Jotter

Academic guide

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Getting started

Everything you need to run a module on Jotter

Jotter turns a module into an interactive study your students join with a single code — activities, a live schedule, your handbook, in-class polls and their own notepad, all in one place. This guide walks through it, in the order you'll build things.

The big idea

A study is your module on Jotter. Students join it with a short join code — no account, no password. Everything you add to the study appears on their study page.

You build the study from your dashboard. Each study has one page students see (the study page) and one page you work from (the dashboard). You can preview the student view at any time, and nothing you set up is visible to students until you deliberately share it.

Throughout, grey buttons are your tools, the amber one is the main action on a screen, and anything marked students is what they'll see.

1Create your study

From My studies, choose New study and give it a name.

  1. Enter the module name (e.g. "Business Finance"), and — optionally — the module code and cohort. These form the join code, e.g. BEM3015DA-1CMA24.
  2. Add the level and credits (these flow into your handbook), roughly how many students and groups you expect, and a Teams/Zoom link if sessions run online.
  3. Save. Your study opens on its dashboard, with a join code ready to share.
Running a module you taught before? Use Duplicate for a new cohort (in the ••• menu) to copy a whole study — activities, schedule and all — then just update the dates.

2Add activities

Activities are the interactive cases, quizzes, walkthroughs and exercises students work through. Add them from the shared library.

  1. On the dashboard, choose + Browse the Library.
  2. Search by keyword, or filter by type or subject. Find by learning objective lets you paste an outcome and get suggestions.
  3. Add the ones you want. They appear in the study's activity list.

The list shows activities in the order the module runs — assign them to sessions in the schedule and the numbering follows automatically (students see the same numbers). On each card you can toggle Run in groups and set its group count, grab a QR code or a student link for any single activity, and remove one. Removing an activity only takes it out of this study — it stays in the library.

Want something built for your module that isn't in the library? Bespoke activities are made to order — ask, and it's built and added for you.

3Build the schedule

The schedule is your module's sessions in order. It powers the journey map at the top of both your dashboard and the student page.

Add a session with + Add session and set:

  • Type — Lecture, Seminar, Masterclass, Webinar, Self-study or Reflection.
  • Date, and start & end time.
  • A topic. If a session repeats or runs over two days, name them clearly ("Masterclass 1, Day 1" / "Masterclass 1, Day 2") — Jotter shows exactly what you type, in date order, with no automatic numbering.
  • Location, and for online sessions a Teams link (pick from ones you've already entered).
  • Activities allocated to that session, so students know what to do when.
Put a spaced dash before a longer description — "Webinar 1 — Your market and its weather" — and the journey map drops the description onto a smaller second line so nothing's cut off. Students also get an Add to calendar file for dated sessions.

4Assessments

Add your assignments in the Assessments section — title, weight, due date and a short note, with space for two by default.

Assessment due dates appear on the journey map (formative and summative are marked differently), on the student study page, and flow into your handbook. You can add more than two.

5The module handbook

Jotter generates a clean, branded module handbook. Open it from the dashboard's Handbook button.

Opened from a study, it arrives pre-filled with your module identity, schedule, assessments and your own details. From there you can:

Start from an existing handbook

Upload a Word/PDF handbook and Jotter reads it into the sections for you to review — or start from the standard sections it fills in automatically.

Add your marking rubric

Upload a rubric (Word/PDF) and it becomes a proper marking-criteria table.

Edit anything, in place

Click any text on the handbook preview and type over it. It auto-saves as you go — there's no Save button.

Publish when you're ready

Publish is what shows the handbook to students. You keep editing privately; students only ever see the version you last published.

The shareable handbook link

Every published handbook has a stable, clean URL you can put anywhere — an email, your VLE, a Teams message:

app.jotter.education/handbook/<your-join-code>

Publishing copies this link to your clipboard automatically, and once published you'll also find Copy handbook link in the dashboard's ••• menu. The link always shows the latest published version, so you can share it once and re-publish edits behind it. You can also Export the handbook to PDF or a web page.

6Invite students

Students join with your join code — no account needed.

  • Copy invite gives you a ready-to-send message with a one-tap join link.
  • The QR code is handy for slides or a handbook.
  • Or students go to app.jotter.education/join and type the code.

The join link takes them straight in — it works on a laptop, tablet or phone.

7In the room

A few tools for teaching live.

Go live — run a poll

Put a question on the projector; students answer on their phones and you discuss the results together, Mentimeter-style.

Message students

Send a note that appears on every student's study page instantly (and pushes to iPhones with the Jotter app). Good for "bring a laptop tomorrow".

Check it's ready

Before a session, this confirms your activities load, students can join, and the live monitor connects — and quietly re-syncs the student page if anything has drifted.

Backup pack

A printable worked-answers pack to fall back on if the room's network lets you down. In the ••• menu.

8What students see

Use View as student (top of the dashboard) to preview the live student page any time — it opens in a new tab and changes nothing.

On their study page, students get:

  • The journey map — the module's sessions and deadlines, with the next one highlighted.
  • Messages from you, and a link to your published handbook.
  • Their activities, in the order you set.
  • A notepad — a slide-out tab pinned to the edge that follows them across the study and into every activity. It's private to their device and stays between sessions.
  • Download my notes — their notepad plus any activity notes, as one file for revision.
  • An anonymous Ask a question box — questions come to you to answer for everyone.

9Housekeeping

The ••• (more) menu on the dashboard holds the occasional-use tools.

  • Edit details — change the module name, code, cohort, level, credits or Teams link after setup.
  • Share with a co-lead — give a colleague access to co-run the study.
  • Duplicate for a new cohort — copy the whole study for the next run.
  • Session report — a record of a live session.
  • Reset for a new run — clear all student data (answers, questions, presence) to run the study fresh with a new cohort.

Getting help

Something not working, or want an activity built for your module?

Use Need help? on the dashboard to get in touch directly — the quickest route if something's off before or during a session. Bespoke activities, handbooks and whole studies can be built for you on request.