Yea, with this:
Roblox could do this
The schools should then need to verify themself somehow.
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I think Roblox should allow integrations with other services like SSO and LMS. I like the idea of student accounts that can only visit verified educational games, but I think single-use accounts is a little unnecessary. One of the biggest parts of Roblox is how your account retains its information, and instead educators should be able to create a classroom like with other educational platforms. I understand the concerns of batch-creating accounts, which is why it should only be with verified educators (possibly a Google Workspace integration?).
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While the usernames could potentially be released back, the user IDs would still need to be unique for things like datastores to not cross over.
I think a more feasible solution would involve having 28 permanent accounts with custom settings and restrictions.
Perhaps with something where the accounts could be controlled in bulk by an administrator (ex: sending place invites, allow-listing/deny-listing games, turning on and off features like avatar editing, resetting the accounts’ avatars, etc).
Edit:
Yep, that’s a much better idea! An education-only website/app interface would be easier to maintain and create (no potential changes to the whole account system or major security considerations).
(And yeah, the 8-byte ints also makes the UserIds a complete non-problem, even with new accounts every 6 hours.)
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And created
this is a much needed feature.
As mentioned earlier, integrations with workspace platforms would allow organizations and corporations to make accounts for students/employees quickly. The only problem with creating “bulk” accounts for corporations is the amount of information Roblox would have to store and protect for student and employee accounts (as well as a number of accounts left unused after a workspace makes integrations).
Roblox could partner with corporations and institutions to offer support for creating accounts “quickly” for large organizations. If these accounts can also be set to only visit set experiences/educational experiences within an organization, it would be even more useful to schools and other educational institutions.
This way, institutions will allow their members to create these accounts quickly with limitations, linking them to their digital account management/workspace systems (such as Google Workspace or Microsoft).
At the same time, how would Roblox set other educational experiences outside of the Learn and Explore sort as accessible to organizations? Is a new category needed for approved educational experiences outside of the Learn and Explores sort?
(Sorry for bumping this topic. It would be a great feature for educators and other institutions using Roblox.)
I can definitely see the use case for creating and administrating bulk accounts for education. I’m curious about the drawbacks of either allowing or requiring students to create their own Roblox account that is theirs to keep. The original post doesn’t explicitly say if this is using Roblox to educate through games or educating through Roblox Studio, but the very specific API implies educating through games. For Studio, I figured being able to keep creations for later use would be useful, but that benefit doesn’t exist for limited games that would be used in education.
Given that Roblox uses 64-bit numbers for user ids, I don’t see that being a problem.
Would it be better to restrict these types of settings at the machine level instead of the account level? I imagine it would reduce the long-term administration requirements.
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What’s the point of this limitation?
So teachers can control more easy, that the students don’t only customise their avatar but do what the teacher wants.
You are right, It should be set via the controller pannel
The idea of an educational account is something I’d really like to see on the site. The site should have more of an educational side.
It’s because when a teacher is telling you to do something but you’re spending x amount of time creating an avatar to mess around.
If I were in your position (and had the time, technical know-how, and legal leniancy to), I’d use Rōblox Filtering Disabled and host my own servers using older Rōblox binaries.
I can self-host a server on my machine and have students access it over the LAN you’re connected with. That way, students will know to connect to my machine’s local IP address.
Perhaps this link might help:
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Interesting thing that I didn’t know existed, but this doesn’t exactly solve their problem. Ignoring the fact that the setup process that is likely harder for most teachers than just asking students to make accounts, this is a separate server. What are they gonna do on that? The implication from the post is that they are playing games on the platform, so a server with no games is definitely not gonna help…
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Roblox did announcement they would be adding a classroom mode along with a bunch of other educator features before.
Classroom Mode is expected to release in Q4 2022.
It seems like they didn’t proceed with it though. Funnily enough the documentation still states it’s expected release date, 2 years ago.
Is Classroom Mode in every Roblox Experience?
Because developers choose to include Classroom Mode, it’s not found in every experience.
The Classroom Collection will be released in Q1 2022, along with Classroom Mode.
Classroom mode would of been an opt in feature for developers and they would be been a collection of educational experiences.
For those interested you can read the below:
I would love to see Roblox revisit these promises and add better systems for educators but now it seems like Roblox has lost interest and abandoned it.
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I understood him as saying that he wants to tailor specifically which games students can play.
If he wants the class to play Lumber Tycoon 2, he can run an instance of that game using an RBXL file and ask the students to join.
Unlike other revivals, you have to manually type in the IP address of the game you wish to join (kinda like in Minecraft).
I also think that doing this sets a good precedent for software freedom and community-based hosting in the students’ future.
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Right, but where are you gonna find RBXL files of random games?
I wholeheartedly agree, but most will pass them off as “that one weird teacher that didn’t use conventional software”
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Roblox could create a version of the proposed Classroom Mode where students create anonymous “Guest” accounts to join a game without the functionality of a regular account. These accounts could be created each time a teacher initiates a “play session” of a game, and students could optionally create their own Roblox account.
This makes the process of playing the game faster and removes the need for the students to have accounts altogether, unless the teacher wants the students to save their progress.
With no functionality as a regular Roblox account, the student is limited to the games that the teacher makes them play, and the teacher could regulate what access they have to their “account” (which will act more like a guest account).
There are plenty of RBXL archives online. Most are from before 2020.
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Yeah, that’s gonna be an issue. Plenty of educational games have released in that time period
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This sounds stellar: a Roblox education edition of sorts.