student across all their classes
• Option to restore student responses that are awaiting revision

October 2018

• Default note categories have moved
• Admin report: Two new columns added to student activity in School Reports. "Note replies/reading times" and "Notes/Reading times"

September 2018

• Bug fixes and product enhancements 
• New Jersey standards now available 

August 2018

• Big changes to Actively Learn navigation
• Updated Actively Learn navigation experience

May 2018

• Video assignments
• Use text-to-speech for entire text sections

March 2018

• Re-designed Actively Learn catalog
• Added Florida state standards

January 2018

• New features
  • Tag student question responses
  • Add model responses for questions
• New set 
  • Shakespeare's Tragedies
  • Dinosaurs, Extinctions and Excitement

December 2017

• New features
  • Co-author folders 
• New sets 
  • Read like a Scientist
  • The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank 
  • Night by Elie Wiesel

November 2017

• New Instructional Resource section in our help center
• Option for words to be highlighted as they are spoken when using text-to-speech
• Added key vocabulary for assignments 
• Minimizing questions
• Ability to add images to question response (must be enabled by teachers)
• Split your assignments in the Gradebook
• User names added to Gradebook export file
• Limit students access by grade level to independent reading catalog

October 2017

• Added Turkish and Greek to translation list
• Implement videos added for "Activate Thinking" section in professional learning center
• Filter by Depth of Knowledge and standards in question summary view
• Admins can view last signed in date under manage users

August 2017

• Folders have been added to Workspaces

July 2017

• Added ability to merge duplicate student accounts
• New professional learning center section

June 2017

• Added citation styles to student research section. APA and Chicago now available
• New Teaching Guides

May 2017

• Archive and unarchive assignments
• Notes are included when printing out assignments
• Microsoft Office 365 login
• Students will have access to notes and questions in rental text with expired licenses
• In co-authored text the original creator of the assignment can remove invited co-authors

April 2017

• State standards added for Texas, Virginia and Missouri
• Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) added
• Teachers can reply to student notes in research texts
• Added 2 more note categories for student research
• Notification of updates made to text added from School/District Libraries, and ability to download updated versions to workspace
• Ability to select multiple assignments when assigning to individuals 

March 2017

• Exporting grades for assignments 
• Customize set default note categories
• Added tab in teacher reports to view teacher feedback to students
• Teachers can respond to "I don't understand" flags in quizzes

Feb 2017

• Track the number of student retries in the activity report 
• Hide text sections 
• Schedule lock and unlock periods for assignments
• Timestamps on student revisions

January 2017

• Create custom grading labels 
• Tie teachers to multiple buildings 
• Knowledge sets added to the catalog. Articles in each set include annotations and questions to help guide and activate student thinking.

December 2016

• Display only model answers for your students by making changes to your reading settings
• Questions can now be added at the beginning of the text 
• Merge multiple texts into a single assignment 
• Penguin Random House titles to the Actively Learn catalog

November 2016

• You can now export the activity report to review your class' progress 
• Multiple Choice quiz questions are now randomized to prevent cheating 
• Quiz settings: reveal multiple choice answers, enable reading aids, etc. 
• Whiteout feature expanded to allow for whiteout of images 

October 2016

• Mobile-optimized experience: Actively Learn is now fully accessible on smartphones 
• Turn off text-to-speech from reading settings
• Students can adjust the speed of text-to-speech, and change the voice of reader
• Add directions to quizzes

September 2016

• New Grading options, including the addition of a 5th grading option
• Added the option to turn off the dictionary in reading settings
• Option to add 2 standards per question

July 2016

• Switch a student from one class to another
• Easily move questions within the text
• New Google Classroom features: assignments now saved as drafts and grades can be synced with Classroom
• Students can now archive classes

June 2016

• Actively Learn Chrome Extension for easy upload of internet articles
• Rental period for teachers and students now begins when the text is opened
• Note categories can now be edited

May 2016

• Questions can be weighted in an assignment.
• You can filter on standards in the Catalog.
• Improved label management to add and remove labels separately.
• Note summary views now show note replies.
• Add question rigor to reporting by including DoK Levels. 
• Replies to notes now visible in the 'Notes summary'. 
• Research labels now included under the student report section. 
• Clever students can now join classes that are not in Clever.
• All Text Settings now apply to Google Docs. 
• Redirecting students now works for portions of the text students have not unlocked. 
• Teachers and students can print quizzes
• Students now have one-click citations for their research texts. 
• Inclusion of a Professional Development Category. 

April 2016

• Teachers can now Customize reading settings for individual assignments. 
• Extended student aids: Students can now use hear it, define, and translate in notes and questions. 
• Student can print assignments. 
• Sign in - Has checkbox for "Show" when typing password
• New additions to translate: Hebrew and Urdu now included for a total of 21 languages. 
• Student Reports can now be filtered by your classes in addition to all classes. 
• Shared assignments include all original labels. 
• Grading includes old grade with each reset response. 
• For texts with multiple segments such as novels, Assignment Data now includes section-specific data.
• Skip questions you don't want to grade. 

March 2016

• Locked student names - Student names are now locked at signup, and only teachers can edit them.
• Collapsable notes - Shows a note preview to allow more notes to be visible at once.
• Simplified text views - Including student view, authoring view, and grading views.
• Improved Notifications for students. 
• Additional translation added: Hindi.
• More note taking options for students including media use. 
• Extra Help in questions - Provide students who receive extra help additional support when answering questio

February 2016

• New definitions from the Merriam Webster Learner's Dictionary.
• Students can bring in their answers, highlights, and notes from Actively Learn into Google Docs with our Add-in 
• Students can collaborate with their peers while researching 
• Students can add Google Docs to Research 
• Teachers can now see what texts students are adding to Research 

January 2016

• Directly clarify passages with students when they say they "don't understand".
• Expanded Independent Reading Library.
• Teachers can now add articles to the Independent Reading Library 
• New student reading setting to control students' ability to translate.

December 2015

• Additional languages available for translation - Spanish, French, Japanese, German, Italian, Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Russian, Latin, Vietnamese, Somali, Filipino, and Ukrainian. 
• All get on the same "page" by redirecting students to a specific line.
• Collaboration across schools in a District - search for teachers by name 

November 2015

• Pin questions, to keep them at the bottom of your screen while you browse the text.
• Improved smartphone experience - now supporting pinch & zoom.
• Change Username from your profile - for those times emails change.
• Assign to individual students 
• Student Research Report Tab - To see what texts students are importing 

October 2015

• Student Mode - now every teacher can read as a student!
• Text translation - currently only English/Spanish (more languages coming soon!)
• Improved iPad highlighting
• New Collaborate menu in the Workspace
• Updated grading look and feel

September 2015

• Google Classroom improvements
• School & District Admin dashboard updates 

August 2015

• Pin labels in your Workspace to quickly access groups of texts.
• A simplified and modernized UI.
• Google Classroom integration.

July 2015

• You can now manage more than one text at a time! (Assign to class, share, delete, etc)
• Assignments can now have multiple labels to help with sorting & identification.
• Students can now request a question be reset for them to re-attempt their answer.
• New student portfolio to show growth over time through question responses 

June 2015

• Improved catalog with faster searching and easier filtering.
• Students can now see when they have unanswered questions in assignments.
• New help menu behind the "?" on every page.
• Differentiate instruction by giving selected students extra help notes 

May 2015

• Teachers can have an assignment locked after a due date.
• Teachers can whiteout text in an assignment which prevents students from seeing it.

April 2015

• Teachers can bulk grade unanswered questions by question number, in addition to text section
• Teachers can add co-teachers to a class 
• Teachers can print out assignments and student work 
• Students can import texts to the "My Research" section for independent annotation