As described in our blog post, our new lesson editor is currently in Beta as we continue to build and refine its features. If you want to get answers to frequently asked questions, please read our FAQ article.
This article describes the key upgrades of the new lesson editor, compared to the classic lesson editor. The classic lesson editor is the lesson editor you already use to create and teach your lessons.
Note for channels: If you own a channel at LessonUp, you're also able to try and use the new lesson editor. However, please note that it is currently not yet possible to publish lessons created in the new lesson editor to your channel or the lesson library.
Key upgrades in the new lesson editor
Upgrade your PowerPoints: import, edit, and add interactivity
Benefit from a revamped, user-friendly interface
Edit your slides and components effortlessly
Customise and personalise your lessons
Co-edit lessons with your colleagues in real time
1. Upgrade your PowerPoints: import, edit, and add interactivity
One of the major upgrades in the new lesson editor is the possibility to import an existing PowerPoint file and edit this in LessonUp. Make your PowerPoint interactive and edit the look and feeling to make a personal lesson. Read all about the possibilities in this article.
2. Benefit from a revamped, user-friendly interface
With the new lesson editor, we have adapted modern ways of user interfaces to make sure you are able to create lessons in an intuitive and familiar way.
Guides: Position your components accurately using guides.
Grab texts, images, or other components on your slide and arrange them wherever you want. With support of improved guides, you will be able to position your components more accurately and "snap" them to a line.
Positioning: Select and drag multiple components at once.
Select any combination of components on your slide, like texts, images, or hotspots. With the selection of your components, you are able to move and rearrange them on your slide. Also, it's possible to resize all your selected components at once. Especially with a selection of images, or hotspots, this will save you additional clicks and actions.
Edit texts: Change or delete text in any slide, regardless of its layout.
Regardless of your slide layout, you can now edit and delete any of the texts and images on your slide. In the classic lesson editor, you need to switch to a specific layout for your styling. In the new lesson editor, you have full flexibility to adjust slides to your needs.
Edit overview: Edit your slides in a clean workspace with fewer distractions.
Looking at the interface of the screen you use to edit your slides, we've made a few changes in the new lesson editor. First and foremost, the main menu at the top of the screen is removed. Since you are editing your lesson, you get full focus on your slides and its settings. By using more white-space, clear menus, and improved thumbnails of your slides you have more focus on viewing and editing your slides.
The possibility to toggle the sidebar with settings on and off contributes to this idea. You can use the quick actions for making and viewing changes directly in your slide. Whenever you want to make more changes you can enable the sidebar and hide it again if you want full focus on your slide again.
Other improvements include the use of icons for components to directly add them to your slide. This makes it easy to add them with less clicks compared to the classic lesson editor. For the settings of your lesson, to set the duration, school type, subject, level, and year, there is a settings icon next to the title of your lesson. Using this icon also saves space, compared to the "options" button in the classic lesson editor.
3. Edit your slides and components effortlessly
Part of the improved user experience is the way slides and components can be edited. There are 2 main improvements for editing your slides and components.
The sidebar
When you have a slide, or a component, selected you will see a sidebar on the right side of your screen. You can enable the sidebar by using the settings icon on the right of your screen. Hide the sidebar by clicking on the cross in the top right corner of the sidebar. You can also directly view/hide the sidebar by clicking on the settings icon that appears in the quick actions above any component, when you select a component.
This sidebar contains all settings that are available for your slide or component, grouped by category. Different components have different settings and categories. Read more details about all settings per component: Text, Image, and Hotspot.
Quick actions
When you click on any component on your slide, quick actions will appear. Depending on the position of the component, the quick actions will appear just above or below the component. Using these quick actions, you're able to directly make changes to the styling of your component. For example, when you select text you can easily adjust the font-size, colour, and styling for your text without having to use any menus or sidebar.
4. Customise and personalise your lessons
The new lesson editor offers some improvements to personalise your lessons with custom options. Custom options that are available:
Set a custom font size for texts
Within 1 text area, use multiple font families
Set the orientation for any text
Set transparency for images
Set a corner radius for images and component backgrounds
Teaching your lesson
Next to improving the edit experience of your lesson, we've also made several enhancements to the teaching mode to help you deliver your lessons smoothly:
Visibility of the QR and join codes have improved, making it easier for students to access your lesson.
Slide navigation has improved, giving you greater control to jump effortlessly to any slide.
5. Co-edit lessons with your colleagues in real time
Within the new lesson editor, you are able to collaborate and edit lessons together with your colleagues. If you both have access to the same lesson in the same shared folder, you can open the lesson and edit simultaneously.
In your lesson, you will see an indicator of the other person, or multiple people, that are active in the same lesson at the same time. This works similar to working together in other tools from Microsoft or Google.
List of features
The list below indicates what features are currently available in the new lesson editor and how this compares to the classic lesson editor. Note that not every single feature on a detail-level is listed, only the most notable features. Some features have a link to a separate Help Center article where you can find more information about the respective feature.
If you want to know what features are coming up next, please read this article.
Interactive slides
Feature | New editor | Classic editor |
✅ | ✅ | |
✅ | ✅ | |
Word Cloud (formerly Mind Map) | ✅ | ✅ |
Picture question | ❌ | ✅ |
Drag and drop question | ❌ | ✅ |
(Interactive) video | ❌ | ✅ |
Poll | ❌ | ✅ |
Informative slides
Feature | New editor | Classic editor |
Blank slide | ✅ | ✅ |
Image slide | ✅ | ✅ |
PowerPoint import & edit | ✅ | ❌ |
Video slide | ✅ | ✅ |
Hyperlink slide | ❌ | ✅ |
Components
Feature | New editor | Classic editor |
✅ | ✅ | |
✅ | ✅ | |
✅ | ✅ | |
Video | ✅ | ✅ |
Table | ❌ | ✅ |
Audio | ❌ | ✅ |
Symbol | ❌ | ✅ |
Formula | ❌ | ✅ |
Spinner | ❌ | ✅ |
Timer | ❌ | ✅ |
Traffic light | ❌ | ✅ |
Teach mode
Feature | New editor | Classic editor |
Slide navigation | ✅ | ✅ |
View & navigate to slide | ✅ | ❌ |
Close for participation | ✅ | ✅ |
Student overview | ✅ | ✅ |
Move images on slide | ✅ | ✅ |
Make annotations/drawings | ❌ | ✅ |
Raise hand | ❌ | ✅ |
Show ranking | ❌ | ✅ |
Sound effects | ❌ | ✅ |
AI-assistant Maia
Feature | New editor | Classic editor |
Generate lesson based on prompt | ✅ | ❌ |
Generate lesson based on image | ✅ | ❌ |
Generate lesson based on contextual text | ✅ | ❌ |
Generate quiz from slide | ✅ | ✅ |
Generate poll from slide | ❌ | ✅ |
Lesson library
Feature | New editor | Classic editor |
Choose lesson from library | ❌ | ✅ |
Add lesson to library | ❌ | ✅ |
Choose slide from library | ❌ | ✅ |
Choose slide from favourites | ❌ | ✅ |
Share lessons
Feature | New editor | Classic editor |
Share lesson in shared folder | ✅ | ✅ |
✅ | ❌ | |
Share lesson with link | ❌ | ✅ |
Share lesson with class | ❌ | ✅ |
Share lesson via Somtoday | ❌ | ✅ |
Share lesson via Google Classroom | ❌ | ✅ |
Share lesson via Canvas | ❌ | ✅ |
General
Feature | New editor | Classic editor |
Select and drag multiple components | ✅ | ❌ |
Components snap to advanced gridlines | ✅ | ❌ |
Collaborate simultaneously | ✅ | ❌ |
Show/hide lesson phases | ❌ | ✅ |
Export to PDF | ❌ | ✅ |
Print lesson | ❌ | ✅ |
Add notes | ❌ | ✅ |
Differentiate slide | ❌ | ✅ |
Animated bullet lists | ❌ | ✅ |
Create a test from your lesson | ❌ | ✅ |
View reports of your lesson | ❌ | ✅ |
Hand out and revise homework | ❌ | ✅ |