Student Sessions

Merlyn Sessions allow you to interact with your students devices using voice commands to initiate formative assessments, SEL checks, discussion boards, and transcriptions with translations!

Sessions is optimized for student use on laptops and tablets. It is not recommended to join from a mobile phone. Sessions is currently available for use with Merlyn Origin only. 

To begin a Session, say "Start a Session".

The session will open in a new tab, and will display a join code. Instruct your students to navigate to student.merlyn.org on their laptop devices, and enter the code to join your session. 

You active session will be live for 60 minutes.

Four activities to utilize with Sessions:

These activities can be started from a voice command or by click on the "Add Activity +" button in the bottom left corner of the session window. 

Student names can be displayed by selecting the Student Name toggle in the upper right corner when applicable.

To display the results, click on the "Show Results" icon in the upper right corner hen applicable.

1. Pulse Check - "Start a pulse check activity"

   • Check for understanding style formative assessment using a slide scale to display class comfort level in the moment.
     
     
     
   • When starting from the "Add Activity +" button, you will have the option to type in your topic.
     
     
   • You can also use "Start a Formative Assessment activity" or "Start a Check in activity"
   • Students can slide their randomly assigned icon towards green or red to indicate their level of comfort and understanding with your chosen topic. 
     
     

2. Brainstorm Board - "Start a brainstorm board activity about...."

   • Interactive bulletin board allowing students to post comments or questions. 
   • When starting from the "Add Activity +" button, you will have the option to type in your topic and to toggle the safety check for student responses.
     
     
     
   • Students can post a virtual sticky note by clicking on "Add Sticky +", typing into the popup window, then clicking on "Submit".
     
     
   • If an inappropriate response is submitted, it will be flagged for teacher approval and blurred on the screen.
     
     
     

3. Mood Meter - "Start a mood meter activity"

   • SEL check in to quickly gauge the emotional temperature of your class
   • Students can choose the emoji that most closely represents their current emotional status.
     
     

4. Transcription

   • Speech to text transcription for notes and comments. Transcriptions can be translated into Spanish on the teacher display or on student devices. (Other languages coming soon!)
   • To use this feature, press and hold the Chat button on the remote to start transcription mode.
     
     
   • You will see "Transcription mode active" as a popup in the upper right corner.
     
     
     
   • Hold the Push-to-talk button and speak into the remote. When you are done speaking, release the push-to-talk button and your text will appear as a transcription.
     
     
   • To translate the transcription into Spanish on the teacher device, toggle the "Translate" switch in the upper right corner of the activity window.
     
     
     
   • Each student can also choose to translate the transcription into Spanish on their own devices.
     
     
   • To end the transcription mode, press and hold the Chat button again.

All of these activities can be started from a voice command or by click on the "Add Activity +" button in the bottom left corner of the session window. 

Activity	Teacher View	Student View
"Start a session"
Pulse Check
Brainstorm Board
Mood Meter
Transcription

Variations on the Sessions and Activity commands

• Instead of "start", you could also say " open" or "initiate".
  • "Initiate a session"
  • "Open a mood meter"
• Add a subject to your activity by finishing the command with "...about <subject>"
  • "Start a brainstorm board activity about pollution"
  • "Start a pulse check activity about fractions"

End a session with the command "End Session"

You can also click on the "End Session" button in the bottom left corner of the session. 

Session History

You can see all your previous sessions interactions, including student responses, in the Sessions section of the Teacher Toolkit. Click on "History" in the upper left side of the page. When you find the Session that you'd like to open, click on the three dots to open a menu, and click on "Open session". 

For a list of voice requests for Student Interactions and all our Merlyn features, click here.

Related to

• sessions
• translation
• translate
• transcription
• assessment