The forum is the Test Academy study community: a full page space where students chat in channels, ask questions in Q&A and talk practice questions through together, with Test Academy teachers in the rooms. Open it from the Forum pill at the top of the dashboard.
Finding your way around
On a computer, a thin rail down the left holds Chats, Q&A, Direct messages, Notifications and Settings, with Exit to dashboard at the top. Beside it sits the channel list, which Hide channels folds away and which stays the way it was left. Threads and Pinned messages open in a panel on the right, so the chat stays in view.
On a phone the same places sit in a bar along the bottom: Chats, Q&A, DMs, Alerts and You. A channel opens full screen with a back arrow.
The channels
- Announcements: Tutoring Announcements carries notices from the Test Academy team to Test Academy students, and Public Announcements carries news and platform updates for everyone on the forum.
- Community: Social for chatting with other students, Discuss for questions shared from tests and LearningHub, Battle for the chat beside LearningHub and TypingHub battles, and any community rooms Test Academy opens, for example a room for one course.
- Your classes: a private room for each class, with its teacher in it. Rooms for a later term sit under Upcoming classes and finished ones under Past classes.
- Direct messages: private conversations between a student and a teacher.
Every channel has a one line topic at the top. A channel with its own rules shows them as a card the first time it is opened; accept them once and the room opens. A bell beside a channel name mutes it, so it stops showing as unread.
Writing a message
The message box styles text as you type: bold, italics, lists, quotes and code show their look straight away, $...$ turns into maths, and @ followed by a name mentions someone. Typing /, or pressing the / button under the message box, opens the commands: /share shares a bookmarked question, /paper opens working out paper, /poll starts a poll and /gif sends a GIF. Pictures can be pasted or dropped into class rooms and the community rooms, and class rooms also take PDFs. Chat messages have a length limit; it is a chat, not an essay.
Hover over a message, or press and hold it on a phone, to react, reply, start a thread, or open the menu to edit, delete, pin, report or copy a link. An edited message shows (edited).
Working out paper
Working out paper is a sheet of dotted paper to draw on with a pen, highlighter, eraser and text, in a choice of colours. It can be sent in a chat with /paper, or attached to a Q&A question or answer. Anyone who can see it can open it full screen to read. The paper always stays white.