Reference
Common controls
A quick guide to the controls teachers and students use most often
This alphabetical list covers the main controls on the dashboard, the launch bar, the create wizard, the edit form, the response screens and the student’s conversation. Search this page for the label you are looking at.
Where a control belongs to a longer job, the entry links to the page that explains it properly. Who can do what is set out in full in Roles.
Where an entry says Lead teachers, administrators on the create wizard or the edit form, a teacher launching from an LMS with authoring on also has that control, on their own chatbots — the one exception is uploading teaching content after creation, which stays with lead teachers and administrators.
A – B
| Control | What it does | Who sees it |
|---|---|---|
| Activity | Launch-bar item. Returns to the activity itself from anywhere in the launch. | Anyone who sees the launch bar — see The bar |
| Add documents | The file field on the teaching-content form. Accepts the file types listed beside it. A scanned PDF is refused. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Add new chatbot | Opens the create wizard on step one. A standard teacher sees Create chatbot from template in its place, which opens the template picker instead. | Lead teachers, administrators, and teachers on an LMS with authoring on |
| Additional settings | The edit section holding limits, memory, feedback, template publishing and what goes back to the LMS. See Additional settings. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Apply | Runs the filters above it, on the dashboard and on the responses list. | Every teacher |
| Attach content | Submits the teaching-content upload. Uploading replaces whatever is attached now. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Available as a template | Publishes this chatbot so other teachers in your organisation can start a new one from it, inheriting the prompts and settings. See Templates. | Lead teachers, administrators, and teachers on an LMS with authoring on (their own chatbots — the switch works when saving an edit, not during creation) |
| Avatar style | Static image shows a still picture throughout. Talking character shows a portrait that speaks and blinks in time with the reply. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Back | Steps the create wizard back one step. Nothing is lost. | Whoever has the wizard |
| Back to the chatbot | Leaves an edit section without saving. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Behaviour | Which set of rules the character runs on: Roleplay, Teacher or Custom. See Behaviour. | Lead teachers, administrators |
C – D
| Control | What it does | Who sees it |
|---|---|---|
| Cancel | Leaves an edit section without saving, from the section’s own action row. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Character | The face and voice the student meets, chosen from the gallery. The portraits are deliberately unnamed — who the character is comes from your role prompt. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Chat model | Which language model writes what the character says. Leave it on the default unless you have a reason. It does not apply when live voice is on. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Chatbot name | Dashboard filter. Searches titles. | Every teacher |
| Chatbot title | The heading a student sees above the conversation. Name the situation rather than the technology. | Lead teachers, administrators (a standard teacher changes it through Rename) |
| Clear | Empties the filters and shows everything again. | Every teacher |
| Commit to gradebook | The assessor gate’s submit. Sends the mark, the feedback and your comment to the LMS gradebook. Nothing goes until this is pressed. See Releasing a mark. | Any teacher who may read that conversation |
| Continue | Advances the create wizard, validating the current step first. | Whoever has the wizard |
| Contrast | Student presentation control: Normal or High contrast. Stored in their browser only. | Every student |
| Conversations per student | How many separate conversations each student may have. They are shown how many they have left before they start. Only conversations they spoke in count. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Copy link | Copies the share link for this chatbot to the clipboard. Confirms with a brief message, or says it could not copy. | Every teacher |
| Create chatbot | Creates the chatbot from the wizard, the template form or a duplicate. | Every teacher (from a template); lead teachers and administrators from the wizard |
| Dashboard | Launch-bar item, and the site’s main screen. The list of chatbots you may see. See The dashboard. | Every teacher |
| Delete chatbot | Removes the chatbot and every conversation with it. Confirms first; not reversible. | The chatbot’s owner, lead teachers, administrators |
| Delete response | Removes one conversation and its files. Confirms first; not reversible. | The chatbot’s owner, lead teachers, administrators |
| Download all responses | Downloads a zip of the responses you can access for this chatbot. The name, email and date filters on the page do not narrow the download. | Anyone who may read the list |
| Download response | Exports one conversation — transcript and audio — as a zip. | Anyone who may read it |
| Download transcript and audio now | The student’s own copy, on the thank-you screen. | Every student |
| Draw | Whiteboard tool. Freehand marks on the board, described back to the character in words. | Every student, where the whiteboard is on |
| Duplicate chatbot | Copies a chatbot, its settings and its content into a new draft. The original is untouched. | Lead teachers, administrators |
E – L
| Control | What it does | Who sees it |
|---|---|---|
| Edit chatbot | The dashboard pencil, and a launch-bar item. Opens the full edit form. For a standard teacher the same pencil is Rename chatbot instead. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Responses-list filter. Searches student addresses. | Anyone who may read the list | |
| End conversation | Hands the conversation in. On a chatbot that remembers students this is replaced by Pause — continue later and Finish and hand in. | Every student |
| End date | Filter. The later bound of the date range, on both lists. | Every teacher |
| Feedback for the student | The assessor panel’s editable feedback. Prefilled with the AI feedback; what you leave here is what goes to the gradebook. The original is kept alongside it. | Any teacher who may commit that mark |
| Finish and hand in | The deliberate ending on a chatbot with memory on. Produces the thank-you screen and, in an LMS activity, a result. | Every student, where memory is on |
| From a template | Wizard route. Copies an existing chatbot into a new one. | Every teacher |
| From my materials | Wizard route. Starts from a document you upload. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Generate image | Produces an avatar image from a description instead of uploading one. | Every teacher |
| Interaction context | Frames the situation and decides who speaks first: phone or in person, chatbot or student starting. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Conversations on this link | A ceiling for the share link itself, across everybody. Separate from Conversations per student, which counts each learner. Teacher test runs never count. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Replace this link | Issues a new share link and revokes the old one immediately, with no grace period. Use it if a link has got out. | Everyone who can edit the chatbot |
| Live feedback | When the student ends the conversation, the whole transcript is read and feedback is written for them. Available on Roleplay and Teacher chatbots that are not sending a rubric mark; saves as off otherwise. | Lead teachers, administrators |
M – R
| Control | What it does | Who sees it |
|---|---|---|
| Mark | The assessor panel’s number. Prefilled with the automatic mark where there is one; required where there is not. | Any teacher who may commit that mark |
| Marking rubric | One criterion per line, in your own words. Automatic marking suggests whether each criterion was met. If it says a criterion was met, it must support that decision with a usable quote from the student; otherwise that met result is dropped. A teacher reviews the suggestion before releasing a rubric mark. Choose a mark mode without a rubric and the activity uses completion instead. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Microphone | The round hold-to-talk button. Hold, speak, release to send. Operates from the keyboard with Enter or Space. Absent in live voice, where the microphone is continuous. | Every student |
| Mute / Unmute | Live voice only. Switches the student’s microphone off and on. The clock keeps running. | Every student, in live voice |
| Next / Previous | Paging on the responses list. | Anyone who may read the list |
| Pause — continue later | Saves and closes without handing in. No feedback, no mark, nothing sent to your LMS. The next visit carries straight on. | Every student, where memory is on |
| Point | Whiteboard tool, and the default. Clicking something the character wrote asks about it, in words. | Every student, where the whiteboard is on |
| Read what the chatbot sees | Opens the exact material this chatbot has been given, as the chatbot receives it. Useful for checking an upload landed; it holds your course prose, so treat what is behind it as you would the source document. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Reading and listening options | The student panel above Start chat, holding text size, contrast and voice speed. See Before they start. | Every student |
| Remember each student | Off, every visit starts a new conversation. On, a student can return to an unfinished conversation and continue it. After the student finishes or time runs out, their next attempt starts a new conversation. Memory follows the student’s sign-in. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Remove content | Detaches this chatbot’s teaching content. It then answers from general knowledge. Confirms first. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Realtime voice | Turns on live speech-to-speech. Described in full under Live voice below, with the two quality options. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Rename chatbot | The dashboard pencil for a standard teacher. Changes the title and unit code, and nothing else. See Renaming. | Every teacher, on their own chatbots |
| Responses | Launch-bar item, and the icon on each dashboard row. The list of conversations for this chatbot. | Anyone who may read them |
| Results sent to the LMS | What the gradebook is told: No grade — practice only (nothing is sent and no gradebook column is created), Completion only (100 out of 100 for finishing), A mark against your rubric, or A mark, plus the conversation in the gradebook. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Retry | Asks again for the end-of-conversation feedback after it failed to load. | Every student |
| Role prompt | Who this character is: their name, history, circumstances, what they want, how they react when pressed. Always yours, in every behaviour mode. See The character. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Rub out mine | Removes everything the student has drawn or written on the whiteboard. The character’s own content is untouched. | Every student, where the whiteboard is on |
S – Z
| Control | What it does | Who sees it |
|---|---|---|
| Save changes | Saves the edit section you are in. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Select content | The picker your LMS shows when a teacher attaches this tool to an activity. See Opening the activity. | Whoever adds the activity in the LMS |
| Send | Sends what is typed in the message box. Enter does the same; Shift + Enter starts a new line. | Every student |
| Send transcript and audio to your email | Emails the student’s own copy to the address on their account. | Every student |
| Set it up myself | Wizard route. The full eight steps, from nothing. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Star rating | Five stars on the thank-you screen, optional, with a comment box under them. Both come back to you on the conversation. | Every student |
| Start chat | Begins the conversation. Nothing has started until it is pressed. | Every student |
| Start date | Filter. The earlier bound of the date range, on both lists. | Every teacher |
| Starter phrase | The character’s first line, used where the interaction context has the chatbot speak first. Shown to the student on the brief screen before they press Start. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Student instructions | The briefing shown before the conversation starts. The only place a student is told what they must do. Not part of the character’s normal conversation prompt, though the end-of-conversation feedback pass does read it. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Student name | Responses-list filter. | Anyone who may read the list |
| Submit feedback | Sends the student’s star rating and note to you. Refuses without a star. | Every student |
| System prompt | The standing rules the character runs under. Shown only when Behaviour is Custom — the built-in modes supply their own. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Teacher | Dashboard filter. Narrows the list to one teacher’s chatbots and adds a Teacher column. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Teaching content | The edit section where documents are attached. See Teaching content. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Test chatbot | Opens the chatbot as a staff test run. Spends no attempts, is never marked, and appears in the responses list badged Test. | Every teacher |
| Text size | Student presentation control: Normal, Large, Largest. | Every student |
| The character | The edit section holding avatar style, character, voice, live voice and the role prompt. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| The conversation | The edit section holding the interaction context and the starter phrase. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| The scenario | The edit section holding unit code, title and student instructions. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Time limit per conversation | How long one conversation may run. The student sees a countdown and is warned near the end; their last exchange always finishes. On live voice the countdown runs in the browser, so treat it as a firm guide. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Unit code | Your organisation’s code for the unit this belongs to. Groups and searches chatbots on your dashboard. Students never see it. | Lead teachers, administrators (a standard teacher changes it through Rename) |
| Upload image | Uploads your own avatar picture instead of using a built-in character. | Every teacher |
| View response | Opens one conversation in full. | Anyone who may read it |
| Voice speed | Student presentation control: Slower, Normal, Faster. Changes how fast the character’s recorded voice plays back. | Every student |
| Voice type | The speaking voice used when the character replies. Preview them by starting a test conversation. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Whiteboard | Gives the character a board beside the conversation. Works in every behaviour mode. The character’s board changes are saved and replayed with its messages. A student’s drawing is not saved as an image, but the action they send to the character is described in the transcript. See The whiteboard. | Lead teachers, administrators |
| Write | Whiteboard tool. The student clicks where they want to write, types, and presses Enter. | Every student, where the whiteboard is on |
| Your own comment | The assessor panel’s free text. Goes first in what the gradebook shows. | Any teacher who may commit that mark |
Live voice
One control is worth naming separately because it changes the whole conversation screen rather than one field.
| Control | What it does | Who sees it |
|---|---|---|
| Realtime voice | Turns on live speech-to-speech: the student talks and the character answers without pressing send. The menu offers Realtime — Mini (recommended, lower cost) and Realtime — Flagship (best quality). | Lead teachers, administrators |
Switching it on removes the hold-to-talk microphone for students, adds Mute, and changes the facts line on the brief screen to Live voice or text. What happens when it cannot connect is in Having the conversation.