New Teacher Homepage Best Practices and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Overview:
This FAQ provides quick answers to the most asked questions about the New Teacher Homepage as well as some best practices, so you can find solutions fast and get the most out of your experience.
Best Practices – Teachers:
- Use the Pin functionality to keep your Select Students dropdown and/or Subject Tabs dropdown open at all times
- Rearrange your Test cards in an order that feels the most comfortable and intuitive to you
- Adjust the Test card sizes based on your needs as an instructor (larger test cards provide you with more data)
Best Practices – Specialists:
- Create as many student groups as you need to help stay organized
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):
Q: How do I test my students?
A: To test your students, you simply need to click on their name from the Select Students dropdown on the homepage. This loads their tests, just like in the Classic view of ESGI.
If you have a Class or Group selected, click the expand arrow next to your Class/Group name in the top menu bar. From there, you can select whether you’d like to view your students by Class, Group, or Students. If viewing a Class or Group list, click the dropdown arrow to expand your list. Click on the student’s name to load their homepage and click any blue Test button to begin testing.
If you want to keep viewing your students, simply click the Pin icon to keep your dropdown open for as long as you like.
Q: How can I revert to the old version of ESGI?
A: Click the Settings (gear) icon in the bottom left corner of your screen. Then, click the Go to Classic View button.
Q: Why can’t I see all my students/ subject tabs from the drop downs? (screen sizing issue)
A: Depending on your screen resolution and/or browser zoom settings, you may need to scroll to see full student and subject tabs lists. Each of the dropdown lists have a scroll bar you can use, or you can use your mouse/mousepad to scroll within each dropdown.
If you are on iPad, we recommend zoom levels that are at 100% or lower.
Q: How do I see the teachers for my assigned students in a Specialist Account?
A: Student assignments can be seen in Student Manager. To view teachers for your assigned students, click the Student Manager icon in the left navigation panel. Once on the Student Manager page, you can search for the student by entering their first or last name in the search bar at the top of the page. You can also filter by Primary Teacher, sort all students by first or last name, and much more by clicking the sort (arrow) and filter (three lines) icons for each column.
Q: What do I do if I receive an “Uh oh” error?
A: If you receive an Uh oh error at any time while using ESGI, please contact ESGI Customer Support by clicking on the “Contact Us” button, or by sending an email to Support@esgisoftware.com
Q: Why did ESGI change the homepage to begin with?
A: Over the past year, we’ve actively engaged with our user community through surveys, pilot programs, user interviews and support interactions. Your feedback has been crucial in guiding this update. While the product may look different, our commitment to supporting your vital work remains unchanged. Here’s why we made this change:
- Sustainable Growth: The updated UI provides a foundation for new features that will evolve with your needs, overcoming limitations of our previous framework.
- Improved Stability and Accessibility: The new design enhances performance, reliability, and accessibility for all users, including those with assistive technologies.
- User-Centered Design: Although the interface may feel unfamiliar at first, every change is based on thorough testing and feedback from educators and administrators, enabling many of your top-requested updates.
Q: Why does it take so many clicks to do everything now? It was much easier before
A: To enhance our application with the requested reports, activities, and data tracking features, we’ve separated the pages. While this means accessing Reports and Activities requires an additional click instead of scrolling the old homepage, it allows for independent pages where you can set up Reports and configure Activities without navigating through modals. You can also make class, group, and student selections on the same page, eliminating the need to return to the homepage as in the Classic version.
We’ve reduced clicks on the homepage by adding a Pin icon to both dropdowns, allowing you to continuously view and select students, classes, groups, and subject tabs. This maintains the same click count as the Classic view while offering visibility into more Subject Tabs.
We've added a Test Dashboard for each test, allowing you to access key report data on a single page by clicking any test card, eliminating the need to configure multiple reports.
Q: Why is everything less colorful and less vibrant than it used to be?
A: To make our application more accessible to people with disabilities and meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, we had to change contrast ratios between text and colored backgrounds. The Classic View of ESGI does not meet these guidelines.
Q: Where was the feedback that drove these changes gathered from?
A: Our team collected feedback through in-app user surveys, customer interviews, user panels, and our annual community survey for more than a year while our Beta version of ESGI was available to all teachers. Customer feedback was the primary focus for this redesign.
Q: I was never asked to give feedback; Where can I submit my own?
A: In-app surveys are launched at least twice a year for all users to provide their feedback. Our Product Marketing department also sends emails soliciting feedback regularly to all users. Both are perfect opportunities to provide your feedback!
If you’d like to submit feedback outside of these surveys, click on the ? Icon in the bottom left corner of the page. From our in-app Help menu, click Help Us Improve ESGI!
Q: Why does the download option not appear when I run reports?
A: ESGI’s lowest supported resolution is 1280x768, which is the standard across online products/applications. If either of your resolution numbers are smaller than these values, you can adjust your desktop settings to gain full usability of the application.
If your browser is zoomed in past 100%, the download buttons may also become inaccessible. To adjust your zoom settings, go to your browser’s menu (the three dots in the upper right corner of a Chrome browser, for example), and change your zoom settings; or use the key command Ctrl + Minus Key.