NEW: Classroom!

And now, the improved shared analysis you have all been waiting for, Classroom! 🥳

We are so excited to announce the release of Classroom, our new and improved way to share a chessboard with a coach, student, or friend.

We built Classroom with Coaches and students in mind but as you will see it is also a great place to review games with any number of friends!

If you are experiencing classroom for the first time as a participant rather than a host it is good to keep in mind that the creator of a room, the host, will have some options that participants do not. This is because during lessons coaches require a few tools to help coordinate the class and to make sure none of the final positions get spoiled!

Let's Go!

The new Classroom experience can be found in the Learn tab of your main navigation.
And when you visit for the first time, you will see there are two ways to enter a classroom; creating a New Room, or joining one you've been invited to. 

*This outline is a bit lengthy so if you are feeling adventurous feel free to explore it then come back here for the full walkthrough.

Creating a New Room

So you've clicked [+New Room] ...



Welcome to your new Classroom! Let's show you around.
Everything you need to run your lesson has been grouped into this panel on the right.
This panel is divided into a few sections which I will outline below.

The Video, Audio, and Clock Section

Video & Audio

At the top of the panel is your video, audio, and a clock. Clicking on these icons toggle their abilities. One you may not be familiar with yet is the pushpin icon to the left. Clicking on this when someone has their video active will pin their video to the right of your browser, freeing up some space in the panel for game notation, comments, and chat.

Clock

We've also baked a few options into your clock. Clicking on the clock will reveal some additional modes where you can view; Local Time which is based on your profile settings; Room Time which is the amount of time that has passed since the host created the room; Stopwatch which counts up from zero; and Timer which allows you to set a countdown. The timer mode is convenient for doing puzzles in the classroom. Which brings us to our next section...

The Games and Participant Tabs

Games Tab

The Games tab allows you to load games from any source into your classroom.



We know it is important to quickly get the game you are thinking of on screen. So, we've provided ways to easily import collections of games from other platforms you may currently be using to host your lessons.

Load from Library is also really useful! With Load from Library you can load collections of games you may have prepared as a lesson. You can either load a collection in its entirety, or hand-pick a few games from different collections.   

To return to the Add Games view at anytime press the "+ Add" button on the top right of this Games Tab.

Once you have selected a few games, they are added to your classroom in a Game List. At any time during your lesson you can click on "Game List" to reveal the games you have added to your room and quickly switch between them.




Once you've selected a game to view, editing your notation and leaving comments works the same way in Classroom as in Analysis, however saving is a little different...

Saving Your Games

Expanding your Game List will show the list of games you have added to your Classroom, but it also reveals your save settings.

Auto-Saving your Game List

If you loaded a Library collection we will toggle on "Auto-Save" by default which means that when you leave your Classroom your game list will automatically be saved over the collection you see selected in the dropdown to the left.

If you would like the game list to save to a new collection instead of over an existing one you can select "+ New Collection" from that drop down. Doing this will create a new collection in your Library and save your games to it. (This is also a quick way to make library collections from scratch!).

Saving Individual Games

If you would not like to save your game list and the edits you've made to games within it, you can make sure that "Auto-save" is toggled off. When "Auto-save" is toggled off a save button will appear beneath the notation of each game where you can save each game's edits individually.

Manually saving your Game List

And with Saving we have one more option. To the right of "Auto-save" there is a Save button. Clicking this button saves your game list to the collection you have selected in the dropdown, immediately.

This is different from Auto-save because it saves immediately instead of when you leave the classroom. That means you can save the same game list to different collections by pressing save then choosing another collection to save over in the dropdown and pressing save again. This can be useful if you are preparing a templated collection of games for common lesson topics.

Participants Tab

Now that you know how to load games and save them, it's time to invite some people!



Classroom is available for all members up to 1 host and 1 participant. To add a third participant the host of the room will need to have at least a gold membership. 

Sending Invites

You can invite someone specific by pressing "+ Add" in the participants panel and entering their username. If they are logged on then they will receive a notification at the bottom of their browser anywhere on the site, and if they are actively on /classroom they will see your invite listed in the lobby.

Open Enrollment

With Open Enrollment toggled on anyone can join your classroom by using the link unique to your room! This is especially useful for public group lessons. Where a coach can select "Share" in the Participants tab, copy the Room URL, then post it in a public forum. When Open Enrollment is toggled off, then participants must be explicitly invited to join your room.

Large Classroom

Classrooms with more than 6 people require some special Audio and Video support so we will automatically toggle on the Large Classroom setting when a seventh person joins. When we toggle this on you'll need to turn your audio and video back on. If you know in advance that your Classroom will have 6+ people you can turn this setting on in advance and avoid any interruption.

The Visibility Settings, Move Controls, and Chat Section

Finally in the lowest section we've provided visibility toggles, move controls, and a chat area that can be collapsed, expanded, or resized.

Visibility Settings

To the left of your move control arrows you'll find a switches icon, clicking on this opens your visibility settings. This is where you can toggle the evaluation, engine lines, and notation that participants can see. We added an additional setting called Only Coach, when this setting is active participants can no longer see eval, lines, or notation, but the coach can now toggle each to take a peak at the eval, lines, and notation without revealing them to the students.

Move Controls

These work the same way as they do in analysis, you can use the arrows on your keyboard as well!

Chat

In Classroom we want to make sure you have as much room as possible to view the important notation and comments, so clicking on the chat bubbles icon will expand or collapse chat. When chat is collapsed, we'll let you know if someone has posted a message you haven't seen yet.

That is all! You are a Classroom master now.
Classroom is available today for everyone! However once a third participant joins, the host will need to have at least a gold membership.

As always, we want to hear your feedback, YOU make Chess.com great!