Last Friday saw the team at Kami host our free virtual conference for educators, Kami Connect. It’d be hard to pick a single highlight from a day packed so full of memorable moments, but a strong contender would have to be the preview of some exciting new features coming to Kami this first half of the school year.

Ever since we started, Kami has been on a mission to transform the way you teach, feedback, and assess. To make learning more student-centric, collaborative, personalized, and available to all learners at any stage, whether in-class, remote or a bit of both.  

Because of this, we also get super excited about any new features that continue to help us make this all happen. Here are the product updates you can expect to see in Kami very soon: 

Annotation Bank 

Expected release: Now available on beta with full release rolling out in the next couple of weeks

Marking the same assessment from all of your students can be a repetitive process – surely there’s some way to streamline the process?  With the Annotation Bank, you will be able to:

• Save frequently used feedback for easy reuse across multiple documents.  
• Access a bank of saved annotations via the Toggle Sidebar

Try it out today! This new feature is currently available to test out in beta. Simply go to Settings, scroll down to “Beta Features” and then set “Annotation Bank” to on. 

Delete All Annotations

Expected Release: Within the next couple of weeks 

There’s a time and a place for careful and precise. However, sometimes you just need a big red button (or, in this case, a small black button) to do everything for you. 

As you might have guessed (you’re clever like that), we’re adding a long-requested feature that will allow you to wipe any annotated document clean with the click of a button. Delete All Annotations tool will enable teachers to delete all annotations present in the Kami document, all in one go! You’ll be able to find this tool under the menu bar (the one with the little hamburger icon).

Real-time Monitoring for Canvas users 

Expected release: Within the next few weeks

Making interactive learning simple and making sure Kami works seamlessly with the software you’re already familiar with goes hand-in-hand. 

Google Classroom users have long enjoyed the ability to monitor their student’s work in real-time, and we’ll soon be providing our Canvas users with the same capabilities.

This feature will allow you to:

• Examine your students’ progress before they submit work.
• Give feedback and advice to your students as they work through assignments.

 

Assessments Mode

Expected release: Within the next 1-2 months on Google Classroom and Canvas, with Schoology to follow shortly after 

Summative assessments are now getting their very own dedicated feature in Kami! In summative mode, you’ll be able to:

• Set how many submissions are allowed — just as you would with a traditional test.
• Set a countdown timer for timed assessments.
• Automatically submit assignments once the allotted time has run out. 
• Revoke student access to documents after submission. 

Better Scaffolding of Annotations

Expected release: 1-2 months on Google Classroom and Canvas, with Schoology to follow 

You’ll soon have even more ways to personalize the learning materials you use in class.

With this feature, Teachers will be able to place annotations on documents before they are sent out for students to work through. Create do-nows, mini-lessons, and provide additional resources or instructions wherever you want over the original document. Forgot to add vital info or clarifications to a document? No problem, this tool will also enable you to make amendments to all files after you’ve sent them out to students.

We know that “better scaffolding of annotations” isn’t the most intuitive name for this feature — so if you have any suggestions, let us know on Twitter.

Faster Grading

Expected release: 1-2 months

What’s never a bad thing? Getting things done faster. 

Soon, you’ll be able to get your grading over and done with quicker than ever before – even when working with larger classes (it’s been a long time coming, we know).

Kami’s Chrome extension will speed up the loading of files inside your LMS’s grading page – meaning you’ll save time when marking assessments using Kami with Google Classroom, Schoology, or Canvas.

Answer Boxes

Expected release: Within the next 3-6 months

More interactive education? Of course – it’s what we live for. So we’re rolling out a whole new way to engage, personalize and interact. Formative assessments are an effective way to gauge where individual students are at with their learning, allowing you to adapt to your students’ needs accurately. That’s great – but imagine if creating a formative assessment was quicker and simpler than ever. 

That’s where the Kami Answer Boxes will come in. 

Simply create an answer box for your students to fill in, push it out to your class, collect their answers, and review them all in the same place. This is only the first in a series of new additions to Kami that will help you foster more interactivity and better feedback in your classroom. Be sure to check our social channels for any future updates on this exciting new feature

Watch the product update at Kami Connect

 

Join the Kami beta testing group

Can’t wait for the big debut of these features? Then perhaps you’d like to join our beta testing group. There you’ll get a sneak-peak, early access, and even the opportunity to provide valuable feedback on your choice of upcoming Kami features.

Help us continue to make Kami the very best digital classroom hero it can be for you. Sign up to become a beta tester by filling out this request form here.