1/12/23 Updates

1/12/23 Updates

Our development team is kicking off the New Year with another batch of platform updates for you. Here is a summary of changes just released:

New Combined Portfolios Interface and Functionality

Combined Portfolios accumulate artifacts and ratings across all Classes AND across all Terms AND even artifacts from outside of classes. It is the ultimate repository for a student or teacher to curate all of the artifacts of learning for each of the skills in your school's Skills Framework for each of your students.

Open your Combined Portfolio module and you can select from a list of all students that have been assigned to any of your classes in the current Term. For each Learner, you can instantly see how many skills have been assigned, how many have been approved and how many artifacts are in all of their combined portfolios.


Select a student by clicking on their name or the blue View button. The counts of Assigned (Skills), Approved (Skills) and Evidence is still available in the learner detail header. You will note that you also have a number of filters available to you:
  1. Assigned (Skills) - Note that the filter defaults to Assigned so the skills detailed below will only be those that have been assigned to the learner, whether Evidence has been submitted, rated, or not. You can also filter to see all of the skills that have not been assigned. By unclicking both boxes, you will be able to view all of the skills in your school's Skills Framework, whether assigned or not.
  2. Completed (Skills) - You can choose to reveal only those skills that have been Approved, or only those skills that have not yet been Approved. Again, leaving both of those boxes empty will show all results irrespective of their Approved status.
  3. Required (Skills) - If your school has designated specific skills as required for graduation (yes, this is possible - if interested, see your support team for more details), you can filter the list by whether or not the Skills are required.
  4. Filtering - The filters can be used in combination so that, for example, you can show Assigned Skills that are Required for Graduation, and have been Approved. You can clear all filters by clicking on the blue Clear button or unchecking any or all filters.
  5. Parent Skills - Please note that if you have nested skill groups (what we call parent and child skills), the parent skills are always shown in order to show the context for the child skills. The parent skills are not impacted by the filters and will always appear.
  6. Latest/Most Recent - Since the Combined Portfolio reflects ratings from more than one Class there is the possibility of a Learner receiving different ratings for the same Skill in different Classes. To determine which ratings the Combined Portfolio displays, you can toggle between the Latest (Most Recent) Rating in ANY Class, or the Highest Rating in ANY Class.
Special Note about Approved Skills:
Approvals of Skills in ANY Class will carry into the Combined Portfolio. By way of example, if a Skill is tagged in three separate classes but only one teacher marks it as Approved, that Approval will be what is reflected on the Combined Portfolios. Changing approved status in the Combined Portfolio will NOT change the approved status in the Class Portfolios. You may want to develop norms for your learning community around Approving Skills so that everyone applies them as consistently as possible.



The skills are arranged within the highest-level categories of your Skills Framework. You can click on either a Category itself, or the downward arrow to its left to expand it to see all of the included sub-categories, or you can check the Expand All box to expand the category and all sub-categories.



For each Skill displayed, you will see a Teacher Rating (if any), a Learner Rating (if any), and the count of Artifacts in that Portfolio. Click on the gear icon to the far right of a Skill and you can see that Skill's entire Combined Portfolio.


The center panel will display the name of each Evidence tagged to that Skill in any Class, along with its rating and weighting. You can click on the Evidence to preview the Artifact if one was submitted. The right panel will display a list of any Artifacts that have added to this Skill's Combined Portfolio outside of a Class; you also have the capability to add new Artifacts the Combined Portfolio. Above that, you will see the current rating for that Skill and have the chance to update it by selecting a different Skill Level from the drop-down menu or a different numeric rating, and then click on the blue Update button. IMPORTANT: A rating on the Combined Portfolio will not impact any Class Portfolio ratings or Class Grades. 

Easily Switch School Roles

If a LiFT user has dual roles - both teacher and facilitator - or is now a registered user at multiple schools (Yes, that is now possible too), it is easy to switch between roles. Click on your School button to the left of your name to access your School Roles.



And then select the role you wish to switch to from the School List pop-up window.



From the Facilitator Panel, to switch back to your teacher role, click on School Roles under your email address in the upper right corner and then select your alternate role from the My School Roles window that pops up.




New Data Export Process

The data Export facility has been upgraded and will continue to evolve so we can deliver data files according to your needs. There is a new Exports module at the bottom of your facilitator panel. When the module opens up, you can open the drop-down menu and select either Students All Data or Average Child Evidence Portfolio Grades. We'll be adding additional export formats, so let us know what kind of data you need and we will work to make it available.

Click the orange Submit Query button and LiFT will prepare your export - an orange banner at the top of the page will say Running Export. Once that message disappears, refresh the page and you can download your csv file with the export data.

Fair warning! The export of Average Child Evidence Portfolio Grades will not work unless you actually have a grading policy in place that creates Average Child Evidence Portfolio Grades for Parent Skills, and most schools do not currently have that policy in place.  

Draft Comments Automatically Saved Until Sent

Ever get interrupted while writing a comment to a student? Now any comments you've written to an individual student will remain in the comments box until you hit the Send button, even if you need to go see another student, project or evidence. When you return to the original comment, finish it off and hit Send.


Please note that your draft comments don't remain in the box if you logout and log back in to LiFT.


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