The 1.8 release brings one major feature, Online Events, and a number of smaller improvements and adjustments.

We have added a native online meetings functionality in Learnster. With Learnster Online Events, you can easily create and schedule online meetings with your Learners. Using a desktop computer, your Learners can join online events simply by going to the specific scheduled block and clicking the Join the Online Event button (see Learnster U 1.8 release notes for more information). The online meeting will open in a new tab directly in their browser. No additional installation or account registration is needed.

On mobile devices, mobile browsers do not yet support the technology needed for running online meetings. Therefore, we have released an Android and iOS online meetings app, Learnster Roundtable, that can be installed from App or Play Stores. Your learners will click the Join the Online Event button as usual and the Learnster Roundtable app will open and join the meeting automatically. If the Learner does not have the app installed, he or she will be prompted with a link to install the app.

To schedule a new Online Event, simply add a new scheduled block and choose Online Event.

As an Administrator or Instructor, you can easily join the event by clicking the Join the Online Event button directly from Learnster Studio.

Please note, that an Administrator or an Instructor has to join a online event before any Learners will be able to join.

The demand for this feature has been very high and when developing it, we wanted you to be able to start using as soon as possible. Therefore, this first release is a beta release. As with everything we do, we will continue developing and improving Learnster Online Events and would love to hear from you what you like, what you don't like and what new features you would like to see in the future.

We have also added better support for external online meetings technologies like Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, etc. By setting up an external online event, your Learners will get the same kind of Join the Online Event button as with Learnster Roundtable that will directly take them to the event (see Learnster U 1.8 release notes for more information). You can also specify passwords or any other needed information for joining the event.

To schedule a new Online Event, simply add a new scheduled block and choose External Online Event, add a name for the online meeting, enter the meeting link and if applicable, add join instructions and the meeting password.

To help you getting faster off the blocks, we have improved and simplified the initial steps when creating a new course. When creating a new course, you will only have to add a course avatar and name before you can start adding content.

To make this event more convenient, we have added the possibility to use images from Unsplash and while you write the name of your course, we seamlessly search for relevant images so you can choose an image that perfectly represent your course.