Award-winning teacher and co-developer of What2Learn, John Rutherford, will be getting the new students in his school signed up and on to W2L over the next week or so. This is a process he has done many times and has got it down to a fine art. Read below to learn how he manages to get a whole class signed up and logged in to W2L in around 5 minutes…
The first step is to make sure that you have created your own teacher account with W2L (free like everything else here). Without a teacher account you will not be able to see your student scores and you will not be able to help them
ifwhen they forget their usernames or passwords. You can make your teacher account by clicking the ‘sign up’ link on the homepage.Once you have your teacher account you need to log in to it and make a note of your teacher ‘share code’ – this will be on the first screen you see once you log in and is needed in order for you to link to your students.
Most schools have email accounts for their students but getting them to use their own email addresses in the registration process only creates a whole new load of barriers to overcome. As such, what I do is create an email account with a simple address with a free service like yahoo.
At the start of the lesson you need to display both the email address you created and your teacher share code. You should also open up the email account you created.
You need to demonstrate to students how to get to what2learn and fill in the registration form. Then sit back at your computer and keep refreshing your email account – it will start filling up with the confirmation emails for your students. Simply open up each email as they arrive and click the confirmation links, shouting out the usernames of the accounts you have activated – the relevant student will be immediately able to log in.
Once all students have logged in you should get them to press on the ‘Sharing link’ in the menu bar and enter your share code. This will instantly make them linked to you so that you can view their progress and manage their accounts.
From this point they are fully fledged users of W2L. It is worth giving them some time to enter each others share codes to begin to create their competitive league with their friends, design their micon (the character to represent them) and make the first couple of steps in managing their farm. These elements are important as they provide a great deal of motivation for the students to complete more and more of the learning games (which can be accessed from the ‘Play’ menu button).
I hope this helps. Good luck and enjoy using this system – we are really proud of it. If you want any more help please email me at john(at)what2learn.com.
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