How to Create Assignments (Teachers and Administrators) – myON UK

As a teacher, follow the steps below to create assignments for your students. Assignments can include books and recorded reading, oral responses, writing, news articles, graphic organisers, or custom activities.

If multiple teachers work with a class, how do they use assignments?

Only the teacher who assigns an assignment to students can view their progress on the assignment. To coordinate assignments, do the following:

Have only one teacher assign the assignment to the students; if both teachers assign the assignment, students will see the assignment twice and will be asked to complete it for each teacher, creating confusion or duplicate work.
The teacher who assigns the assignment can monitor student progress on the assignment and share the information with the other teacher outside of myON (by voice, email or screen sharing in a meeting).
If the school is recording the data in a separate program, the teacher who assigned the assignment can enter the data into that program as needed.

Select Assignments at the top of the page.
In the top left, under the Assignments heading, select Create New Assignment.
To enter a name for the new assignment, select the pencil icon next to the words "Create New Assignment." Then, enter a new title and select Save.
Next, select the books that you want to include in the assignment. To start, enter a word to search for under Search for Books; then, select Find Books.

A window will open that lists books that match your search. In this window, you can tick the boxes after "Limit search to" to decide whether you want matching results for the title, series, author, description, or publisher. You can also select the filter icons to filter the results by fiction vs. non-fiction, Lexile® level, ATOS book level, guided reading level, year level, language, or book type (by length or audio availability). After making your choices, select Find Books in the window. In the results, tick the books that you would like to include in the assignment. When you have finished, select Add.

You will go back to the assignment page, and the books that you added will be listed. If there are more than 5 books, the list will be split; use the Next and Previous links under the books to see other parts of the list.

Note: Your group settings or school settings may limit when students can read books above their year, and your administrator may have set minimum years for individual books. If the books that you are adding to the assignment are above students' years, make sure students can access those books. Your administrator can also choose to allow access to books above students' years when those books are part of a assignment.
Next, look at the completion settings on the right side of the Books section. Use the first dropdown list (Reading books) and choose how many of the books you selected the student must read to complete the assignment - all, a specific number, or 0:

Then, choose how many of the books the student must record in order to complete the assignment - all, a specific number, or 0:
Under Reader Settings, you will see the following settings (select See more to see all six settings):
- Audio: If the box is ticked, audio can be played for books in the assignment; if not, students cannot hear audio for books in the assignment.
- Recording: If the box is ticked, students are allowed to record audio for books in the assignment.
- Highlighting: If the box is ticked and audio is allowed, sentences are highlighted as the audio for each sentence is played.
- Book Reviews: If the box is ticked, students will be asked to rate each book and add a review after reading the book.
- Literacy Toolkit: If the box is ticked, students will have access to the literacy toolkit options, including the journal, paint brush, highlighter, sticky notes, and the shape tool.
Next, add instructions. For the assignment. First, modify the tile if necessary. Then, add instructions that explain to your students what they need to do to finish the assignment.
Teachers and School Administrators can set a start date and due date; dates are not available to Group Administrators since they do not assign assignments. The start date is optional. A due date is required if the assignment is assigned to students. To set the dates, select each field and type the date, or select the calendar icon and choose a date from the calendar. The due date can be up to 1 year from today's date; the default date is the last day of the school year.
On the right side of the Instructions section, choose whether to share the assignment with other educators. Depending on the group's account settings, this may mean educators in the group or any myON user. If you choose to share the assignment, use the Year Level drop-down lists to choose a year range for the assignment. Then, enter tags (or keywords) to help other educators find the assignment when they enter certain keywords in the search. Select Add tag after entering each tag; as you do so, the tags will be added below the field, and you can select the X next to any tag to remove it.
In the Add Activities section of the page, choose the other types of activities that you would like to include in the assignment:
- Writing: For writing activities, you include instructions about what to write. You can also set an optional goal for the number of words and add a checklist. If you want students to read and comment on the writing of other students with the assignment, tick the Peer Review box. When you have finished, select Add.
- Oral Response: If you want your students to complete a recorded oral response, enter the question or prompt that you want your students to answer. Since student recordings are limited to 5 minutes, make sure that the question is one that students can answer fully in that time limit. When you have finished, select Add.
- Graphic Organiser: If you want your students to create a graphic organiser as part of the assignment, enter instructions for your students and then choose the type of graphic organiser; then, select Add. For more information, see Graphic Organiser Assignment Activities.
- News: If you want your students to read news articles as part of the assignment, in the news activity window, enter instructions, then search for articles to add to the assignment. When you find an article that you want to add, select + next to that article to add it to the list of selected articles on the right. (To remove a selected article from the assignment, select X next to the article.) After you choose articles, use the drop-down list above the search field to choose how many of the articles students must read in order to complete the assignment. When you have finished, select Accept at the bottom of the window.
- Custom: You can also set up custom activities, which may include work done outside of myON. Enter instructions; you may also choose to enter a checklist. When you have finished, select Add.
You can preview the assignment at any time by selecting Preview Assignment at the top or bottom of the page.
If you do not want to assign the assignment to students yet, go to step 12.

If you want to assign the assignment now, choose which students to assign the assignment to. (This section is not available to Group Administrators, who cannot assign assignments to students.)

If you are a teacher, your class is shown by default, and you can tick any of the students in your class, click Select All to tick all of the students, or click Unselect All to remove the tick next to all students.

If you want to assign the assignment to a specific student and the list is long, it may be faster to search for the student in the list to find the student more quickly.

To confirm which students have been selected, select the number to the right of the "Students Selected" heading. This opens a list in another window. After reviewing the list, select Cancel or Accept to close the window.

If you prefer to assign the assignment to students in a specific group, select the My Groups tab. On that tab, use the drop-down list to select the group, then tick students.

If you are a School Administrator, instead of the My Class tab, you will see My School and My Teachers tabs. The My School tab lets you assign the assignment to a year; use the drop-down list to choose the grade. The My Teachers tab lets you assign the assignment to students of a specific teacher; use the drop-down list to choose the teacher. You will also see a My Groups tab that lets you choose a group as teachers do. Once you have chosen a tab and a year, teacher or group, tick the students that you want to assign the assignment to.

Note: Each assignment can be assigned to up to 800 students; any students selected beyond the first 800 will not receive the assignment.
When you have finished creating an assignment and you are ready to make it available, select Publish at the bottom of the page. You will go to the list of Active assignments, with the new assignment at the bottom of the list. You will see the message "Published" on the left side of the assignment for a moment.

If you are not yet done with the assignment, select Save as Draft to save the assignment without publishing or assigning it.

If you see an Assignment Incomplete message, select Edit to go back to the assignment. The assignment may be missing information, such as the instructions. If you chose to assign the assignment to students, a due date is required; make sure the due date has been set.