Hi Teachers,

Welcome to a slightly different edition of our Developer Blog, focused on one significant new feature: our new password option for student logins as well as a few smaller tweaks. We understand how important security and ease of use are for you and your students, so we’re excited to unveil this improvement. Don’t worry—we’re still making great progress on the backend systems for school accounts, and we’ve brought in an additional development team to help accelerate this process in preparation for 2025.

The Rationale Behind the Password System

When we first launched TeachersAI, our vision was for it to be primarily used by individual teachers, especially in primary schools. We wanted to avoid adding another password for young students to remember, so we initially implemented a birthdate authentication system. However, as more teachers and older students began using TeachersAI, it became clear that the birthdate system wasn’t ideal for everyone.

1. User Concerns: Some were understandably apprehensive about inputting birthdate information, even if a “dummy” date was allowed.
2. Older Students’ Needs: For older students, the birthdate method felt overly simplistic and raised usability concerns.

The New Password Option

To address these issues, we’ve introduced an option for password authentication. Teachers can now choose between the birthdate or a system-generated password for student logins. This password system provides an added layer of privacy for those who prefer not to use birthdates, while still allowing teachers who prefer the simpler birthdate method to continue using it.

Note: This is our first iteration of the password feature, and we plan to enhance it further in future updates. But for now, this improvement should meet the needs of users who were looking for an alternative to birthdate authentication.

Optional Email Field

In response to user feedback, we’ve made the student email input optional. Previously, teachers who didn’t have an email for a student were forced to create a placeholder, which added extra steps to the setup. Now, you can skip the email field entirely, making the data entry process even faster.

To clarify: both the email and birthdate fields are still displayed on screen but don’t need to be completed, especially if you’re using the password option. We recognise that this could be made clearer visually, and we’re working on refining the design to make this optional status more obvious. But for now, feel free to leave these fields blank if they’re not needed.

This update also works seamlessly with the Excel template upload, so you can enjoy faster data entry in bulk as well!

Design Update

Our design update is nearly ready to go live! As mentioned in previous blogs, we’re refreshing the site’s visuals to make it clearer and more user-friendly while preserving the clean aesthetic that our users appreciate. This new design should make navigating TeachersAI even easier, and I’ll personally be updating our tutorial videos to reflect these changes. Expect to see the new look very soon!

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That’s it for Developer Blog #13. We’re looking forward to sharing more updates with you in the next edition. As always, if you have questions, concerns, or feedback—or if you’re interested in signing your school up for a demo or trial—please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at my email.

Thank you for your continued support!

Cheers,

Stuart