Hi Scratch Team,
I'm a teacher and I use Teacher/Class Accounts with my students. I'd like to suggest a feature to support giving feedback on student projects.
The problem:
When I open a Studio with my students' projects, there's currently no way to leave feedback that is clearly separate from the normal, public project comments. Comments are visible to everyone and aren't designed for teacher-student feedback specifically. There's also no way to mark that I've reviewed a project, so students don't always know whether their work was actually looked at.
The suggestion (two parts):

“Reviewed” marker: Inside a Class Studio, let teachers mark each project as “reviewed,” with a date/timestamp. This way both the teacher and the student can see at a glance which projects have already been looked at.
Private feedback box: A text box, visible only between the teacher and that specific student (not public, not visible to the rest of the class), where the teacher can leave suggestions about the project — what's working well, what could be improved, ideas to try next — without needing to edit the student's code or post a public comment.

This would not replace normal Scratch comments — it would be an additional feature within the existing Teacher Account / “My Classes” tools, since teachers already have special permissions there.
Thanks for considering this!

Vanina Irigoyen.-

+1

purplebunny63 wrote:

+1

explain why

AdaVesta_ wrote:

purplebunny63 wrote:

+1

explain why

Very useful for (a) teachers who sometimes need to give private feedback and (b) students who want to know if there teacher looked at there project

Well, students will just become regular accounts in the NGP anyway, there isn't a point to do it now

I'm pretty sure the soon-coming next-generation platform will be move classes to a separate site, so I think this suggestion will soon become redundant.

There's a “Teacher” rank now?

WPONTA wrote:

There's a “Teacher” rank now?

Its been a thing since student acc's were a thing.


Anyways, I don't see much point in adding features to class accounts if the system is going to disintegrate in a few months once we're in the NGP

Za-Chary wrote:

8.1 Private messaging
Scratch currently has public messaging, meaning anyone can see the comments that you write. As a result, people are more likely to be respectful since anyone can see the comment. However, with private messaging, people know that only the intended recipient can see the message, which could lead to many more disrespectful or inappropriate comments. The Scratch Team also simply does not have the resources to moderate a private messaging system, precisely because there would be a lot of bad comments. In addition, it is a huge Internet safety concern and is not the purpose of Scratch anyway.

I know most teachers don't act inappropriately, but there still might be some. The reviewed marker is still fine though.

Wont teacher and student accounts be removed in the NGP?

Yeah I can see how this would be useful, but doesn't this already exist in the form of google classroom (or similar online teaching platforms) ?

Humble_banana wrote:

Yeah I can see how this would be useful, but doesn't this already exist in the form of google classroom (or similar online teaching platforms) ?

The suggestion here is to have it built into Scratch.

Catscratcher07 wrote:

Humble_banana wrote:

Yeah I can see how this would be useful, but doesn't this already exist in the form of google classroom (or similar online teaching platforms) ?

The suggestion here is to have it built into Scratch.

Thanks for pointing that out!
I agree with what #9 said:

NutOfCoco wrote:

Za-Chary wrote:

8.1 Private messaging
Scratch currently has public messaging, meaning anyone can see the comments that you write. As a result, people are more likely to be respectful since anyone can see the comment. However, with private messaging, people know that only the intended recipient can see the message, which could lead to many more disrespectful or inappropriate comments. The Scratch Team also simply does not have the resources to moderate a private messaging system, precisely because there would be a lot of bad comments. In addition, it is a huge Internet safety concern and is not the purpose of Scratch anyway.

I know most teachers don't act inappropriately, but there still might be some. The reviewed marker is still fine though.

Even if scratch did contradict what they said before, the private chat system would need a lot more maintenance – that's a big ask for a nonprofit organisation.