With more than half the school year complete, let’s explore the latest features, updates, and content that have been recently added to Edcite. From an update to the Question Bank’s design to the addition of content clarifiers, we’ve been listening to our Edcite Community and further optimizing the Edcite experience for admins, educators, and students.
1. Content, Content, Content
Our content team has digitized many of the latest state-released items and they are now available in the library. Below you will find a list of the newest content that has been added. Note, Edcite maps standards across states, so this content will automatically be tagged to your relevant state standards!
- Ohio – OST 2022
- Massachusetts – MCAS 2022
- Colorado – CMAS 2022
- Texas – STAAR 2022
- Indiana – ILEARN 2022
- Arizona – AASA 2021-2022
2. Improving the User Experience
Reports Hub Optimization
In order to help teachers and administrators access data in a more timely and efficient manner, our team optimized our Reports Hub infrastructure. We also added an “Apply” button to filters which is useful when drilling down from larger data sets. Note, reports on Edcite Schools can be filtered by both demographic and instructional student groups.
Question Bank Update
You may have noticed that the Question Bank looks a little different – that’s because it does! We listened to feedback and implemented changes so that searching for content requires fewer clicks and streamlines the content browsing experience. Here are some changes that were made:
- An “Expand/Collapse All” button has been added to show/hide prompts for all questions on a page. This allows you to see what students would see without having to view each item individually.
- A Question Type filter has been added to the Browse Standards view. Teams requested this so they could build targeted practice with some of the specific technology-enhanced items that appear on their state assessment.
- You will see a blue badge on question cards for state-released items.
- A question’s name, subject(s), grade(s), likes, views, along with the state-released item badge can be found at the bottom of question cards, adjusting the important real estate of the library to focus on the questions themselves instead of their metadata.
Bubble Sheet Feature Enhancements (Edcite Schools Only)
The overall bubble sheets scanning and grading process has been enhanced. If there are any errors with reading particular sheets, a pencil icon will now appear next to a student’s name which allows for the manual entering of student answers.
Lock Common Assessments in One Easy Step (Edcite Schools Only)
Locking an assessment is done when creating a common assessment so that no changes can be made to it by anyone besides its creator. Doing this is now as simple as clicking the symbol in the Assignment Editor.
3. Content Clarifiers
Students can now access teacher-created clarifications for words and phrases. To see a content clarifier, students click on the word(s) that are underlined with the dotted line.
4. Text-to-speech in Spanish (Edcite Schools Only)
By popular demand, text-to-speech is now available in Spanish. You can change the TTS language in an assignment’s settings.
5. Question Type Updates
Extended Select Answer
The Extended Select Answer (#001) question type now has all-or-none and teacher-graded scoring options.
Touch Image
The Touch Image (#123) question type now allows you to choose between a rectangle, a circle, or free drawing to outline an answer area.
Label Image
The Label Image (#120) question type now has the option to hide the label lines.
6. Dictionary Tool (Texas & Edcite Schools Only)
Teams in Texas can use a Dictionary Tool in alignment with the end-of-year STAAR assessment. Students simply click the icon and enter a word they’d like to look up.
7. “Blind Assessments” (Edcite Schools Only)
A setting has been added that allows an assessment’s creator to restrict teachers from being able to view or print the assessment or answer key. This is useful when teams don’t want anyone to see an assessment ahead of time.
Common Assessments Initiative
For ready-made released state tests, check out this link to our Common Assessments Initiative to find your state’s released assessments. The Common Assessments Initiative is an opportunity for all teachers to deliver a released state test in our premium viewer along with our premium tools. You can also find more released state tests on your featured collections page.
We always welcome feedback and strive to make Edcite the best platform it can be. If you have any suggestions on how we could make your Edcite experience better, please reach out to support@edcite.com.
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