Extempore sync is one of our most advanced features, please use the following steps for best results when facilitating a group assignment.

Best Practice for Instructors:

Step 1: To start, Create your synchronous group assignment with only 2 students per group. This will help the students get more comfortable with understanding how the synchronous feature works.

Note: Please make sure to complete at least 2-3 individual assignments on Extempore before using the synchronous feature.

Step 2: If students are completing the assignment in class, schedule the start time of the assignment at least 5-10 minutes after the class has begun to give yourself time to rearrange the groups and move students around in case some are absent.

Note: Groups cannot be changed after students have started responding.

Step 3: Communicate the below instructions to your students. It is important that your students understand how this feature works.

Best Practice for Students:

Step 1: Click on the Group Assignment when you're ready to connect with your group. You will be placed in the "Waiting Room" before joining where you will see when your group members are online.

Before joining a synchronous room, make sure that you can see a green dot signal indicating that the participants in the room are online and ready to join. If the signal is gray, it means that your partners are not present, please wait until it turns green before joining.

Step 2: If this is an in-class group assignment, please remember to wear headphones to cancel out any external noise.

Step 3: If you join a synchronous room and you don't see your partner(s) in the room, please be patient and wait in the room. The rooms can be controlled by any of the students in the groups, so if a student joins the room and leaves before another student can join, the room will close. Once a room is closed, other students cannot access the room.

Note: The recording of a synchronous group assignment begins as soon as one student joins the room. So if a student joins and leaves the room before others, it is indicating that the assignment has been completed. To avoid this from happening, please make sure that you are joining the room once you are given a green signal and if you do join before seeing the green signal, wait in the room for your partners to join.