Materials

Create your first Study Guide

Create your first Study Guide A Study Guide is a lesson notebook you build once and use everywhere — in a live lesson, as homework, or as a public link your students can open without an account. It mixes formatted text, images, video, audio, tables, and seven kinds of interactive exercises into a single page that you control. This article covers the basics: where to find Study Guides, how to create one, and what each plan allows. For exercise widgets, see Add interactive exercises to a Study Guide. To open a Study Guide in a live lesson, see Use a Study Guide during a lesson. Where to find Study Guides Open Materials → Study Guide in the sidebar. The page lists every Study Guide in your workspace, with a search box, sort, + Create button, and a view toggle in the top-right. The two views show the same data: - Grid view (default) — large tiles with cover image, title, file size, and "Modified Nh ago". Best for browsing. - List view — a table with Name | Last modified | Created | Type | Size. Best for finding a specific guide by date or sorting by size. Materials → Study Guide list page with a few Study Guides visible The default sort is By creation date. Change it from the dropdown above the table. Create a new Study Guide 1. Click + Create. Class Spot creates an empty Study Guide titled "New Study Guide" and opens it for editing. 2. Click the title and type your own. The title saves automatically when you click away. 3. Hover above the title and click Add cover to upload a cover image. Maximum size 5 MB; supported formats are JPG, JPEG, PNG, and WEBP. The cover shows on the list page and on the public share link. 4. Click into the body and start typing. Press / to open the slash menu, or use the Quick start buttons at the bottom of an empty guide. empty Study Guide editor with the title placeholder and the Quick start panel visible The whole document saves automatically as you type — there is no Save button. If you close the tab or lose your connection mid-edit, your latest typing is safe up to about one second before the disconnect. What you can add to a Study Guide Press / anywhere in the body to open the slash menu. The menu has three groups: - Basic — paragraph, heading, bullet list, numbered list, table. - Media — image, video, audio, and a Cloud picker that pulls from files you've already uploaded under Materials → Cloud. - Interactive — quiz, find pair, sentence, select answer, input answer, drag answer, and open question (free validation). Available on every plan, including Free. slash menu open on a paragraph, showing the three groups On a fresh empty guide you also see a Quick start panel at the bottom of the editor with one-click buttons for the most common blocks. The panel disappears as soon as you add anything; press / to bring up the slash menu instead. For a full tour of the seven interactive widget types, see Add interactive exercises to a Study Guide. Plan limits at a glance | Capability | Free | Solo Pro | Solo Max | Business | |---|---|---|---|---| | Number of Study Guides | up to 3 | unlimited | unlimited | unlimited | | Interactive exercises | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | Export to PDF | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | Folders to organize materials | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | Assign as homework | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | | Public share link | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | For the full plan comparison, see Compare Class Spot plans. Organize with folders If you have more than a handful of guides, group them into folders. Click + next to Materials in the sidebar to create one; the folder shows up in both the sidebar and the list page. Drag a Study Guide tile into a folder, or open the kebab menu on any row and pick Move. Folders are a Solo Pro feature. On the Free plan the + button still appears, but clicking it opens an upgrade prompt instead of creating a folder. Tips - Reuse, don't rebuild. A Study Guide stays in your library forever — open it again next week, duplicate it for a different class, or share the public link with a new student. You don't need to copy content between lessons. - Cover image earns its keep. A clear cover makes the list page scannable when you have ten guides. Use the topic name in big letters or a single representative illustration. - Outline first, exercises later. Type the whole text first, then go back and replace key sentences with interactive widgets. It reads better than building one widget at a time. What to do if it doesn't work The editor won't open or shows a loading spinner. Refresh the page (Ctrl/Cmd + R). The editor caches the document locally; a refresh forces a fresh load. My cover image won't upload. Check the file is under 5 MB and in JPG, JPEG, PNG, or WEBP format. Other formats are not accepted. If you're under the limit and still see an error, try a different image to rule out a corrupted file. I see "You can no longer create Study Guides" when I click + Create. You're on the Free plan and have reached the three-guide cap. Delete an old guide from the list page (kebab → Delete) to free up a slot, or upgrade to Solo Pro for unlimited guides. Still stuck? Contact us via the in-product chat (the green bubble in the bottom-right of your cabinet) or info@classpot.com. Related articles - Add interactive exercises to a Study Guide - Use a Study Guide during a lesson - Share a Study Guide or assign it as homework - Compare Class Spot plans

Add interactive exercises to a Study Guide

Add interactive exercises to a Study Guide A Study Guide becomes more than a reading handout the moment you drop in an interactive exercise. Class Spot ships seven widget types out of the box. Each is auto-graded (with one optional exception), works in a live lesson and as homework, and renders the same way in a public share link. This article walks through every type, when to pick which, and the small rules they share. How to add an exercise Inside the editor, press / to open the slash menu and scroll to the Interactive group. Click a widget to insert it; the empty shell drops into the document where your cursor is. Fill in the prompt, the answer options, and any extra fields the widget needs — autosave handles the rest. On a fresh empty Study Guide, the Quick start panel at the bottom of the page also has one-click buttons for most widget types. Either entry point is fine. slash menu open with the Interactive group expanded All seven widget types are available on every plan, including Free. The seven widget types Quiz A multiple-choice question. Add one or more correct answers and zero or more wrong answers; the student picks all the right ones to get the question correct. Use it for: factual recall, vocabulary, comprehension checks. Variants are shuffled every time the widget renders — in the editor preview, in a live lesson, and in the exported PDF — so the order you set them is just for your own reference. Quiz widget rendered for the student, with the question and three answer options Find pair Two columns of items; the student matches each left item to its correct right partner by dragging. Pick text-text or image-text mode from the format dropdown above the widget. Use it for: vocabulary translations, term/definition matching, image labels. The widget needs at least two filled pairs to show up for the student. Below that, the student sees nothing. The editor warns you about this inline. Find pair widget rendered for the student, two columns with items to match Make a sentence A scrambled set of words; the student arranges them in the right order. You can add multiple sentences to one widget block. Use it for: grammar drills, syntax practice, word-order languages. Make a sentence widget rendered for the student, scrambled word chips Select answer from list A passage of text with dropdown blanks. The student picks the correct answer from a per-blank dropdown of variants. Use it for: fill-in-the-blank where you want to limit student guesses, multiple-choice cloze. Select answer widget rendered for the student, dropdowns for each blank Write answer Same passage shape as Select answer, but with free-text input blanks. You set one or more accepted strings per blank; the student types into the field and the answer is matched against your list (capitalization and trailing spaces are ignored). Use it for: spelling, recall without prompts, short-answer drills. Write answer widget rendered for the student, passage with input blanks Drag answer Passage with blanks plus a pool of word chips. The student drags the right chip into each blank. Use it for: fill-in-the-blank with a visible word bank, lower difficulty than free input. Drag answer widget rendered for the student, passage with blanks above a chip pool Open question An open-ended answer field. The student types a sentence or short essay; the widget can grade automatically against a list of accepted answers, or you can mark it Manual so it queues for your review after the student submits. Use it for: explanations, opinion questions, anything that doesn't have one right answer. Toggle Manual review in the widget settings. Manual answers appear in Homework → Results with a "Needs review" badge until you grade them. Open question widget rendered for the student, single text input What every widget shares Every widget has an optional "Question (optional)" text field above the body. Use it to add context or a heading right above the widget; leave it blank if the surrounding text already sets the stage. How widgets behave for the student The student sees the same widget rendering you do in Preview mode. They tap an option, drag a chip, or type into a field; the answer is auto-graded the moment they hit Answer, and the widget shows ✓ or ✗ inline. The teacher view streams the student's answers in real time, so during a live lesson you can see what each student picked. A Study Guide tracks how many widgets are completed out of total — a "0/N" indicator at the top of the page, where N is the number of widgets that actually show up for the student. Empty widgets (no correct answer, no passage text) don't count toward N. Tips - Mix types within one Study Guide. Three quizzes in a row feels like a test. A quiz, a find pair, and an open question feels like a class. - Use images in find pair for younger students. Picture-text matching is more forgiving on reading speed and works for non-native learners. - Set Manual review on essay-style open questions. Auto-grading on prose is unreliable; flag it as manual and add a personal note in Homework → Results. - Don't ship a widget with only one variant. Find pair needs ≥ 2 pairs, quiz needs at least one correct option, blanks need passage text. Below those thresholds the widget silently hides from the student view. What to do if it doesn't work A widget I added doesn't show up when I preview it. Check the minimum fill rule — find pair needs at least two complete pairs, blanks need the passage to have text, quiz needs at least one answer option. Edit the widget back to a complete state and the preview will render it. The student didn't see the widget at all in the lesson. Same rule applies. If you opened a Study Guide with a half-built widget, the student doesn't see that widget. Finish filling it in (autosave is instant), and reopen the Study Guide on the student's side. Still stuck? Contact us via the in-product chat (the green bubble in the bottom-right of your cabinet) or info@classpot.com. Related articles - Create your first Study Guide - Use a Study Guide during a lesson - Share a Study Guide or assign it as homework - Compare Class Spot plans

Use a Study Guide during a lesson

Use a Study Guide during a lesson A Study Guide opens in the lesson room exactly the way you built it. The student sees the same content on their side, and any interaction — typing into a blank, dragging a chip, picking a quiz answer — streams to your screen in real time. This article covers the small set of in-lesson tools that exist only when a Study Guide is open in a live lesson. Open a Study Guide in the lesson Inside a lesson, open the materials panel on the left side of the screen and pick any Study Guide from your library. It loads on your side and pushes to every student in the room within a second or two. lesson room with a Study Guide open in the left panel Only one Study Guide can be open at a time. Opening a second one from the panel replaces the first; any answers the student typed into the first guide are dropped from the live state when it closes. Their answers are still saved to the homework record if the guide was assigned as homework — but for an in-lesson guide that isn't homework, the state is ephemeral. Close the guide by clicking the X in the panel header. Everyone in the lesson sees the panel close. Move everyone to a specific block Every block in a Study Guide has a small eye icon next to it during a lesson. Click it and the other side of the call scrolls to that block and briefly highlights it. - When you click an eye, your students scroll and see the block flash. - When a student clicks an eye, you scroll and see the block flash. The tooltip wording matches who's about to move: a teacher viewer sees "Move student", a student viewer sees "Move teacher". block-level eye icon hovered with the Move student tooltip visible Use it for: "look at task 3 now", "scroll up to the diagram", "everyone find the third paragraph". Faster than asking the student to scroll on their own. Highlight a passage or word Select any text inside the Study Guide. A small two-button toolbar floats above the selection. - The eye button on the left → "Pay attention". A blue highlight appears for one second on everyone's screen, then fades. Use it like a laser pointer while you talk through the text. - The pen button on the right → "Highlight". A persistent yellow highlight appears and stays until you click it again to remove it. Use it to mark text the student should return to throughout the lesson. selection in a Study Guide with the two-button highlight panel visible above Both modes show the same highlight to every participant in the room. Only the teacher's selection triggers the toolbar — students can't highlight, only see your highlights. What goes into the lesson recording If you have lesson recording on (Solo Max and Business plans), everything you and your student see in the Study Guide ends up in the recording: typed answers, drag positions, selected variants, highlights, and the move-to-block flashes. The recording captures the teacher's view of the lesson, which for a Study Guide is the same as the student's view because every interaction syncs between the two sides over the network. Watching the recording afterwards, you can see exactly which answers the student picked and where the conversation went. The recording is video, not a structured event log — there's no rewind-to-this-answer button, but you can scrub the timeline like any other recording. Tips - Use Pay attention as a verbal punctuation. A one-second highlight while you say "this part is the key" is more visible than pointing at a paragraph the student has to find on their own. - Stack persistent highlights for revision. Mark four or five sentences across a long Study Guide, then say "let's go back to the highlighted ones" at the end. The student sees the same marks on their screen. - Don't fight the Move buttons. If you ask the student to scroll to task 3 and they're slow, just click the eye — it's faster and they don't need to know where task 3 is. What to do if it doesn't work The student doesn't see the Study Guide. First check that you actually picked one — the panel needs an open material to push anything. If it's open on your side but the student's panel is empty, ask them to refresh the lesson tab; the Study Guide will re-sync from your side. The highlight toolbar doesn't appear when I select text. The toolbar shows up only inside a Study Guide opened in a live lesson, and only for the teacher. If you're previewing the guide from the materials page, or you're a student, the toolbar won't show. The Move eye icon isn't there. Same condition — the eye icon is in-lesson only. Outside the lesson context (editor preview, homework view, public share), Study Guide blocks render without it. Still stuck? Contact us via the in-product chat (the green bubble in the bottom-right of your cabinet) or info@classpot.com. Related articles - Create your first Study Guide - Add interactive exercises to a Study Guide - Share a Study Guide or assign it as homework - Use the whiteboard during a lesson

Share a Study Guide or assign it as homework

Share a Study Guide or assign it as homework A Study Guide is more useful when it lives outside the lesson where you built it. You can hand it to a student as homework with automatic grading, or hand it to anyone as a public link that opens without a login. Both options live in the editor header. The buttons are the third and second icons from the left. top-right of the Study Guide editor with Preview, Assign homework, Share, Download, and Close buttons Share a Study Guide with a public link Click Share (the arrow icon) in the editor header. Class Spot generates a public link and copies it to your clipboard. A small "Link copied" message pops up in the top-left to confirm. Share button highlighted with the Link copied toast visible Paste the link into chat, an email, or a class group. The link looks like https://classpot.com/class/shared-material/<uuid> — anyone who opens it sees the Study Guide without signing in. Interactive widgets work on the public view, but answers stay on the visitor's device — they don't come back to you. The Share button is a Solo Max and Business feature. On Free and Solo Pro plans, clicking Share opens an upgrade prompt. The shared link cannot be revoked from the cabinet today. Once you've shared a link, anyone who has it can open the Study Guide as long as you keep the underlying material. To take down a shared link, contact us via the in-product chat (the green bubble in the bottom-right of your cabinet) or info@classpot.com — we can remove the share on the server side. We're working on a self-serve revoke control. Assign a Study Guide as homework Click Assign homework (the book icon) in the editor header. A modal opens titled Assign homework. Assign homework modal with the recipient dropdown open showing classes and individual students 1. Click the input and pick a recipient. The dropdown lists both your classes (whole groups) and individual students. 2. Click Assign. The student gets the assignment immediately in their Homework tab and an in-app notification. 3. Repeat for more recipients without closing the modal — every chosen recipient lands in the Students who have already received the assignment panel below the input. From there you can open a recipient's homework results (the book icon next to their name) or revoke the assignment (the trash icon). Assign homework modal after a successful assignment showing the already received panel Auto-gradeable widgets — quiz, find pair, sentence, blanks, and auto-mode open question — score the student's answers the moment they submit. Manual-mode open questions land in Homework → Results with a "Needs review" badge until you grade them. Assigning homework is a Solo Max and Business feature. On Free and Solo Pro plans, clicking Assign opens an upgrade prompt. Plan limits at a glance | Capability | Free | Solo Pro | Solo Max | Business | |---|---|---|---|---| | Open a Study Guide in a lesson | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | Export to PDF | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | | Assign as homework | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | | Public share link | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | For the full plan comparison, see Compare Class Spot plans. Tips - Use homework for individual progress, share for one-off groups. Homework gives you a grading view per student. Share is faster but anonymous — fine for a public lesson recap, less useful for tracking progress. - Send the same Study Guide to a whole class at once. Pick a class from the Assign dropdown instead of adding students one by one. The class gets the homework as a group; each student's submission is tracked individually. - Preview before you send. Click Preview (the play icon) in the editor header to see exactly what the recipient will see — including widget shuffling. Catches typos and broken widgets before the student does. What to do if it doesn't work Clicking Share or Assign opens an upgrade prompt. You're on Free or Solo Pro. Both features are Solo Max and above. See Compare Class Spot plans for the full list. The student says they didn't receive the homework. Open the Assign homework modal again and check the "already received" panel — if the student isn't listed, the assignment didn't go through; click their name again. If they are listed but say they don't see the homework, ask them to refresh the Homework tab — the notification appears within a few seconds but some browsers cache the list. I shared a link and want to take it down. The cabinet doesn't have a "Stop sharing" button yet. Contact us via the in-product chat (the green bubble in the bottom-right of your cabinet) or info@classpot.com and we'll remove the share on the server side. Still stuck? Contact us via the in-product chat (the green bubble in the bottom-right of your cabinet) or info@classpot.com. Related articles - Create your first Study Guide - Add interactive exercises to a Study Guide - Use a Study Guide during a lesson - Compare Class Spot plans