Lesson 5: How to add the
rest of your students
This lesson will show you how to add all
of your remaining students to your own homepage so that you have an accurate
online teaching schedule, together with access to records for all of your
students. Even if none of your students actually have webpages of their
own, your studio website will be a powerful organizing resource for you, and
will allow you to keep comprehensive information about your day to day teaching.
But your studio website really comes into
its own for students who choose to have a webpage of their own. The second part
of this lesson will show you how to give students their very own webpage, so
that they or their parents can log in at home whenever they like. It also
outlines the subscription fees for such webpages, together with why it won't
cost you a cent.
Step 1: Adding all your students to
your schedule
To fill up your teaching schedule, you
need to add your students one at a time. It only takes a minute or so to add
each new student, and you can make changes later whenever you like.
To add a new student, look for the "Ready
to Teach" heading at the top left of your homepage, and click on the link that
says "Click here to to add a new student" (or you can simply click on the button
with the plus sign on it):
You will be taken to a page where you can
enter the name, lesson time and email address of the student. (Don't worry if
you don't know their email address, just put in a dummy one for the time being,
until you have a chance to ask them for their real one - eg.
notsure@yet.com)
You then need to decide whether or not
to give this student a webpage of their very own. You should probably ask
the parents' permission before creating such a page, so in this instance,
we'll add the student WITHOUT giving them a webpage of their own (you can
always create one for them later)
To do this, simply ensure that the
"No thanks, this is for my records only (always free)"
option is selected:
Click "Add this student to my studio",
and the student will automatically have been added to your studio records.
They can't visit their own page (because you didn't create one for them),
but they will show up in your schedule, and you can keep comprehensive
records on the student if you wish.
So what if you did want to create a
page for them?...
Step 2: Deciding to give a student
their own webpage
Not only is your studio website free,
but we've also included three student pages for free. Once your fourth
student wants their own webpage at your site, there is a small quarterly
hosting fee of $4 though - as the teacher, you would simply add that fee to
their account, much as you would for books or workshop fees.
So it ends up costing you nothing, and
ends up costing each student very little - parents are more than happy pay
$16 for a new book if it will help their child's music lessons, and the
parents who took part in the trial for all of this were delighted to pay the
same amount for a year of their child's very own music lessons progress
webpage.
To help parents decide whether or not
they want a webpage for their child though, there are information sheets you
can print out and give to them. The decision is then theirs (although some
teachers have taken the hard line of making it compulsory for students to
have webpages like this). You can download and print the information sheets
from:
http://www.practicepage.com/introletter.pdf (pdf) or
http://www.practicepage.com/introletter.doc (Microsoft Word - just in case
you want to edit it at all)
Giving a student a webpage as you
sign them up:
Simply follow the steps above, but
instead of clicking "No thanks, this is for my records only", click "Yes!
Give this student their own webpage". Choose a username and password
for them, click "Add this student to my studio" and their webpage will be
created:
If this is still one of your first
three student webpages, then there is no charge for creating a webpage like
this. When you add your fourth student, you will be asked for credit
card details, and will be charged $4 for that student. Any subsequent
student webpages will also be charged $4 (although you won't have to add
your credit card details again).
You would recoup that $4 from your
student on their next account, and you can cancel their subscription (ie.
turn off their webpage) at any time. Otherwise, there will be a $4 charge
every three months. (So this whole adventure costs students a grand total of
about a dollar a month, and costs you nothing at all. Clever huh?)
To visit their webpage, they would
simply go to:
www.THEIRNAME.practicepage.com and then enter their password.
So for the student in the example
above, she would go to:
www.harrietsmith.practicepage.com, and enter the password "elephants".
Giving a student a webpage later
You don't have to give a student their
own webpage as you sign them up - you can actually do it at any time in the
future by going to their Student Management Page (select their name from the
top right dropdown menu on your homepage). Look for the "PracticePage
Settings" heading, and click on the "Turn webpage access on..." link.
Again, simply choose a username and
password for them, and their page will be created instantly. (You can cancel
a student's webpage by going to the same section - the link will now say
"cancel webpage", and all you have to do is click it)
What's next?
By now, you should have all your students added to
your own website, and will have given some of them webpages of their very
own. Your site is packed with tools (you can see a list
here), but this tutorial is only designed
to cover the basics. To help you with the rest, we have actually included a
comprehensive online help system on your website itself. The next tutorial
will show you how to use that help. (It's a short lesson, because it's very
easy!)
Ok, where
can I find help with the rest of this?
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