Customise your login page

You can customise our login page for your school so it can be used as a homepage for staff and students

Why customise?

You can customise the login page to have the following:

• School name & logo - visual confirmation that staff / students are on the right website
• Custom links including your school website address - easy access to your school website and other websites useful for your staff and students

How do I customise the login page?

Simply log in as an administrator, click on 'School' in the left menu. You can upload your school's logo etc. on this page, at the bottom of the page is a link to add homepage links.

Dave layout update

We have added the ability to delete groups from Dave. This will delete the group and remove students from the group. It will NOT delete marks from students. Marks are deleted when the student is deleted from the OST student.

The options for each group can be found by clicking on "Options", next to the group name.
Options include group name, students, units and delete group.

We have also built a page designed with the head of department in mind, this page shows all marks / units asssigned to each group.

A list of your Dave groups has been added to your summary / home page.

Eric - Exam Timer

A system developed and tested over the exam season 2009 is Eric - the Exam Timer.

Eric was developed to be a simple one page system for use in exam halls with a screen and projector.

He came into existence after a suggestion from one of our schools. The exam officer wanted something easier to see from the back of the hall than the blackboard / clock that was currently in use.

Eric is simply a page with boxes that can be typed in to show up to 4 exam start / finish dates. There are also boxes for the school centre number. The date and time are also shown, and the school logo is displayed (if you've uploaded it in the school details area).

Simple and effective - just the way we like it.

To meet Eric, log in to OST and then go to this address: http://www.onlineschooltools.co.uk/new-system/eric/

Show / hide systems

We have added a page to enable administrators to show / hide systems from teachers and students.

If you wish to experiment with / set up / change a system and keep it hidden while you do so, simply click on 'System' and then 'Show / hide' in the Admin menu.

Skills tool for technology

We are currently working on a 'skills handbook' for technology (current system name - Steve).

The idea behind the system is to enable teachers to quickly record students experiences in technology. The main idea (at the moment) is to record students skills with tools, be it the lathe or an electric oven. Each tool can be rated for each student, whole classes can be done in seconds.

Using this system, teachers can get a good idea of a new students abilities quickly. Student data can be easily imported and exported should the student change school or move on to college.

Sounds like something you could use? Please contact us and we'll keep you informed.

http://onlineschooltools.co.uk/free-online-tech-skills-monitoring

Prepping for the summer holiday development

We are looking to roll out our free online marking system (Dave) at the beginning of the summer, in time for our users to acquaint themselves with the system over the summer and hit the ground running at the start the new school year.

Dave
Make sure you contact us to be added once the system is complete. Dave has been in use in several schools for a while now, undergoing testing - which he's passed in flying colours... We are just finishing off the OCR unit criteria at the moment. After that we'll give him a final check and then release him to the masses.

Bob
Bob our room booking system has undergone a few refinements, just simple things to make him easier and quicker to use. We have also added more weeks into the database ready for the next school year.

Arnie
We have made arnie more flexible, allowing detentions to be set at break and lunch, and allowing teachers to decide which type of detention can be set as a follow up.

Multiple administrators
You can now have multiple administrators, simply create a user account and then email the username to us.

Welcome

Hi and welcome to the Online School Tools system development blog.

We will use this to keep our users informed of the goings on behind the scenes at Online School Tools.