We are excited to announce some big, new features coming to Buzz this summer!
- In-app messaging for students and teachers: Buzz's new messaging makes it easy for students and teachers to communicate right in Buzz. This is an opt-in feature for the 2024-2025 school year and we can't wait for you to try it. Learn more.
- Simplified Grade editor for teachers: Our upgraded Grade editor retains the same grading options for teachers in a sleeker, more intuitive design. The new Grade editor will be released to all users for the 2024-2025 school year. Learn more.
- Improved submission messages and feedback for students: Teachers will be able to send multiple messages to a student about a submission at any time, and these messages will be more discoverable for students. These updates will be released to all users for the 2024-2025 school year. Learn more.
Introducing in-app messaging for students and teachers!
Buzz's new messaging tools:
- Streamline communication between students and teachers with an easy-to-use Inbox that doesn't rely on external email services. Learn more.
- Enable two-way, contextualized interactions about student submissions with messaging tools built into the Grade editor for teachers and Grade details for students. Learn more.
- Simplify workflows for teachers by automatically generating links when students message from specific activities or folders. Learn more.
- Facilitate co-teacher and grader collaboration by giving them visibility into their shared students' messages and letting them easily join or be added to existing conversations. Learn more.
- Improve parent and mentor involvement by giving them access to their student's messages. Learn more.
Try Buzz messaging in beta!
We will share additional details about this exciting new feature in the coming weeks. If you are interested in trying messaging before it's released, contact your Agilix account manager.
Note: Once messaging is released in Buzz, Announcements will no longer be in the Communications tool. Regardless of whether messaging is enabled, Announcements will have their own link in the toolbar and Main menu.
Student and teacher Inbox
Teachers and students have a new Inbox where they can compose, receive, and respond to messages.
Submission and scoring messaging
Submission and scoring messaging enables students and teachers to message about student submissions before and after they are graded while looking at the submission and grade details.
For teachers, this messaging takes place in the Grade editor.
For students, this messaging takes place in the Grade details screen.
Submission and scoring messages are also delivered to the Inbox with a direct link to the submission, so students and teachers can be quickly notified of new messages and respond easily.
Activity messaging
Activity messaging allows students to easily message teachers from any activity or folder.
These messages are delivered to the teacher Inbox with a direct link to the activity or folder, so teachers can easily review the content students have questions or comments about.
Teacher collaboration
In addition to enabling easy teacher-to-teacher communication within a course, Buzz's messaging feature also allows co-teachers and graders to see all of their shared students' messages and add each other to existing conversations in the Student details screen.
Co-teachers and graders can also easily join submission and scoring interactions.
Observer involvement
Parents, mentors, and other observers can access student messages, enabling them to be more involved in their student's learning success.
Additional changes with messaging enabled
Customers using the new messaging capabilities in Buzz, will also see the following changes:
The Send mail buttons will appear as New message buttons that send messages to the recipient's Inbox rather than sending an email. With messaging enabled, Buzz users will no longer initiate emails from within the app.
Has feedback icons for submissions will indicate that a submission Has message, meaning that either the student, the teacher, or both have sent a submission and scoring message.
Simplified Grade editor for teachers
All Buzz teachers will get our newly simplified Grade editor which gives teachers the same, powerful grading options in a sleeker design:
- An improved button layout will support more intuitive grading.
- Teachers will be able to send multiple messages as feedback at any time after a student submits.
- Try Buzz messaging! With Buzz messaging enabled, teachers can also receive messages from students in the Grade editor.
- The Feedback template button will appear as an easily accessible tool in the rich text editor, eliminating the need to scroll to find a template.
Additional changes to the teacher grading experience
- Feedback messages are posted and remain in the Grade editor screen, so teachers no longer need to review Score/Activity history and Submission history to see past Feedback.
- Feedback messages are no longer tied to the Submit score button. Messages can be sent separately and at any time, before or after scoring an activity.
Improved submission messages and feedback for students
All Buzz students will see the following changes to how they receive feedback messages:
- Feedback messages will be more discoverable, located in their own panel on the Grade details screen. Teachers will be able to send multiple messages and can send them any time.
- Try Buzz messaging! With Buzz messaging enabled, students can respond to teacher messages in Grade details.
All Buzz students will see the following changes to how they receive feedback messages:
- Students will receive a notification in their Activity stream whenever they receive messages about a submission and the View feedback button will take them to the activity's Grade details, so they can review feedback messages in the context of their submission and score.
Additional changes to the student experience
- Feedback messages are posted and remain in the Grade details screen, so students no longer need to review Score/Activity history and Submission history to see past Feedback.
- Feedback messages are not printed when printing Grade details.