New to MiLaDo? The Getting started video tutorial walks you through:

• registering
• adding your first student
• creating a lesson
• student accessing their space (Lite mode connect)

Watch the Setup tips video tutorial for an intro to:

• adding recurring lesson in your teaching schedule
• personalising "Latest Lesson" button on dashboard
• end of lesson reminders
• updating student profile
• different dashboard views

The Lesson Editor is used to create new lessons or edit existing ones. Practice instructions are organised in colour-coded tasks of type Repertoire, Listening, Sight-reading, Improvisation, Composition, etc. Tasks can have other attributes beyond colour and type, such the minimum number of days the student should practice.

The editor can be brought-up from multiple locations, for example:

• Dashboard
  • Lessons > New
  • Latest Released Lesson > Duplicate
• Lesson Viewer
  • Edit
  • if adding a new Task
  • if selecting Duplicate from the actions menu
  • ...
• Lessons List
  • New

The lesson viewer displays all the tasks, their instructions and additional information such as how much practice is expected.

It is possible to add new attachments without opening the editor. The green button is to load existing files, and the red button is to create new content by, for example, bringing up the audio recorder or the document scanner.

Tapping the Practice button at the bottom reveals the practice screen. It's a distraction free environment with a black background, a timer at the top, and tools such as the practice Time Machine recorder or an accompaniment player. Some teachers like to bring up the practice screen during lessons when working on a task with a student. For example, the Time Machine tool can come in handy to go back and listen to what was just played.

The lessons list shows the current lesson at the top, and any pre-released lessons being prepared below that. At the bottom are archived lessons.

A lot of information is visible at a glance, such as whether a task was added to the student repertoire, how many task and what type, whether practices were recorded, etc. Swipe left on a lesson to delete it.

Pre-release

A pre-released lesson is created in advance. It only becomes visible to the student once the configured release date and time is reached (that date gets set automatically if the teaching schedule was configured).

Creating lessons ahead of time - whether in the morning or the night before - allows the teacher to quickly review where they stand with that student, and to formulate a draft practice plan ahead of the next session. And even though it is quick in MiLaDo to create a new lesson by duplicating the previous one, some busy teachers find that doing such work outside of lesson times helps reduce the mental load during teaching. It cuts down on the all-too-common rush to write down some notes and suggest study material when closing off a lesson. Not to mention that students and/or their parents will notice such preparation work, and come out with a positive impression.

Lessons for a student always have tasks in common from one week to the next. Therefore, use the last lesson as a starting point by duplicating it. Select tasks to keep, update instructions, and save. You are done in no time.

A lesson can be duplicated from multiple locations:

• Dashboard (most common)
  • Latest Released Lesson > Duplicate
• Lesson Viewer
  • select Duplicate from the actions menu
• Lessons List
  • long-press a lesson and tap Duplicate

It is possible to export a lesson to another student. Just like with duplicate, you can select tasks to keep, modify tasks to suit the new student, etc.

Another Export possible is to PDF. This create a document that can either be sent or printed and then handed out.

It may happen that you want to export a task from one student lesson to another. Go to the source lesson, choose "Export task to another lesson" and select the student and the destination lesson. It is possible to export to several students at once.

To save a task that you know will be reused many times, export it to a template. Once a template had been created, you can either export it from the template view into an existing lesson, or you can open a lesson in the editor, create a new task and tap "load template".

The repertoire items editor can be brought-up from the dashboard by selecting Repertoire > New.

At the top of the editor, a dropdown menu displays a list of all eligible tasks that have not yet been added to the student's repertoire.

Adding a new repertoire item also adds a new Clap. The teacher can edit the message or keep the sample one provided.

To view a list of all items in the repertoire, tap the Repertoire button on the dashboard and select "View". A bar chart at the top summarises how many items were added per month in the most recent months. Tap on a bar to bring up more details about the repertoire items.

Swipe left on a row to delete the corresponding Clap.

Once a piece has been added to the student repertoire, a golden repertoire icon will be visible for all associated tasks (check the Lessons List or Lesson Viewer).

The Clap editor can be brought-up from the dashboard by selecting Clap > New.

Two types of Claps can be sent manually: Special and Practice.

Repertoire claps can only be added when a piece is added to the repertoire.

If a student adds a comment or attaches a file to a practice log, the teacher gets notified. Tapping the notification takes you to the practice log. Whether you reply or not is up to you. Simply reading the comment or opening the file is enough to dismiss the notification.

The dashboard has a Clap button for each student. It shows how many claps a student has received, bring up a menu to either view the list or add a new clap.

Example of improvements enabled once the teaching schedule is in use:

• Streamlined "Scheduled lessons" dashboard view only showing students with a lesson on the day
• Next lesson time and date confirmation visible by students
• Automated end-of-lessons notifications (set parameters in Preferences, such as custom sound and how many minutes before the end)
• Lesson time and date, and release time are set automatically when creating a new lesson to speed things up
• Lesson invoicing (coming soon)
• and more...

By entering a time-off period, a teacher can automatically mute all lessons in that time period in a single action, eliminating the need to manually edit individual lesson times for all students in the schedule. A time-off also mutes notifications, billing, and other related activities. So next time you take a two week holidays, enter a two week time-off, and let MiLaDo do all the rest (notify students, pause billing, etc).

Still want to give lessons to one or two students during the holidays? No worries. It is possible to select which students the time-off period applies to.

Business reports handle things like invoicing, summary of revenues and expenses in a given time period, projected revenue, etc. They can be a great help when running a business; for example when tax time comes, for invoicing, to spot late payments, ...

Those reports haven't been rolled out yet but once billing and payment features are ready they will be available for teacher who want to opt-in.

Export formats can be PDF and/or spreadsheet.

There are various types of activity reports. They focus more on the teaching than on the financials:

• Student report (not released yet): They can be exported as PDFs.
  • Some families or students may ask for an activity report to summarise what pieces were added to the repertoire, how much practice was logged, whether lessons were cancelled, etc. They may be particularly helpful for students connected in Lite mode since they have access less historical information to keep it simple and lightweight.
  • A teacher may want to get a summary of what a student or group of student have been studying in the past few months. Such a report isn't necessarily destined to be shared with students
  • etc.
• App report
  • In Preferences, you can turn on app activity logging. It keeps track of major events on the teacher app and connected student apps. This is technical in nature and most useful for troubleshooting so it is turned off by default but may be useful for troubleshooting.

The dashboard can be considered a type of live report. At a glance, you can see important activities for students, notifications that need your attention, ...

When adding a task to lesson, the task will have default minimum number of practice days set. It clarifies that you expect the student to practice on different days (not just do one big practice on a single day), and for how many days between now and the next lesson.

Different task types will have different default practice requirements. For example, a Repertoire task will assume the student must practice at least 5 times in a 7 days period. But that will default to 1 for a Listening task.

The teacher can change the default number of practice days when creating the task.

The teacher can also change the default for a given student. For example, if you know that a student has other activities that prevent them from practicing 5 days a week, you can set their default to 3 or 4 days in the student Preferences.

It is possible to log practices for tasks in a lesson. Lite and App mode offer different options:

• Lite mode
  • during their face-to-face lesson, ask the student to estimate how much practice they did. Then, on the dashboard, tap the "Latest Lesson button" > "Practice %" and select a completion rate. It may not seem very useful at first, but that quick check is a gentle way to put emphasis on practice as an important part of the learning. Plus the information would also be available to use in reports later on.
• App mode
  • For student connected in App mode, you can proceed as you would with Lite mode. Or you can rely on the student logging each practice using their app. You will get extra info such as when a practice took place, for how long, and a self-assessment of how it went. If a student add a comment or recording to the practice, you will be notified. In our experience, some students will make it a habit so their log will be accurate, but most won't. So it may still be useful to ask the question during the lesson - or at least acknowledge how much practice they did if logs were captured.

If a student completes 100% of the practice for a lesson, they will receive a practice Clap.

If they exceed the practice goals set by the teacher, they will also receive an "Exceed" Clap. MiLaDo automates handing out those claps so teachers don't have to remember it.

If a student wants to clarify the content of a task, they can send a question by tapping the message icon below the task instructions. The teacher will get notified on their dashboard that a question was received. The teacher can reply and update the task (if need be). Once done, the notification disappears.

If a student adds a comment or attaches a file (for example, a message in a video) to a practice log, the teacher gets notified. Tapping the notification takes you to the practice log. You can decide whether to reply or not. Reading the comment or opening the file is enough to dismiss the notification.