Improvements to the Playground app provide teachers with more flexible planning options

A top from above of a teacher and children with the Playground app displayed on an iPad.

Teachers can now be more productive than ever with the new Playground app.

Playground, Discover by Xplor’s teacher platform, supports childcare services in making day-to-day tasks easier for teachers and staff with quick and convenient documentation. Playground promotes parent engagement and helps to assure children’s safety, giving parents peace of mind. The app’s initial release focussed on capturing health events and other health and safety tracking. Other essential functions, such as planning, needed teachers to log in to the Playground web platform. 
 
We’re excited to announce that we’re improving the Playground app experience. We’ve achieved this by incorporating key web features such as planning into the Playground app. With this functionality now available on the mobile platform, teachers can quickly complete programming & planning tasks while on the road while ensuring that they remain compliant.  

The verdict is in—teachers love the Playground app

Kirsten Holland, General Manager of Program and Practice at Catholic Early Ed Care, said that “Direct access to the programming and planning records via the Playground app means teachers are able to create meaningful documentation and record experiences with greater flexibility. The app will enable teachers to interact with the platform in ways that suit them best, saving time and supporting increased engagement with Playground and shared decision-making with children.” 

A table showing the added planning functionality now available in the Playground app.
Planning functionality now available in the Playground app

In addition to this ground-breaking mobile-first planning initiative, the Playground’s app includes Documents, Tables, and Canvases. These features enable teachers to easily create and share learning journeys with parents. This allows them to report on and track each child’s learning outcomes and progress. Features such as Canvas allow teachers to make their lesson plans more visually appealing and engaging. 
 
Our dedication to empowering the early education sector is unwavering. In keeping with this, we met with an education advisory group of five pedagogical leaders. The aim was to discover how to develop our software for the larger sector. A significant outcome of this session was the realisation that adding planning features to the Playground app would be a game changer for teachers across the sector.  

The Playground app enables teachers

Dr Melinda Miller is the Director of Early Learning at First Five Early Learning. She explained how the latest version addresses teachers’ modern demands. “When digital platforms are responsive to the nature of educators’ work in early childhood education settings, documentation can become more meaningful and accessible. The evolution of Playground web functionality into the app is responsive to the time-critical nature of educators’ work, a need for flexibility in how documentation is accessed and recorded, and opportunities for working with digital documentation in more innovative ways for and with children.” 

Users must update to Playground version 2.14.0 on their iPad or Apple mobile device to access this new functionality. Teachers can save time and enjoy the freedom of planning while on the go after they update their app. 

Get in touch to see what your teachers could be doing with Playground


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Zeus Martinez

Marketing Content Specialist

Wordsmith and storyteller at heart. Writing professionally since 2005. Living and breathing in the childcare education sector as a marketing copywriter for Discover by Xplor.

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