Welcome back teachers! I hope you had a refreshing school break.

I’m excited to bring you another developer update, albeit another shorter one, as much of our time remains dedicated to building the backend systems for school accounts. This work is quite involved, and we expect it to occupy most of this term. As a result, our new content rollouts will be brief for the time being. However, we’re still actively fixing bugs and improving the platform based on your feedback.

Below is a list of the key bug fixes the team have implemented recently:

Bug Fixes:

Forced Use of Substrands or Sub Area:
We resolved an issue where users were required to select a substrand or sub-area when creating tasks. Originally intended as a quality-of-life feature to filter content descriptors, this requirement inadvertently caused errors and frustration. We’ve removed the forced selection, and users can now save their work without being forced to filter by substrands.

Grade Refresh Bug:
This bug caused confusion when the grade displayed did not immediately update after generating feedback. Although the system was processing in the background, it was only visible after refreshing the page. We’ve now added a background refresh to update the grade in real-time so users don’t mistakenly think the feedback failed to process.

Spelling Error in “Customise & Generate” Button:
A minor fix, but an important one! The feedback generation button had a spelling error that read “Customize & Generate.” We’ve now corrected the spelling to “Customise & Generate” to align with Australian English.

Marking Screen Formatting Issues:
In some areas, the marking screen displayed feedback in a squashed or poorly formatted layout. We’ve begun addressing these formatting issues, including adding a button to collapse columns and show more feedback text. This helps ensure the layout is clearer, making it easier to review feedback at a glance. We’re also working on reducing the size of percentage columns to better utilise space.

Generate All Feedback Button Not Working:
The “Generate Feedback for All Students” button was showing a “Success” message, but it wasn’t actually functioning. We’ve addressed this issue, and the button now correctly generates feedback for all students in a task. In future, we may also add a visual loading indicator so users can see that the system is working in the background.

Partially Fixed Issue: Disable Q&A / Custom Tasks Tabs:

We have taken the first step in addressing a usability issue with the “Q&A” and “Custom Tasks” tabs on the task creation page. These features are not yet functional, but previously appeared selectable, causing confusion for some users. For now, the buttons have been disabled so they won’t function. We are still working on greying them out and adding a “Coming Soon” pop-up to provide better clarity on their status.

Handwriting AI Marking:
Many of our users, especially those in primary schools, have been asking about AI marking for handwriting. The good news is, yes – it is coming! We’ve tested the handwriting marking feature, and it’s working well. However, due to the nature of our development timeline, we need to prioritise building the school account backend system first. We’re aiming to have the handwriting AI ready to roll out by Term 1 next year. Keep an eye out for our upcoming roadmap on the website and future blog, where we’ll outline this and other exciting features planned for 2025.

We hope these fixes improve your experience with TeachersAI. While we continue to work on the larger school account backend systems, we’re committed to keeping you informed about new features and improvements as they roll out. Your feedback is invaluable as we refine and grow our platform, and we truly appreciate your support throughout this process.

If you happen to spot any issues or have suggestions, please don’t hesitate to email me directly at [email protected], and we’ll ensure it’s added to our list of ongoing improvements.

Additionally, we still have some spots available for schools interested in running trials of TeachersAI for the remainder of 2024. If you or your school would like to participate, please get in touch – we’d love to have you onboard.

Cheers,

Stuart