The post discusses the student password options in textivate and shows you how to set up classes and individual log-ins for your students. (Premium / Group subscribers only.)

The shared student password:

As explained in this blog post, students have always been able to log in to textivate using their teacher's username plus a shared student password. This allowed them to take part in Challenges, Sequences, etc.

One downside of this approach was that a Sequence had to be completed on the same device on which it was started. So a student who didn't finish a Sequence in class time would not be able to finish it at home (unless they took the device they used in class home with them...).

Also, because students were only required to identify themselves at the end of a Sequence, this meant that Sequence scores were only ever submitted for fully completed sequences.

NEW Individual student passwords:

If you click on the "Manage students / classes" icon (as shown in the image above), you'll see a screen which displays a list of all of your classes. You won't have any at first, so just click on the "+ New class" button...

... and give your class a name, add your list of students (one student per line) and save your class.

Note that the name can be in any format you like: Surname + first name; first name + surname; initial + surname; first name + initial, etc. Textivate will automatically generate passwords for your students:

You can edit the passwords if you like, as long as you make sure your passwords are at least 8 characters and there are no duplicates. (Textivate will automatically detect problems with passwords and re-generate new passwords if necessary).

The student experience

Students log in using their teacher's username, plus their individual student password, which they must type into the "Student password" field (leaving the "Password" field empty).

If logged in using their individual student passwords, after each activity within a Sequence, students' progress is automatically updated, even if they fail to complete the activity successfully. 

Once the progress has been updated, it is safe to move on to the next activity.

Benefits of this new approach

Unfinished sequences show in gradebook

If a student gets half way through a sequence in class, their progress will now be available to their teacher. The teacher can see how far the student got during the class (even if they never actually finish the sequence at a later date).

Students can pick up sequences on a different device

If a student follows a sequence link / types in a sequence url on a different device, they simply log in using their individual student password, and textivate will pick up their score for any incomplete sequences and navigate to the correct activity automatically.

Consistency with student names / groups in gradebook

The names and groups that appear in your gradebook will be the names and groups that you have specified, avoiding previous issues of students typing in slightly different group names or putting in nicknames etc instead of their name in the format that you requested.

As you can see in the above image, incomplete sequences are shown, with the number of activities completed shown. If you click on the "+Details" link for an incomplete sequence, you can see the list of activities completed, the scores obtained for each activity / attempt, the time taken for each activity / attempt, restarts, etc. (just as you can for completed sequences).