The shared student password on textivate

What is the shared student password?

On textivate, when your subscription is set up, you are assigned just one student password shared by all of your students.

How do I get a shared student password?

If you have a Premium or Group subscription, you will already have a student password. It was sent to you as part of your account activation email.

If you have a Basic subscription, you don't get a student password.

How do I get individual student passwords?

Since July 2017, if you have a Premium or Group subscription, you have a "Manage classes / students" area which allows you to create classes, add students to classes and create individual passwords for your students.

When do students need to log in to textivate?

A student password is only needed for the following 4 scenarios.

  1. Students submitting sequence scores -
    Students need to be logged in with your username + either the shared student password or the individual password that you have set up for them, in order to submit sequence scores.
    • Shared student password: if logged in using the shared student password, scores are only submitted at the end of a textivate sequence, and students need to add their name and class so that you can identify them.
    • Individual student passwords: if logged in using a password set up for them by you, students' scores are automatically submitted at the end of each activity, even if they didn't complete it successfully.
    See this post on sequences on textivate.

  2. Students accessing password-protected challenges -
    If you have created a challenge for your students and have specified that a password is required, this means that it can only be accessed by you (with your username + password) and your own students (with your username + the shared student password). They also need to add a scoreboard name so that they can be identified on the scoreboard. See this post on challenges on textivate.
    Note that if a challenge is not password-protected, students do not need to use the student password to log in.

  3. Students textivating their own texts -
    Many schools use textivate primarily for this: so that students can put in their own text and use all of the text re-construction, gap-filling and text-entry activities to help them learn its content or memorize it. (See the next question, which deals with this issue.)

  4. Students searching or browsing public resources -
    Students need to be logged in using your username + the shared student password if they want to search or browse the thousands of public resources uploaded to textivate (via the spy glass icon).

If you simply want to share a resource or a particular activity with your students, they don't need to log in using a student password. You can simply provide a URL to the resource or activity, or you can embed the activity on your website or blog.

If you have created a challenge for your students that is not password protected, there is no need for students to log in. They just need to key in their scoreboard name and start playing.

Can students upload their own texts using a student password?

No. But they don't need to anyway.

If your students are using textivate to help them to learn a text, they have 2 options regarding how they store and access their info.

  1. Copy and paste -
    If students are using textivate, they have to be online. So it's easy for them to access email, webmail, google docs, one drive, etc etc. There are plenty of ways of copying and pasting to and from another source. At the beginning of a textivate session, students copy from their source text and paste into textivate. At the end of their session, if they have made any changes to the resource, they can copy all of the text from the "Show all" tab and paste it to wherever they are storing it.

  2. Local storage -
    If students are using the same device each time they access textivate, they can save their resource into local storage (by clicking on the filing cabinet icon). At the beginning of the next session, they can open it from local storage. At the end of the session, they can save any changes to local storage again.

So students really do not need to upload their own texts. 

(Nor is there any need for you to upload their texts for them. It simply is not necessary. And it's a waste of your own time.)

If you are thinking that you would rather get around this by giving your students your own teacher password, or by assigning one of your Group subscription username + password combinations to your students, please read on...

Should I let my students use my teacher password?

No. You definitely should NOT give your students access to your own teacher password, or assign them one of your Group subscription username + password combinations.

Here are a number of reasons why:

  • They can change your account settings -
    If a student has your username and password, they can change the email address linked to your account. Once they have done that, they can change the password for your account, locking you out of your own account.

  • They can delete your resources, challenges, sequences, gradebook, classes etc -
    Even if they do not change the email or password for the account, they can still do all sorts of damage. If you have uploaded any resources to textivate, any student with access to your username and teacher password will be able to modify them or delete them.

  • They can upload inappropriate content
    If you give teacher account access to your students, they can upload resources just like you can. They could upload inappropriate or offensive content and you would have no way of knowing who was responsible.

  • Log-in problems / Automatic log-outs -
    Bear in mind also that only one person can be logged in at one time with a teacher password. This means that if several students are using the same teacher log-in, they will constantly be getting messages telling them that someone else is logged in, and being automatically logged out of textivate. And if you want to use the account too, the same will happen to you. This is not the case with the shared student password -- all of your students can use it at the same time.


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