We have followed Promethean’s developments with their ClassFlow online cloud based lesson presentation and assessment toolkit every few months here on the TeachNet Blog over the last two academic year. Those of you who are regular visitors here will recall that I have mentioned previously that the ClassFlow product is under continual development, being regularly updated taking on board the feedback that teacher users give to Promethean on the ClassFlow Community Forums. In mid February, Promethean released ClassFlow Version 4. Since then, it has already been updated twice, and just over a week ago, Promethean released ClassFlow Version 4.2, fixing a number of bugs and adding some new features requested by users in the ClassFlow Community Forums.
ClassFlow Version 4 has had a major update and has been given a completely new interface as can be seen from the screenshot below.
A new feature in Version 4 has been the addition of the Marketplace. Promethean’s own developers have been creating interactive resource which have been added to the Marketplace and made available to all users. Resources available in the Marketplace can very easily be searched by Subject and/or Grade Level. Once you find a resource that suits your class, it can be added to your own resources at the click of a button. A facility to share resources by e-mail has also been added.
A Collaborate button has also been added to the interface to allow another teacher or some of the pupils to collaborate with you on any lesson. Pupils can also collaborate on group assignments and see each group member’s work in real time.
The Reward feature is a new feature that allows a teacher to reward an individual, a group or a whole class by giving badges to motivate them and encourage good behaviour. A selection of 25 different badges are available. These can be edited and modified to suit the needs of individual teachers and pupils.
A final feature deserving of mention is that of the new Chat function. This allows teachers to send messages to pupils. Teachers also can read any messages that pupils sent to each other as they co-own any chats started by pupils.