Trace sends messages one person at a time. There is no class announcement board and no group thread, so a message to twenty-four students becomes twenty-four private conversations and every reply comes back to you alone. The dialog says this while you write.
Message the whole class#
Open the class and press Message class in the header. On a narrow screen it moves into the Class actions menu next to the join code.
Type into the Message box, which holds up to four thousand characters. The line underneath says "Goes to 24 students" and the button reads Send to 24 students. While it works it counts through them, showing "Sending 7 of 24…".
If some do not go through, the dialog says how many were sent, lists the names that failed, and offers Try again for 3, which resends only to those people. The rest are not sent twice.
Message a few students instead#
The Students section of a class does the same thing for part of the roster. Tick the checkbox on the rows you want and press Message in the toolbar that appears, or use the menu at the end of a single row. The dialog is the same one with only those recipients in it.
An assignment's own page carries a version aimed at a specific group. When somebody has not opened the work, Message everyone who hasn't started writes to exactly those students with a message already drafted that names the assignment and its due day. You can edit it before sending.
To write to one person from anywhere their name appears, use the Message button on their row or in their drawer. It opens the conversation with them, creating it if it does not exist yet.
Read and answer replies#
Messages in the sidebar holds the conversations. The left pane lists them with the person's name, the class the conversation belongs to, a preview of the last message, and an unread count. The right pane is the conversation itself, with the composer at the bottom. Enter sends, and Shift with Enter starts a new line. Load earlier fetches older messages in a long thread.
New at the top of the list starts a conversation by picking from your contacts, which are the people in your classes. On a phone the two panes take turns, and Back to conversations returns to the list.
Check due dates across your classes#
Calendar in the sidebar is a teacher planning page. It shows every assignment due date across your classes in one place, as a month grid with the chips for each day plus an Upcoming list beside it. A day with more than three items says "+2 more".
Pressing a chip or an upcoming row opens that assignment's teacher page rather than the student view of the work. Arrows move between months. When you teach more than one class, a Filter by class dropdown appears at the top with All classes and each of your classes. With one class it is hidden, since there would be nothing to filter.
The calendar is read-only. Nothing is created, moved, or rescheduled from it, and a due date changes only by editing the assignment.
What this page does not do#
- There is no group thread and no broadcast. Students never see each other's replies, and you never see a reply arrive in a shared place.
- There are no read receipts, so nothing tells you whether a student opened a message.
- Messages do not carry attachments, links to files, or images.
- You can only message people in your own classes.
- The calendar shows due dates, not lessons, periods, or a timetable, and nothing on it can be edited.