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Feature Releases & Platform Updates

December 30, 2023

Waveform Viewable on Speaking Tasks

December 30, 2023: Students will now see a waveform moving when they are recording their voice for a speaking task. This will confirm to students that the recording is working.

waveform on Ellii speaking task


Assignable PDFs

December 30, 2023: You can now add print-only lessons to a class using the Add to Class feature.

Add a PDF-only lesson to a class on Ellii

For any lesson that has a PDF option, students will automatically have access to the PDF as well as the digital version. 
 

student view of Ellii assignment with PDF

You can leave a note in an assignment if you need to clarify your expectations.

Note area on an Ellii assignment 


Polls, Packs, and Courses in Search and Collections

December 6, 2023: You will now find more great Ellii content coming up in Search and Collections. Ellii Polls, Study Packs, and Courses have their own tabs and filters in Search now. The Materials filter in Collections now includes these items too. This means you can navigate to our What's New? collection each month and easily find all the new polls and packs too!


Courses

December 1, 2023: You can now assign ready-made Courses to a Class. Courses are more comprehensive than Study Packs and may include assessment. You can assign students access to all of the content at once or release items one at a time. Ellii's publishing team is currently updating and repackaging some existing serials to be used with this new feature. Watch for many new Courses coming in 2024.


Refer a Friend

November 14, 2023: Teachers can now access a special friend-code inside of their My Account page to share with friends. When a friend buys a new subscription, they can input the friend-code to get a discount (currently 15% off). The owner of the code gets a credit towards their next renewal (currently $10, varies by currency) for each friend.


Student Picks

November 14, 2023: As a teacher, you can now give students agency in what they want to learn by sharing lesson names and topics from Ellii sections of your choice. Find the Include in Student Picks button at the top of every Lesson section (Resource sections not available yet). Students will see lesson titles and graphics in the My Picks area of their dashboards (from the sections you include) and can like the ones they are interested in.
 

screenshot of what a student sees in the My Picks area after a teacher includes a section

Your students will only see sections and lessons that match your class's level and have been added by you (from your chosen sections). To see what your students are interested in, go to the Saved & Recommended area of your class's Lesson Planner and choose Student Picks. Note that this feature is only available for classes that have been created after March 8, 2023. You must set a class's age and level in the Details area of your class for this feature to be available. We recommend only including one or two sections at a time so that you don't overwhelm your students with choice. You can unshare sections in the Saved & Recommended | Student Picks area of each class if you want your class to pick from a different section. Watch demo.

screenshot of Saved & Recommended Student Picks area on Ellii


Ellii Polls

October 2, 2023: Teachers can now launch a sessions-based activity that lets you conduct real-time interactive polls in your classroom (virtual or in person) to spark lively discussion, debate, and conversation with your English language learners. Students join the activity in on their mobile devices by scanning the code with the camera app on their phone or typing the link into a browser. New Ellii Polls are added weekly and can be used as a warm-up or cooldown activity. Watch demo video...


Study Packs

July 18, 2023:  You will now find a new way of assigning content in the Materials dropdown menu. Study Packs are small bundles of related lessons that you can bulk assign or release one at a time by adding them to your Class Lesson Planner. Each pack has 4–6 lessons related by theme or target. We launched with 40 Study Packs in 4 categories: Grammar, Dialogues, Topic-Based, and Vocabulary. Watch for weekly releases of Study Packs as we make more packs for other levels and ages! 

Study Packs


Add Videos & Flashcard Sets/Categories to a Class Lesson Planner

July 18, 2023: You can now add Videos and Flashcard Sets from the Media Gallery to a Class Lesson Planner. When you move content from the Media Gallery into the Teaching column, students in that class will automatically see the Video or Flashcard Set on their Student dashboards. They can click on an Ellii Video and watch it or they can launch a Flashcard Set to view and listen to it. You can add an optional Due Date or Note to the media assignment just like you can with a Lesson.

Add Media to Lesson Planner


Export Activity

June 5, 2023: An Export Activity button has been added to the Details | Participation section (in new Classes).

export-results


Filter Enhancement

June 3, 2023: When you select a filter and navigate to a lesson and then go back to a section, the filters you previously chose will remain in place. Be careful to adjust the filters if you want to see the full results for a section.


Notifications for Pending Cards in Grade Feed

June 1, 2023: Teachers will now see a notification on the Leson Planner of a Class if there are pending items to grade in the Grade Feed. 

notification of pending items to grade in a class


Student Onboarding Enhancements

May 31, 2023: The onboarding process for students has been updated to make it even easier for English learners to sign up to Ellii. Translation tips in some common first languages have been added.

Translation for signing up to Ellii

In addition, a simple 5-step sign-up guide has been redesigned. Please note that students must now have an email to sign up to Ellii when you invite them to a new Class. They will need the class code that you provide via emailQR code, or link (find this in your Classes area).

Finally, if you have younger students who do not have an email (or students who have very low literacy and struggle to sign up themselves), you can now manually sign up students with a username and password that you make. They can then skip signing up and just go straight to logging in at ellii.com/students.

Related Help Docs

Ellii Student Onboarding Options


Student Task Player Enhancements

May 23, 2023: After starting a digital lesson, students can now move through tasks in a sequential order by simply clicking on a button that says Next task. The Task Player will jump the student to the next incomplete task. In addition, students can see a Partial and Final Score for a lesson (included detailed information about the weighting if they choose). Lastly, the tasks now appear identical to how teachers see them, which includes some improvements for the students, such as a more visible instructions button.


Videos in Search Results & Collections

April 1, 2023: You can now find Ellii videos in our search results. If you search for a topic, theme, or target that relates to one of our videos, it will come up in the Ellii search results. The link will take you to our Media Gallery where you can launch the video. There is also a new Materials filter for Videos in our Collections. In addition we have a new Now with Video label for digital lessons that have been revised with the addition of a new video.

Note: The Ellii dropdown that listed the Media Gallery has been separated out for easy access to Flashcards and Videos.


Grade Feed

March 12, 2023: Assigning grades to open-ended writing and speaking questions has never been easier! Watch for notifications on your new Grade Feed inbox to see when something needs your attention.

Where to find Grade Feed on Ellii

All submitted tasks that are not autograded will appear in this feed. You can easily assign a star rating/percentage, leave a written comment, or record audio feedback. Watch the video tutorial and review our Help Doc for more information.

Ellii's Grade Feed


Ellii for Teachers (YouTube channel)

March 10, 2023: Ellii has a new YouTube channel with helpful videos specifically related to using Ellii as a teacher. Watch for regular demos and updates on youtube.com/@elliiteachers.

YouTube for Ellii Teachers

Our existing Ellii YouTube channel (youtube.com/@ellii) will continue to feature content for learning English. Encourage your learners to watch for new videos each week. Ellii learning videos without ads are available for subscribers in our Media Gallery and within digital lessons.


Lesson Planner

March 8, 2023: Ellii's new Lesson Planner is designed as a kanban board with three lanes: PreppingTeaching, and Taught. First, create a new class. Then add lessons or resources to the Lesson Planner for that class. Drag Ellii content across any lane to effortlessly prepare for a class ahead, instantly assign lessons to your students, and see what each class has been working on recently. There is also a folder for Saved and Recommended within each class's Lesson Planner so you can plan further ahead. Learn more and watch the video tutorial here. 

Ellii's Lesson Planner

Note: Classes created before March 7, 2023, do not have a Lesson Planner and will need to be re-created in order to use this feature. When creating a new class, your settings will default to this new style. However, you can unselect this default to create a new class in our legacy style if you prefer.

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