April 5, 2022

Tech created for students by graduates – the latest with Mixiply

By

Theta

The newest Mixiply release is backed by years of innovative thinking with the help of Theta’s graduates and interns. It’s tech, created for students, by Graduates – many of the Mixiply team behind the scenes started out small and have now left their mark on the ongoing improvements and developments of the platform. We’re proud to release Mixiply’s new collaborative features- curated upon feedback from the young creative minds of Minidevs at Newlands Intermediate School in Wellington. They inspire us as we hope to inspire them in their tech journey.

The digital era waits for no one, so it may come as no surprise that the fresh faces of New Zealand are increasingly more interested in the tech field. During recent years, Theta and Newlands Intermediate saw a gap in digital advancements for education, and thus Mixiply was born. First created inside Theta’s innovation lab by tech connoisseurs and passionate interns for the next generation of developers alike; we are now five years down the track and have seen many graduates make their stance on the project. Throughout it all, our partnership with the MiniDevs from Newlands Intermediate has helped our team continue to fine-tune Mixiply into the collaborative platform it is today.

Some of the earliest interns behind Mixiply started as young developers themselves, who are now following the many opportunities presented to them in their tech careers. Tim King came onboard the Theta team as one of the first graduates to work on the Mixiply prototype. Fresh out of university, Tim helped with the early ideas of the platform and played out the scenarios where these ideas could be turned into a reality. Daniel Tai and Ben Daly also joined the team as graduates, they both helped to bring the Mixiply mobile app to life, and after 6 years of tremendous input, Daniel progressed to the next chapter of his career overseas. Last year Mixiply gained Maddie, who joined the crew as an intern and has since been attending MiniDev sessions to further contribute to Mixiply’s product development. Working closely with the school and its students has provided huge insights into what’s next for Mixiply.

Theta’s Mixiply developers have been striving for innovative ways to help teachers and students adopt the platform more widely. Their partnership with Newlands Intermediate School and MiniDevs has allowed for genuine feedback throughout the entire development process. The result has been a platform that continuously improves and caters to their needs - and this time, the differentiator is Mixiply’s collaborative features.

So what’s new?

Mixiply has made it easier for students and teachers to collaborate. The latest release enables teachers to view their student’s work and activity in its entirety, which in turn, sets Mixiply up to assess student's work against the National Curriculum criteria.

This is welcomed with two key features - introducing Group member info and Activity tracking.

Group member info

Better organisation, better learning.

  • Allows teachers (group admins) to assign information to each student (group member).
  • The requested information is customisable and can be for example room number / class name / cohort or anything else required.

Group admins can then search and find members across all the groups they manage.

Activity tracking

Easier to track students' and group members’ contributions.

  • Mixiply now keeps track of all user activity so group admins can see a group member's activity within the groups they manage.  
  • This includes tracking projects, journal entries and asset uploads as well as group posts.  
  • Assets can be previewed from the activity page, which enables group admins to get a single view of a member’s contributions and interactions.

Alternative email

Access your Mixiply projects from home!

  • Allows students to use a personal email as a backup so they can access their account if they have signed up with a school account.

Post image modal

Better quality and easier use.

  • Images posted in the group chats were hard to see so we have added a preview which when clicked, displays the large image in a modal.

Let's inspire more young developers in this digital world.

If you or your school want to try out Mixiply, it’s free to use. Visit mixiply.com to create your account and get started.