UPDATE 22-November-2024: It’s here!

Log into Spelling Test Buddy, and use it today!

You can read more about how it works and how to best use it in our Documentation.

If you have any questions or feedback, please let me know!

I’ve gotten some very good feedback

In the 3 months since the Teacher Edition of Spelling Test Buddy was released, I’ve been listening to your feedback. You wanted the following:

• Make it less confusing! Groups was a bad starting point. It made teachers confused, when their first thoughts were about Word Lists and about Students.
• Allow teachers to assign tests, and don’t attach tests to Groups.
• Let a single Word List be used for multiple groups of Students, without having to copy that Word List across multipel Groups.

With this feedback, I’ve been working on a new version of Spelling Test Buddy for teachers.

I plan to release the new version next week (week of 25 November 2024)

After the release is live, you will see a notification after you open Spelling Test Buddy.

What will it look like?

Here is a preview of what the new version will look like:

What’s changing?

New flow

The new version has a different flow and layout:

Word Lists

Word Lists are much simpler. They are simply a list of words! This will make it easier to create and manage them, use them between groups of students, use them across years, copy and paste them, and share them with other teachers (at a later time).

You can even preview what the Word List’s test will look like to your students!

Student management

Students can now be placed into groups right from the student list page. No more having to click into each student to change their Group, which is a hassle when you may have hundreds of students.

Assigning tests

When you are ready to assign a test, you will now do this from the Assign Tests page. When you make the assignment, you can choose whether the assignment should be for practice or treated as a test, whether the words should be shuffled on the test, and so on.

You will also see a list of assignments you’ve previously made at the bottom of that page. They are separated into upcoming assignments and past assignments.

Distributing tests

Distributing tests to students is much simpler now too. You now only need to send them a single link and their individual Student Code. No more separate Group Codes and Student Codes. The single link stays consistent to you, the teacher, and works for all of your students no matter which Group they are in.

As before, when your student opens the link, if they’ve previously taken a test, their Student Code will be automatically filled in.

What’s staying the same?

• Previously created Groups, Students, and Word Lists will continue to work as they did before. Links to those groups will still function as well.
• Every word in every Word List will still generate an audio playable version of the word as well as a sentence using the word in-context.
• Students will still be able to take tests on their phones, tablets, and computers, and when they are in the test, their device’s autocomplete will still not show.
• You will still be able to create your own custom Word Lists manually, by uploading a PDF, or (soon) by picking from over 200 pre-created word lists based on spelling/phonics category.

FAQ

• Will my Groups, Students and Word Lists still be there? Yes, they will still be there, and still work the same way they did before. All new Word Lists, Groups and Students that you create will be in the new format going forward after this is released.

• Will my old Group links still work? Yes, they will continue to work. But, once the new version is released, you should start migrating to use the Assign Tests page, as the old Group links will eventually no longer work.

• Will the Student Codes that users already have still work? Yes, they will continue to work. Those will not change at all.

If you have any feedback, please let me know!

-Jason