Managing crews

How do I create crews?

Students must create their crews the first time that they log in.

If you are using Ocean School with Google Classroom™, ask your students to:

  1. Follow the steps from the Welcome to Ocean School assignment that they received in Google Classroom. The assignment will guide students to create their NFB accounts.

  2. Ask one student from each crew to visit the Class URL provided in the assignment. That student should then log in using their NFB account.

  3. All members of a crew must now log in on the same device to create their crew. After the crew is set up, the students will be able to log in on multiple devices.

  4. The crew members should work together to name the crew and create a flag.

If you are not using Google Classroom™:

  1. Ask one student from each crew to visit the Class URL provided in your Class dashboard in the Educator Space. That student should then log in using their NFB account.

  2. All members of a crew must now log in on the same device to create their crew. After the crew is set up, the students will be able to log in on multiple devices.

  3. The crew members should work together to name the crew and create a flag.

Can I change the name of a crew?

Yes. To change your crew name:

  1. Log in to Ocean School.

  2. Click your Crew flag in the top right corner.

  3. Click Modify Crew Name at the bottom of the screen.

Note - Any crew member can change the name of the crew. Teachers cannot change the name of a crew from Google Classroom or in the educator space.

How do I log back into Ocean School with my crew?

  1. Go to your Class URL.

  2. Click your Crew flag in the list of Crews.

  3. Click Add a member.

  4. Sign in with your NFB account.

Can I change the crew flag?

You cannot change your flag, so choose your design carefully!

Can I add a student to a crew?

Yes. The process is different depending on whether you are using Ocean School with or without Google Classroom.

How to add a student to an existing crew

If you are not using Google Classroom™:

  1. Create an NFB account for the new crew member.

  2. Ask a current member of the crew to log in to Ocean School.

  3. Click your Crew flag in the top right corner.

  4. Click Add a Crew member.

  5. Log in the new crew member using their NFB account.


How to add a student to an existing crew

If you are using Ocean School with Google Classroom™:

  1. Add the student to your class in Google Classroom.

  2. Go the class dashboard in the Ocean School Educator space and click “Update student list”.

  3. Ask the new crew member to complete the Welcome to Ocean School assignment in Google Classroom.

  4. Ask a current member of the crew to log in to Ocean School.

a) Click the Crew flag in the top right corner.

b) Click Add a Crew members

c) Log in the new crew member using their NFB accounts

5. Share all of the crew’s work with the new crew member.

Note. New crew members only receive assignments after they join a crew.

If the crew has already started an assignment, then the document was already created and shared. You will need to manually share that Google Document with the new crew member.

To share a document:

If you are using Ocean School with Google Classroom™:

  1. Click on the assignment in the Classwork tab.

  2. Open the activity.

  3. Click Share in the upper right corner.

  4. Enter the new crew member’s gmail address.

  5. Click Done.

Can I remove a student from a crew?

You cannot remove students from crews.

If you are using Google Classroom, and a student leaves your class, you can remove that student.

To remove a student:

  1. Remove the student from your class in Google Classroom.

  2. Log in to the Ocean School Educator Space.

  3. Go to your Class dashboard.

  4. Click Update student list.

What if I want to create new crews?

If all students have been assigned crews, you will need to create a new class in the Educator space, and send out a new invitation to your class. Afterwards, students will need to use the new class URL to access the platform and create new crews.

What happens if all crew members are not logged in?

Once the crews have been formed, assignments will be shared with all members of the crew, even when they are not logged in.

Can I see which students/crews are active on the platform?

You cannot monitor student activity in the Educator Space.

If you are using Ocean School with Google Classroom™, you can track student activity.

To see students’ activity, go to Google Classroom and view the last completed assignment(s) in your class Stream. The title of the assignment indicates the last piece of media that was completed.

Note - Crews displayed in the educator space are composed of every student that has ever been part of the crew.


What if I do not want students working ahead?

To prevent students from working ahead of their crews after your class, turn the session off. When the session is off, students will not be able to use your class URL.

Students can still access Ocean School from http://www.oceanschool.ca, but they will not be able to create assignments in the classroom you created.

For more information go to Managing your Ocean School class.

To prevent students from working ahead of their crews after your class, turn the session off. When the session is off, students will not be able to use your class URL.

Students can still access Ocean School from http://www.oceanschool.ca, but their progress will not be linked to your Class.

For more information go to Managing your Ocean School class.

What is the “Crews” folder in my Classroom? (Google Classroom only)

Your students’ work is saved to a folder called “Crews” in your Classroom folder on Google Drive. Please do not move or delete this folder!

There will be one folder for every crew. Do not rename or move these folders.

Every time a Crew finishes a piece of media on the platform, a folder for it will be created in the crew folder. The folder and its contents are shared with every member of the crew.

  • Do not rename this folder.

  • You can add documents in the folder.

  • We do not recommend removing documents once students have started using Ocean School.