Lessonspace Teaching Tools

Overview

Dojo Tutor sessions take place in Lessonspace, an online classroom with built-in tools for video, whiteboards, documents, and classroom management. Here’s everything you need to know about using Lessonspace's teaching tools for your tutoring sessions.

Lessonspace Features Used in Dojo Tutor Sessions

To create an interactive learning experience, Dojo Tutor tutors use the following Lessonspace features:

Upload Images, PDFs and Office documents to the Whiteboard.

Screen Sharing

The screen-sharing icon is on the right-hand side in the communications dock. You or your student can click on it and share your screen without installing any plugins (Note: we recommend using Lessonspace with Chrome or Firefox for the best results).

Click on this icon on the right-hand side of the comms dock
A menu will pop up asking if you would like to share your Entire Screen, a Window (if you want to share a single application like Chrome) or a Chrome/Firefox tab.
Select one of them, and click the blue Share button in the bottom-right corner
You’re all set! Your student should now be able to see your screen
To stop sharing, click on this icon on the right-hand side of the comms dock

⚠️ Please note that due to restrictions from Apple, on iPhone and iPad devices sharing a screen is not possible at this time.

Screenshare Annotation

Screen share annotation is an excellent way to add interactivity to the classroom, allowing students to draw on or highlight information on the shared screen. You'll see student's cursor as well as anything they draw!

To annotate a shared screen:

First, initiate your screen sharing
Next, you'll notice the toolbar at the top of the screen share. Utilize the tools provided to annotate and draw on the shared screen:

⚠️ Please note that annotations will be lost once the screen sharing is stopped.

Whiteboard

The interactive whiteboard allows you to draw, write, and annotate content in real time! You can use various tools, such as shapes, text, and images, to create engaging lessons and activities. You can even choose to upload your lesson content such as images or PDFs.

To create a Whiteboard, just click ‘New Whiteboard Tab’ once you join a tutoring session

When you have created a new whiteboard tab, you have a number of different options that are available in the Space Toolbar at the top of the screen. These options allow you and your students to do things like, draw, write and collaborate together on your documents.

Whiteboard tools

In order of appearance:

Color Wheel - Choose from a range of colors to draw, type and create shapes with. You can choose a different line and fill color.
Select Tool - The select tool allows you to select, move and resize images, objects and PDFs.
Move Canvas - Move the entire screen in any direction, zoom in and out with your mouse wheel.
- 💡Pro tip: When on a whiteboard, hold down SHIFT while scrolling, this will make moving on the whiteboard easier. Release SHIFT for zooming in and out while scrolling. You can also click and drag the Whiteboard using the right mouse button.
Draw Tool - Draw, write and annotate images, objects and PDFs. Choose the line thickness by clicking on the Draw tool before drawing.
- 💡Pro tip: When using the pen/highlight tool, click and hold Ctrl to draw a straight line.

Eraser Tool - When you hover over any object on the whiteboard with the eraser tool, it will go grey, click on it to erase.
Shape Tool - Draw a rectangle, triangle, ellipse or line of any size.

Text Tool - Will insert a box you can type in and drag to resize or move.

Equation Tool - Has options to insert a math formula or a graph.

Library (& App Library) - Insert resources from a collection of ready-made images and worksheets, or add files from your personal or organisation Library. Insert the resources directly to the whiteboard with just one click.

Upload an Image or PDF - Upload an image/PDF from your files.

Take Video Snapshot - Choose to take a snapshot of your / your student's video feed which will be uploaded into your Whiteboard as an image you can annotate on.

Change Background - Change the background to a grid size of your choice or to a different color.
Undo - Undo previous change.

Redo - Redo previous change.

Zoom - Adjust the percentage of the zoom on the whiteboard.

Cursor and Viewport Settings - Show or hide student cursors, their nameplates (shown on their moving cursors) or viewports (the dotted line around their view.

Whiteboard Shortcuts - Click these letters on your keyboard to quickly access some tools.
- S - Select tool
- D - Draw tool
- H - Highlight tool
- E - Erase tool
- T - Text tool

Leading Tools

Leading Mode

Leading Mode allows tutors to lock students into the their view, so students automatically follow wherever the tutor navigates within the meeting room. This helps keep everyone focused and ensures you stay in control of the lesson.

To enable Leading Mode, click on the "crown" icon in the toolbar and toggle the option on.

Read-only Mode

If you don't want your students to make any edits on any tabs, turn on Read-Only mode, this way it's only you who can make changes in the meeting room

Disallow Tab to be Closed and Disallow Changes

If you right-click on the Whiteboard tab (i.e. 'Whiteboard 1') at the top, you will see the options:

Disallow Tab To Be Closed: this will prevent a student from deleting a tab.
Disallow Changes: With this, only you will have access to make any changes to this tab.

Lock Items

If you click on shape, image or PDF and select "Lock", this will prevent a student from moving, resizing or deleting the item.

Managing Students

As a tutor, you have additional controls to help keep your class running smoothly. All tutors are automatically assigned the Leader role in a session, and we recommend keeping this enabled.

As a leader, you can manage participants in the following ways:

Mute Students

If there is excessive background noise or a situation that raises privacy or safety concerns, you can mute a student’s microphone to help the class run smoothly.

Turn off students' video

Similarly, you can turn off a student’s video if necessary.

Ask students to unmute or resume video feed

If a student has muted their microphone or turned off their camera, you can request that they unmute or resume their video. This makes it easy for students to re-enable their mic or camera with a single click in case they have accidentally disabled it.

Note: Due to browser, privacy, and student safety restrictions, tutors cannot force unmute or resume video for a student.

Disallow student editing (i.e. enable Read-Only mode)

Read-Only mode is helpful when you want to prevent students from drawing on the whiteboard or making changes while you’re presenting content. Enabling this mode helps keep students focused on what you’re showing.

Resource Library

Add resources in a meeting

Click the Insert Resource button on a Whiteboard.

Then, click on any resource you'd like to add. It'll be added to the whiteboard for you to annotate and resize as you like.

Document Editor

Document Tab

The Document tab is a versatile tool for teaching a wide range of subjects. Like other Lessonspace tabs, it’s collaborative, allowing both you and your student to work together when you need a more structured writing experience.

To open a new Document Tab, click the "+" icon in the top left corner.
Once there, click ‘New Document Tab’.

When you have created a new document tab, you are able to write, edit and collaborate with your students as you would on Google Docs.

For a quick overview, watch the video tutorial below

Code Tab

To open a new Code Tab, click the "+" icon in the top left corner.
Once there, click ‘New Code Tab’.

Choose a programming language on the code tab and start coding!
- The tab supports syntax highlighting and collaborative code editing.