Community and the blog

Discussions is a question and answer board. Post a question, get answers from other students and teachers, and mark the best one as accepted. Comments and votes also appear under problems, quizzes, labs, resources and learning paths.

Resources is a shared library of links and reference material (articles, simulations, videos), tagged by subject and topic like everything else.

• Follow a teacher (on their profile, or under their name on a course) to get a notice in the bell when they publish something new.
• Follow a topic, such as Mechanics, to hear about new courses, paths and tests in it.
• Follow a discussion to hear about new replies. Replying follows it for you.

Notices are grouped: ten things published in one sitting make one notice. Everything you follow is on Following. Who you follow is private; a teacher sees only how many follow them. Follow notices are never emailed.

The Blog has articles from the StemPy Lab team and invited teachers: ideas explained, study advice, guides and news. Signed-in readers can like, save, share and comment. Pick a Topic above the list, or a writer's name, to see their posts. There is also an RSS feed.

1. Writing is by invitation

   Once an admin turns on blog writing for you, Blog Posts appears in your Teacher Studio.

2. Write a draft

   Give it up to five topics, and describe the cover image in a sentence for readers who cannot see it.

3. Submit for review

   An admin publishes it or sends it back with a note. Editing a published post sends it back for review, and it leaves the blog until approved.

Once you have used something (opened a problem, run a lab, taken a test, joined a course) you can rate it and leave a comment, under your name or anonymously. The author sees an anonymous rating but never who wrote it. You cannot rate your own content.

If you write content, My Feedback collects the ratings and comments on everything you wrote. Only you can see it.

StemPy Lab is for learners of all ages, so comments and discussions are kept friendly. A message with a word we do not allow is refused with a note asking you to reword it, and posting very fast is paused for a moment.

See something that should not be there? Press ⚑ Report under it. If three different people report the same comment or question, it is hidden while a moderator reviews it, and it comes back if the reports were unfounded.

When you write a quiz, a problem, a note or a post, press Equation beside the box. Build the maths with the buttons (fraction, power, root, Greek letters, units) or type it as you would on paper, and see it as it will look before it goes in. On a phone, a maths keyboard opens by itself.

1. Change maths you already wrote

   Put the cursor inside it and press Equation.

2. Tidy maths you typed plainly

   Select it, for example v^2 = u^2 + 2as or sqrt(2gh), and press Equation: it becomes proper maths, ready to check.

Published content is not deleted in one click. Press Request Deletion and an admin reviews it; until then it stays live, and the button says Deletion requested. A draft that was never published can be deleted straight away. If a request is declined, you are told.