Engage and inspire

Embellish the Magnet interface for students and teachers with customisable preview images, lesson descriptions and a new course layout design. Set the font of the Magnet interface and your courses. Share direct links with your students. Just some of the new features in Magnet 20 to become more engaging and attractive for your end-users.

Lesson updates

Lesson preview images

Magnet 20 now creates a preview image for each lesson and displays them beautifully next to each lesson title in the Magnet interface. These not only decorate the course lists, the gradebook, assignments and even the table of contents within a course, but also provide content developers with the opportunity to give learners detailed information about the lesson they are going to take. 

How-to

Lesson preview images are inserted via Avallain Author. Go to LO options for each lesson and insert an image in the Preview image field from the Media Library.

If no image is specified in LO options, then Avallain Author will automatically generate a preview image from the first activity screen of your LO. So you can decide if you want the preview image to see the first screen of your lesson or if you want to customise it with another image.

Lesson descriptions

Magnet 20 also gives you the possibility to add individual descriptions to each of your lessons, in addition to the course description. These descriptions are visible when the student and teacher clicks on the new information icon on Magnet.

How-to

To add lesson descriptions, again go to Avallain Author and open the lesson. Then edit the LO Metadata and enter your description text in the Description field.

Lesson linking

Another useful new aid for teachers, provided by Magnet 20, is the ability to share a direct link to a lesson to students or other teachers. 

How-to

Simply click on the Link icon next to each lesson and paste the link in the Message Centre or even in an email. Users will need to be registered on the platform and be subscribed to the course to be able to view the lesson.

These links are created automatically and are always visible for teachers. Students cannot copy and paste links to lessons.

New layouts

New layout for sections and subsections

Magnet can organise courses into sections and subsections and Magnet 20 has improved the way these sections are displayed. Now, when students or teachers open a section, they see only that section and need to close it to return to the main menu. This makes a less cluttered interface and focuses the student on their current work.

New layout for Institution management

We have simplified the interface for managing institutions by creating four distinct sections for you to work from; General settings, Design, Login Page and Additional Features.

Font types

Change the font type in the Magnet interface and in courses

Choose from one of eight font types for your Magnet interface.

Setting the font type in Magnet at an institutional level will automatically change the font type in any courses that the student and teacher views in that institution. You can also set the font type in your courses independently from the font type in Magnet.

To set the font in Magnet, go to the Design tab in institution settings in Magnet Administration. In the Font section, select a font type and check the preview. If you are happy, click Save.

How-to

To override the Magnet setting, go to Avallain Author and open LO options. In the Design Package Options, select a font from the Font Family dropdown menu. When you publish this LO again, the font which is set in Author will display for students and teachers. To go back to the font which is set in Magnet, simply remove the Font Family setting in Design Pack Options.

Note that to change the font in courses, the content must have been published with the latest R39 version of Author.