🎒 For students

Hey! This page is for you, the student. It covers how to join your class, how to get back in later, and a few things worth knowing once you're inside.

Joining your class

Your teacher will give you a join code. On the teachChat home page, choose the New here tab and fill in:

• The join code from your teacher
• Your first name and last initial: just the first name and one letter, like "Alex" and "R"
• A screenname: the name your classmates will see
• A 4-digit PIN that you make up

Then press Join class and you're on your way.

You might notice there is nowhere to type your full last name. That's on purpose: teachChat never asks for it. Only your teacher can see your first name and initial. Classmates only ever see your screenname.

Pick a screenname you'd be fine saying out loud in class. Your teacher sees it before you're in, so a silly-but-friendly name is fine, an embarrassing one won't make it through.

Screenname rules

If your screenname gets rejected, it is one of these:

• 3 to 20 characters. Shorter or longer is refused.
• Letters, numbers, spaces, and underscores only. No emoji, no punctuation, no symbols.
• It cannot be somebody's name. teachChat checks your screenname against the real names in your class and blocks anything too close, including near-misses. Picking a handle that pretends to be a classmate does not work.
• Somebody already took it. Screennames are unique inside a class.

Change it and try again; nothing is lost.

If your teacher gave you a card

Some classes skip signup entirely. If your teacher handed you a printed card with a screenname and PIN already on it, do not use the signup tab: tap 👋 Coming back and enter the join code, screenname, and PIN exactly as printed.

Your PIN

When you type your PIN, it shows up as dots so nobody looking at your screen can read it. If you need to peek at what you typed, check the Show PIN box.

Your PIN is how teachChat knows it's really you. It lets you sign back in from any device: a Chromebook at school, a laptop at home, wherever.

Keep your PIN to yourself. It's yours, not your friend's.

Forgot your PIN?

Ask your teacher. They can reset it from their roster in a couple of seconds and hand you a new one, and you are back in on the very next try. Nobody, including your teacher, can look up your old PIN: teachChat only ever stores a scrambled version of it, so resetting is the only way.

If you guess wrong several times in a row, teachChat makes you wait a little before trying again, and the wait gets longer each time. That is there to stop a classmate sitting and guessing your PIN. A reset clears the wait too.

Coming back later

Already joined once? You don't fill out the whole form again.

• Same device: your class shows up right on the home page, so you can hop back in with one tap.
• Different device: choose the Coming back tab and enter the join code, your screenname, and your PIN.

The waiting room

After you join, you might see a screen that says You're in the waiting room. Hang tight: your teacher just needs to let you in, and the page opens up on its own the moment they do. You can't chat while you're waiting, so no need to refresh or mash any buttons.

Points and the shop

As you participate, you earn points. You can spend them in the 🛒 Shop on stickers, name colors, and icons, and here's the nice part: spending points never lowers your participation score. There's also a session leaderboard, so you can see how the class is doing.

Want the full story on how points and houses work? See Points and houses.

Can't see the board?

Sitting in the back? Projector washed out? Your teacher's screen can show up right on your device. When your teacher goes live, the board view opens on your screen on its own, so you don't have to hunt for it mid-lesson.

If you closed it and want it back, look for the Can't see the board? Open it here button. You can also drag the handle under the board to make it bigger or smaller, trading board space for chat space, whichever you need more of at the moment.

That's it. Type your code, plant yourself in the class, and grow from there. 🌱