Features From the Black Lagoon
We started October by releasing a new way to communicate with our AI content creation tools, which has already led to more accurate and reliable pack generation. We also spent time attending education conferences and gathering feedback directly from teachers.
You’ll see the influence of that feedback throughout this post. Below is a breakdown of the new features and quality-of-life updates that we made this month.
Contents
Redemption
This idea came from a participant at a workshop I was presenting at Catalyst, a conference for science teachers. She asked if we could place words that were skipped or answered incorrectly back at the end of the list in the game, giving students another chance to answer them correctly. I thought that was a brilliant idea, and the Redemption game setting was born a few days later.
With Redemption, every time a student answers a word wrong or skips it, it’s sent to the end of the list. They will continue encountering it until they get it right. This setting ensures that students demonstrate they know every term in the pack before the game can end (though the game can still end if they run out of time). You can find this setting in the Rules menu on the pre-game screen of any pack or quick play mode. It works with classic, multiple choice, and Image Match, but not Pairs, since Pairs already requires connecting all the words in each level.
Term performance overview details
When I was demoing assignments to a teacher at a conference, I showed them the term performance overview and their eyes lit up. They asked if they could click on one of the terms to see who answered it correctly or incorrectly. It was a reasonble question, but at the time, the answer was, unfortunately, no.
But now, you can! Click on any of the terms to see a breakdown of which students answered correctly or incorrectly, and when each game took place. This gives you a much clearer view of where students are struggling on a concept level. This feature was directly based on that teacher’s great suggestion.
Dry erase flashcards
A teacher at the Schools of the Future conference gave us this great idea. She mentioned that she laminates the printable flashcards she creates to make them more durable. She suggested: what if you could omit the answer from the flashcards?
This simple change turns a rote memorization exercise into something that requires student input. Provided you laminate the flashcards, students can the clue on one side and write the answer on the back using a dry erase marker. When they’re done, simply wipe the flashcards clean and go again. It’s an interactive spin on conventional paper flashcards.
Check out our Instagram reel demonstrating how to make your own set:
Trending sort
Earlier this month, we introduced a new way to browse for packs. If you select “Trending” from the sort options dropdown on the right side of any search results or browse page, it will show packs that were most played in the last 30 days.
This way, you can easily see what content is current and relevant to topics being discussed in classes recently. This is a great way to discover high-quality packs that are popular with other teachers right now.
New spooky themes
Just in time for Halloween, we released two new themes for you to unlock with your points: Noir and Nightshade. Noir is a dark, greyscale theme that evokes a classic gothic or vampire vibe, while Nightshade features a dark purple, mystical forest scene at midnight.
That rounds up our work for October! I’m so grateful for the feedback and suggestions. If there’s something that you want to see in Knoword, you can always let us know.