Modulus Mars 2.0
By: Daniel Wei
Tags: Code, Edtech, Education, Release Notes

Updates!

First of all, we have a new website at https://www.modulusedu.com. The web application has been moved to the app subdomain, so there’s some clear differentiation between the landing page and the web app.

Also! We’re proud to be sponsoring the ModHacks hackathon, which will be taking place on July 24–26 as an entirely virtual event. Sign up on their website here: https://modhacks.site/

Finally, we’re also excited to be partnering with InspireCS, a nonprofit initiative, to conduct their lessons online in the wake of the pandemic. You can view their site at http://inspirecs.site/, but expect more partnerships in the future!

New Features at a Glance!

Features!

Here’s our most major feature in history — built in video calling! This means that, as a teacher, you can easily create virtual lesson rooms with your students, complete with screen sharing and all the other features you expect from a normal video conference app. It’s completely optional and doesn’t interfere with your normal workflow, which means if you prefer to use Zoom or some other third-party app, you can continue to do so — but for those that want it, calls are now built into the app. It’s also free for students to join their teacher’s calls.

Here’s some more enhancements for teachers! If you’ve ever wanted a way to directly add students that are on the platform into your course, you can do so. This can be useful for a number of reasons — for instance, if the student isn’t particularly tech-savvy, but wants to join the course and can’t figure out how. Simply have them copy their UID to you, which is visible at the top of the account page, and you can directly add them.

Additionally, you can view each student’s progress through the course now, by clicking on their name in the table of students. This can be useful in getting an idea of the speed at which students are completing your course, and where each of them are.

On the student side, that of course means there is now progress marking! You can easily keep track of where in the course you are by clicking on the checkbox on the right of each item, which are automatically saved. Marking an item as complete isn’t just a great way to help you keep track of what you’ve completed and what you haven’t, it’s also visible to your teacher.

Back on the teacher end, due to popular request, we no longer give you a template on which to build your course modules and items by default. We found that the template distracted, rather than enhanced user workflows. Thus, we’ve removed these default items, so you’re free to build your course as you wish from the ground up.

Another feature for our teachers is the ability to add other teachers! Similarly to adding students, simply ask an assistant teacher for their UID after they’ve created an account, and then add them through the Manage Teachers tab. Co-teachers will have full edit access for your course, and there’s no “head” teacher, which means each teacher can remove each other — so pick your teachers wisely! ;)

Finally, we’ve totally revamped our subscription system, so that it’s intuitive and user-friendly. If you’re a student, enrolling and accessing courses and video calls is free and will continue to be free, but if you’re a teacher, for only 4.99 a month, you’ll have full access to our course creation tools, as well as the ability to create video calls — for as long as you want, with as many students as you wish. We’ll also prompt you to subscribe for another month at the end of each 30-day period, so you won’t get any unexpected billing — period.

That’s all! If you enjoy using Modulus, or have any feedback regarding the product, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at contact@modulusedu.com. We’re doing everything we can to make sure the experience we afford our users is the best possible, and that includes responding to your emails, feedback, and suggestions very thoroughly :)

Until next release!