1 What a course page is
A course page is your course's public introduction page on the web. On it you gather the most important information about the course – what students learn, how they work and are assessed, important links and videos – plus a button to Symma's download page, where students get the student app.
- The page has its own address (e.g. …/kurssi/maa3-geometria) that you can share with students and guardians, for example in Wilma.
- You can protect the page with a password or leave it public.
- You can let another teacher edit the page with a page code.
2 Opening course pages
You open course pages from the “Course pages” icon in the toolbar at the top of the teacher app (next to the Presentation window icon). The course page tool opens in its own window, Symma Studio – Course pages.
- No registration: your account is created automatically the first time you open the tool, based on your school code. No password is needed.
- The account is bound to this installation of the app. If you change computers, you can access your old pages with the page code (section 7).
- If the window is already open, the icon brings it to the front.
- The language of course pages (Finnish/English) follows the language chosen in the teacher app.
- “Set the school code in the app settings first.” – the school code is missing (see Settings).
- “Could not connect to the cloud service. Check your network connection and school code.”
- “Signing in to the cloud service failed. Sign in to the app again.”
3 Page list and new page
The window opens to the page list. The first time, the list is empty: “No course pages yet”.
Create a new page
- Press “+ New course page” (or, when the list is empty, “+ Create your first page”).
- Give the course a name, e.g. MAA3 Geometria. You can change the name later.
- Press “Create page”. The editor opens, and the page already has starter content: the heading Course content, a description text, a card row Course structure (Period 1, Period 2, Assessment) and a download page block. Edit or delete them as needed.
Page list labels and actions
- PUBLISHED / DRAFT – whether the page is visible behind its link.
- PASSWORD / PUBLIC – whether a password is needed to open the page.
- SHARED WITH YOU – another teacher has shared the page with you for editing.
- Edit opens the editor, Open shows the finished page, Copy link copies the page address to the clipboard and Delete deletes the page permanently (your own pages only).
4 Editor: header, look and language
The editor has the settings sections on the left and a live preview on the right: you see straight away what the page looks like. The top bar has ← Pages (back to the list), Open page and Save. The save status is shown as text, e.g. saved or unsaved changes.
Header
- Small overline text (e.g. UPPER SECONDARY MATHEMATICS), Description text, Course code and Teacher.
- Header image – Upload image from your computer or give the image's address. Header image style: Image below the title or Image as banner background (text on top of the image; the image is dimmed so that the text stays readable).
- Image alt text – a short description of the image for accessibility.
Appearance (themes)
Choose one of six ready-made styles for the page:
The school logo is shown automatically on the school's pages if one has been set for the school.
Page language
The page language is chosen at the bottom of the Appearance section: Suomi or English. The choice affects the built-in texts of the public page, such as the password prompt and the buttons. Content you write yourself is not translated.
5 Content blocks
The body of the page is built from blocks. At the bottom of the Content section there is a button for each block type (e.g. + Heading, + Image); clicking it adds the block to the end of the page.
- Heading – size: Large, Normal or Small subheading.
- Paragraph – free text.
- Image – image, alt text, caption and width (Full, Wide, Medium, Small).
- Buttons – one or more link buttons; style Filled or Outline.
- Link list – a list of links with a title, each with optional extra information.
- Card row – cards side by side, e.g. the periods of the course.
- YouTube video – give the video's address or ID; the video is embedded in the page.
- Download page – a button to Symma's download page (installing the student app).
- Quote, Divider and Spacer – give the page rhythm.
Each block has Move up, Move down, Duplicate and Delete in its corner. A page can hold up to 80 blocks.
In the Footer section you can add footer text (e.g. the school name) and contact details, and choose Show the school name on the page.
6 Visibility, password and publishing
In the Visibility and address section you decide who can see the page and at what address.
- With password (default) – visitors enter the page password. Generate password comes up with a password that is easy to say out loud (e.g. kolmio-7431). You can see the password in the editor, so you can tell it to students again.
- Public – anyone who knows the link can open the page directly.
- Page address – the last part of the page's address. Use something short and descriptive, e.g. maa3-geometria.
- The page is published – the page is only visible behind its link when this is ticked. An unpublished page is a draft that others cannot see.
- You can only publish a password-protected page once a password has been set or the page has been made public. Otherwise the editor tells you: “No password has been set…”
- When you change or remove the password, everyone who has opened the page before has to enter the new password.
- Remember to press Save so that your changes take effect.
| Course page password | Course password | |
|---|---|---|
| What it does | Opens the introduction page in a browser | Lets a student join the course in the student app |
| Where it is set | Course page editor → Visibility and address | Course editor → Basic Info → Course password |
The passwords are independent of each other – you can use the same or a different password as you wish. About the course password: Creating a new course → Basic Info.
7 Sharing with another teacher
If you run a course together with a colleague, you can give them the right to edit the page with a page code. The code looks like .
Page owner
- Every new page gets a page code automatically; it is shown in the page list and in the editor section Share with another teacher, where you can copy it with the Copy button.
- New code invalidates the old one immediately – teachers who have already joined keep their access. Remove code turns sharing off, and anyone signed in with the code in a browser is signed out. You can create a new code in place of a removed one with Create code.
- Under Also editing this page: you can see the editors and remove their editing rights.
Teacher who received the code
- In their own Symma app: open Course pages, press Join with a code, enter the code and press Join. The page is added to their list permanently with the label SHARED WITH YOU.
- In a browser: in the course pages teacher portal, under Sign in with a page code, enter the School code and the Page code and press Open course page. The sign-in only applies to this one page and is valid for 12 hours.
8 What students see
Share the page link with students (Copy link in the page list), and for a password-protected page also the password. A password-protected page first shows a prompt:
- The page works on phones and computers. You and the page's editors see the page without a password.
- If the page has not been published or the address is wrong, the visitor sees the message “Page not found”.
- Course pages do not appear in search engines – the page can only be reached through its link.
- The card in the page list shows how many times the page has been viewed.