In this article: 

1. Practice classroom
2. Feedback tool
3. AI-generated discussion topics
4. Lesson details
5. Screen sharing (students & tutors)
6. Whiteboard
7. Classroom backgrounds
8. Emojis
9. Tutor slides
10. In-class messaging
11. Picture-in-picture
12. Blur feature
13. Learner celebrations 

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Practice classroom 

The practice classroom enables tutors to enter a real Cambly classroom! In this classroom, you are able to play around with all of the classroom features mentioned in this article and more! You will find the practice classroom on your tutor dashboard. You must set your status to offline to see the classroom. 

The practice classroom may not be available if you have a reservation or priority hour starting soon. 

The practice classroom lesson length is 10 minutes. Upon entering the practice classroom, you will see the lesson timer begin counting down. Don't worry! If you need more time in the practice classroom, simply re-enter the classroom from your dashboard once your practice lesson ends.

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Feedback tool

Cambly students flourish from personalized feedback during their English learning journey. Many of you already provide your students with feedback, which is why we’ve implemented a feedback tool for you to leverage in the classroom! We know how valuable your time outside of the classroom is, and having a built-in feedback tool to conveniently access directly in the classroom will make providing feedback easier for you, and even easier for students to access and benefit from.

How does it work?
The feedback tool can be accessed directly from the classroom. Simply click the clipboard icon in the top, right corner of your classroom to open it while working with your student. It will auto-save anything you type, so don’t worry if you don’t have time to finish polishing your feedback before the lesson ends!

⚠️Note: Clicking “send” in the classroom will submit the feedback directly to your student, and cannot be edited after doing this. If you haven’t finished editing your feedback, no need to click "send", as it will auto-save. You can access it later from your history page to pick up where you left off before sending it to your student.

If you are not able to finish your feedback for your student before the end of the lesson, it will be saved automatically and can be accessed from your history page. Just click the clipboard icon next to your lesson to continue editing your feedback, then click "send".

Once submitted, your student will be able to easily access the feedback you’ve written for them. Please keep in mind that once your feedback is submitted, it cannot be edited.

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AI-generated discussion topics

Keeping the conversation flowing with your students can be a challenge sometimes! If you find that you need extra help guiding the conversation, you can access the AI-generated discussion topics feature from within the Cambly classroom. This feature is a great way to infuse a little fun and variety into a lesson, or to simply help support tutors when faced with conversation lulls. 

How does it work?

1. Select the far, right icon in the upper right hand corner of your group classroom interface titled "slide generator".

2. The conversation starter experience will pop up in the panel on the right hand side of your classroom. Please note that your students will not see this.

 

3. Write in your own topic, or choose from a suggested topic. Once your topic displays in the box, click the Shake things up button.

4. Based on the topic you selected or wrote in, we’ll come up with introduction questions, vocabulary, and conversation questions. These will be displayed within the same box, only visible to the tutor. 

 

5. Click the share with the class button to display these as slides to your students. 
6. Now, simply enjoy the discussion with your students!

If you no longer wish to display the slides, simply click X HIDE MATERIAL in the same way you would for lesson slides, as shown below.

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Lesson details

Lesson details provides a better look into each of your students. Within these details, you'll now find improved student information, their lesson goals, and insights from previous sessions. These upgraded details allow you to feel more confident for your current and upcoming lessons!  To see your lesson details in the classroom, click the 👤 icon in the top, right corner of your screen. This will open your student's information, your notes for the class and the lesson details. Additionally, you can access lesson details directly from your schedule tab, by clicking on the student's booked lesson.

 

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Screen sharing

Students

Students have the ability to share their screen during a lesson on Cambly. Screen sharing is not yet available for trial lessons, group lessons, or Cambly Kids lessons. This allows you and your students to share materials without the need to send external links or documents. 

A student must request to share their screen during the lesson. You can choose to allow or ignore the request. If allowed, the student can share their screen anytime during the remainder of that lesson. If ignored, the student is notified and they are welcome to request at another point during the lesson.

A banner will be visible at the top of the classroom when you or the student are sharing your screen. Below is an example of what it would look like when Student Tony is sharing his screen:

Only one person can share their screen at a time, so tutors and students are unable to simultaneously share their screens. You have the ability to stop a student’s screen sharing or take the screen share back over at any time during the lesson. 

Your safety is most important during a lesson. If your student misuses this feature in any way, please remember that you can report a student at any time. Please see this help center article for more guidance.

Tutors

Sharing your screen with your students allows you to utilize a variety of resources such as news articles, videos, your own curriculum and more! To share your screen during a lesson, click the screen-share icon in the top of the classroom. You can also click the icon with 3 dots and select "Share Screen" from there. 

A window will pop up on your screen. You will be able to select which screen you want to share: your entire screen, an application window, or a Chrome tab. If you are sharing an article or something from another website, you can select "Chrome Tab" and your current open tabs will show underneath. From there, select the tab which you would like to share with your student.

Check out Joel's tutorial on how to share your screen in the video below! 

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Whiteboard 

The classroom features a whiteboard tool that tutors can use with their students. To open the whiteboard, click on the icon with the 3 dots at the top of the classroom. Then, from the drop-down menu, you will select "Show whiteboard".

Once the whiteboard is open in your classroom, you will see a toolbar on the left. This toolbar offers a variety of features within the whiteboard:

• Clicker: Selecting the clicker will turn your mouse back to an arrow/clicker.
• Selector: The selector lets you click on any drawing, text, or shape and move it around on the screen. 
• Pencil: The pencil tool lets you select a color and pencil width to draw or write on the white board. 
• Text: The text allows you to type on the whiteboard. There are a variety of colors you can choose from. 
• Shapes: The shapes offer a number of shapes, arrows and lines to use on the whiteboard. You can choose from a variety of colors. 
• Eraser: The eraser allows you to remove items one by one from the whiteboard.
• Clear: Clear will erase everything on the whiteboard at once. 

You have the option to turn off your student's pen tool at any time during your lesson. Simply click the icon with the 3 dots and select "Disable student whiteboard". 

You can try out the whiteboard and all of its features by entering the practice classroom, found on your tutor dashboard. 

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Classroom backgrounds

Cambly offers a virtual background for tutors to utilize anytime during a lesson. The virtual background is defaulted to off until you turn it on. Your current selection in the classroom is auto-saved for future lessons.

How it works

To use the Cambly virtual background, you must first enter the classroom. Then, click on the "Toggle overflow menu" icon from your classroom toolbar. 

Select “Show background” to enable the Cambly background during your lesson. To turn it off, repeat the above steps and select “Hide background”. 

Using a background can help create a distraction-free classroom environment. You can read about our work environment best practices and helpful tips in this help center article. 

FAQs

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Emojis

In-class emojis allow for more expressive and animated lessons with your students. Using emojis can help add emotion to formal conversations, creating richer and more meaningful conversations. To access emojis from the classroom, simply click the smiley face icon from the top toolbar. From there, you will have access to a variety of emojis that you can send to your student any time during your lesson. 

 

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Tutor slides

Tutor Slides are available in select lessons. They allow you to see a slightly different view that is entirely invisible to your student. Their purpose is to give you information, secret prompts, messages, and educational content that the students can’t see, which will make it easier to isolate learning practice or play a guessing game! 

A Tutor Slide may provide you with:

• An answer key
• Optional guiding questions
• New game opportunities 
• New ways to practice your students’ listening skills

When a Tutor Slide is part of your student’s lesson, the Tutor Slide will appear to you by default. You will know you are viewing a Tutor Slide by the white box with a red border that reads either “TUTOR SLIDE” or “TUTOR HELP.” Pictured below are examples of the tutor view and the student view. 

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In-class messaging 

Tutors have an in-class messaging tool to use during each class! This tool, found on the right side of the classroom, can be helpful to type out vocabulary words for students, send links, or help communicate more clearly with beginner students. The in-class messaging system also features a translation tool.

You can paste links from published online resources or upload your own files to a cloud service (e.g. Google Docs, Dropbox, etc.) and share a public link with your students.

 

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Picture-in-picture 

The picture-in-picture tool lets you to move your student's picture right underneath your webcam, or anywhere else within the screen. Moving it underneath your webcam allows you to look into your camera and at your student's video feed at the same time. Additionally, it allows you to navigate to other tabs or pages while still being able to see your student. 

To access picture-in-picture, simply hover over the student's video feed and click on the right button that appears. You can then move your student's picture wherever you'd like!

 

 

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Blur feature 

Cambly has implemented protections for tutors when working with trial students. When working with a trial student, the camera will be turned off by default, allowing the tutor a chance to feel comfortable with a user before they choose to switch the video/camera on. Tutors also have the ability to increase or decrease the video clarity as preferred.

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Learner celebrations

You play a vital role in a student's English learning journey, and the progress you make together is something to celebrate. At times, you will see the below card appear at the beginning of your lesson. When you see it, you can take a moment to celebrate your learner's progress by sharing this information with them. 

The card gives you statistics of your student's learning progress with you. It displays the total number of minutes you've spent learning together, as well as the number of unique words your student used in their most recent lesson with you. To celebrate with your student, you can share this information with them and send an emoji by clicking the "Send emoji" button. You can dismiss the card by clicking on the 'x'. Once you dismiss this card, it will not reappear.