Performance assignments

There are various kinds of activities and assignments you can create in Flat for Education. Performance assignments are a special activity that allows you to assess the audio-recorded performance of your students, using a score of your choosing.

Creating a performance assignment

Create a Performance Assignment directly through the Resource Library. Go to the Resource Library and click on +New assignment.

Alternatively, you can create an assignment directly from a class as well. Click on the +New Assignment button. Please note that the assignments created on the class page directly will only be saved to the Resource Library once they are published, and not if they are in draft state.

Keep in mind that with Performance assignemnts, a score will have to be selected to proceed.

Recording and turn-in

Once the performance assignment has been assigned to a class, students will be able to find it under the Assignments section of their class. After they click on it, the assignment details page will open and they will simply need to click on the Start assignment button to open the editor. A view similar to the one below should open:

To start recording their voices or instruments, students will have to click on the microphone button centered at the top of the screen. You will note that the "Turn in" button is disabled at first; students need to create an audio recording in order to turn in their assignment.

Hint: If this is the first time a performance assignment is used on the student's computer, their web browser may request access to the microphone. They'll have to click "Allow", or they won't be able to continue with the assignment.

After the mic button has been clicked, a countdown will help them remember the tempo and give them time to grab their instrument.

Then, the recording starts! The soundwave drawing of their recording will be drawn in real-time as they play or sing. Once they are done with the recording, they just have to click the stop button.

Students will be able to playback the recording they just made, save it, and even to record another shot.

To turn in the assignment, they will first have to save their recording, using the dedicated button to the right of the recording drawing.

If they decide to record another shot, the two recordings will be stacked at the end of the recording. This allows them to compare their different recordings and eventually keep the best one. Only one recording can be saved at the same time, so they will have to make sure their best recording is saved before they leave or refresh the editor.

Important: Make sure to have your students click the Turn in button after they've saved their best recording and before they quit the editor.

Teacher review

As soon as the first assignments are turned in, you will be able to listen to your student's recordings in the "Student's work" section of the Assignment details view.

If you want to check your student performance alongside the original score, you can click on the Turned in tag in the Status column to open the detailed review mode:

Other grading and reviewing capabilities are similar to those of classic assignments. You can learn more about grading and review on our dedicated help page

Troubleshooting

If a warning icon is displayed instead of the microphone, this is probably because the computer doesn't have a microphone or because access to the microphone has been rejected.

If you are using Google Chrome, you can change the microphone access rights for Flat by clicking on the small lock button on the left of the address bar:

This is done almost the same way in Firefox. You will just have to reset the microphone access rights by clicking on the small cross button beside "Microphone".

With Safari, it may be a little different if you decided to never give access to the microphone in the past. In that case, you will need to open Safari preferences (click "Safari" in the top left corner of the screen, then "Preferences..."). Then, go to the "Websites" tab, and select "Microphone" in the list. There, you will be able to change the mic access rights for Flat:

Video tutorial

For more information on how to use the performance assignments, watch this video tutorial!