What's New in Classroom 9.7 - Sep 2024

Add a student to a class session who is in another teacher’s active class

Teachers can now add a student to their active class even if the student is currently in another active class. This can be helpful in certain situations like when a student is in another class that has run over its scheduled time or when another teacher has pulled the student into their class. The student will appear with an “Add to class” link under their name.

Default to Exclude a Rostered Student From Class

We’ve introduced a new “Exclude by default” option in the student roster section for classes. This option sets a student to be excluded from the session when the class automatically starts by schedule. The student will also be unselected on the student selection screen when starting a class manually. This is useful when a student will be absent for an extended period of time, but will return at a later date and is still being included in the synced class roster.

If the “Exclude by default” option is enabled for a student, the student’s name will appear with a symbol next to it on the class roster.

Zoom out even further

For those teaching very large classes, a new zoom level has been added to allow teachers to quickly see even more students on a single screen. This new zoom level is available only in card view, not tab view. Due to space limitations, tab titles will not show above thumbnails.

Improved role mapping in OneRoster 1.1

You can now configure OneRoster 1.1 synchronization to import users with the roles of Teacher, Aid, and Administrator, and assign them any desired role in Securly Classroom. Previously, all teachers were imported as Teacher 1, and aides did not import at all. This role mapping feature is available for Classlink, OneRoster, and Securly Sync roster integrations. 

Improved role mapping in OneRoster 1.2

OneRoster 1.2 has more defined role fields than OneRoster 1.1. If your SIS utilizes these fields, you can now map them in Securly Classroom. This is available for Classlink and OneRoster integrations when configured to use OneRoster 1.2.

Import users via CSV

You can now import users from a CSV file. This can be useful for users in roles that are not importing through the existing sync methods such as substitute teachers. The CSV import can also be used to change the role for users, such as promoting certain users to a role with more permissions.

Faster refresh

Performance enhancements have resulted in approximately a 16% increase in the refresh rate of student thumbnails since the end of last school year. This improvement brings the average refresh time down to about 5 seconds, making the system feel significantly more responsive when viewing student screens.

Changes

• While running a class, when sorting students, offline students will now be moved to the bottom of the list. If their status changes they will pop back up to their proper spot in the list. When using student groups, offline students will move to the end of their respective groups.
• Rostered Student List: Previously, teachers would only see their own students (according to class rosters) in the rostered students list unless the permission for “View/Start Other Users’ Classes” or “Edit Other Users Classes” was enabled, in which case they would see all students. Now, they will only see other students in schools where they have access rights. 
• Lost Device Count on Dashboard: Previously, the Lost Devices count on the dashboard was based on the number of devices in the OU set for Lost Mode, which could differ from the Lost Devices table as Admins could remove items from the table even if devices remained in the Lost Mode OU. Now, the dashboard will show the count from the Lost Devices table instead of the OU.
• Most stats for the Admin Dashboard are gathered nightly, so the date picker on the Admin Dashboard has been changed to prevent selecting the current date as the end date.
• Securly Sync no longer appends the OneRoster SourceID to class names to make them unique and easily distinguishable; instead, the nickname field can now be used to identify classes when needed.
• OneRoster, Classlink, and Securly Sync will skip importing classes if the “enrollment.beginDate” field is more than 15 days in the future. This keeps the system from importing classes that are not current or about to be current soon.

Bug fixes

• Fixed a bug where occasionally, removing a student from a manual class would fail.
• Fixed a bug where students could not view a teacher's screen share in full screen when the "Force focused window to maximize" setting was enabled under My Account.
• Fixed a bug where exporting the rostered students list for large organizations with default settings sometimes resulted in missing students.
• Fixed a bug users in the Technician role were unable to view or edit blocking plans set for private classes.