How to use the River Tech portal

Part 1 · Getting in

There are two ways to sign in, and which one you use depends on whether you have an email address yet.

Your account

You don't sign yourself up. A parent or a teacher opens your account for you. When they do, you get an email with a link in it. Click the link, choose a password, and that's it — from then on you sign in at rivertech.me with your email address and that password.

Two things that trip people up:

• The link works once, and it stops working after a while. If it says the link is no longer valid, ask for a new one — you haven't broken anything.
• Your email address has to be your own. You can't share one with your parent, because one address can only be one account.

Choose a password of at least 8 characters. Every screen asks for the same thing, so you only have to decide once.

The Games PIN

Don't have an email account yet? You still get to play. A teacher can give you a 4-character PIN — four letters or numbers, like K7RM.

On the sign-in page, click the 🎮 Games PIN tab instead of the Email tab, type your PIN, and press Sign in with PIN.

Example only — that is not a real PIN.

Your PIN isn't shown anywhere in the portal. If you forget it, ask a teacher — they can read it out or give you a new one. A new one stops the old one working.

Finding your way around

The bar across the top is the whole of your navigation. Seven things:

Home, Games and Skills are on rivertech.me. Portal, Classes, Messages and Profile are on the classes side.

Four more live under a 🧭 More card at the bottom of the Portal screen, because you need them now and then rather than daily: 📄 Documents, 📝 Testing, 🏆 Activities and 🎵 Worship / Band.

When signing in goes wrong

• 🔌 Couldn't load your account. You're signed in, but your details didn't load that time. Your account is fine. Press Try again. If it keeps happening, tell a teacher.
• A red bar at the top saying ⏰ This computer's clock is wrong. If the computer's clock or time zone is wrong, signing in can keep failing. The bar tells you how far off the clock is. On Windows, go to Settings → Time & language → Date & time, turn on Set time automatically and Set time zone automatically, and press Sync now. Then close the browser and open it again. On a school computer, ask a teacher to do this.

Part 2 · Your school work

Where your classes are, and how to hand work in so it actually arrives.

Home: how you're doing and what's next

🏠 Home is the first thing you see after signing in, and it answers two questions: how am I doing, and what should I do next?

Example only: invented classes and work.

Two words you'll see on Home:

• Stuck: you've practised a skill 4 or more times and it's still under 60%. Try an easier skill before it, or ask your teacher.
• Needs a refresh: you mastered a skill but haven't practised it for 30 days. One good session keeps it fresh.

A game assignment is finished when you reach both the score and the minutes your teacher set, for example 70% and 10 minutes. Your best score counts, and your minutes add up across sessions.

Your RTC balance, the Bank, the RTC Store and the school calendar are on Home too.

Your classes

📚 Classes shows every class you are in. Each card has the subject, the grade range, your teacher's name and when it meets.

Not in a class you should be in? Go to the 📊 Portal screen and press ➕ Join Class, then type the class code your teacher gives you — something like ABC123. If it doesn't work you'll be told the code is invalid; check it with your teacher rather than guessing.

Open a class and you get four buttons:

A class that's finished shows 🔒 This class is closed. You can still read your grades and history in it; you just can't add anything new.

Handing work in

Open the assignment. You can hand in typed text, a file, or both — and a pasted link (a Google Drive share link, say) counts as text.

Example only.

• Past the due date? You'll see a warning that it's overdue. You can still hand it in — it may just be marked late.
• Changed your mind? Open it again and press Edit Submission. Your new file replaces the old one, so your teacher only ever sees one.
• Says "Offline Assignment"? Then there's nothing to upload. It's done in class and your teacher enters the mark directly.
• Says "Excused"? Your teacher has excused you. It won't count against you.
• Says "✏️ Adjusted for you"? Your teacher changed this assignment just for you: the instructions, the due date or the points. Hover over the badge to see which. The instructions, due date and points you see are your own, so go by those, not by what a friend's says.

Grades and feedback

Once it's marked, opening the assignment shows Your Grade — a letter and the points — and, underneath, Teacher Feedback if your teacher wrote any. Read that part. It's the bit that tells you what to do differently.

The letters follow your percent:

Some work is marked with a rubric: a list of what your teacher is looking for. A rubric can be split into categories, each with its own levels and points, and your mark is the total scaled to the assignment's points. If an in-class assignment is marked by a rubric, opening it shows a 📋 Grading Rubric box. Press View Full Rubric to see every category and what each level is worth before you start.

Your quarter grade is built from two things: Academic (your assignments) and Participation (set by your teacher). How much each one counts depends on the class, and the class page tells you which it is — Even 50/50, Skill-Heavy 60/40 or Participation-Heavy 40/60.

Tests

Under 🧭 More → 📝 Testing. It opens with My Tests and three numbers: Pending Tests, Completed, and your Average Score.

Press Start Test. You get one question at a time with a progress bar, and Submit Test only appears on the last question.

• Your score shows as soon as you submit if every question is multiple choice. If the test has written answers, those wait for your teacher and you'll see "Awaiting teacher review" until they're marked.
• Questions can be worth different points. A written answer might be worth 10 and a multiple-choice question 1. Your score is the points you earned out of the points possible, not how many questions you got right.
• After you submit, you see the right answers. Each multiple-choice question shows the correct choice marked ✓ Correct, and yours marked ✗ Your answer if it was different. Written answers show your teacher's score and comments once they're marked.
• You get one go at each test. Once it's submitted, the button changes from Start Test to View Results, so you can look back at it but not take it again.
• Your score goes into your class grades by itself. You don't hand anything in separately.

Messaging a teacher

💬 Messages. Pick who you want from the To: list, type, and press ✉️ Send Message.

Part 3 · Games, skills and RTC

This half is the reason most people open the portal without being told to.

The games

🎮 Games has seventeen of them. The first nine are the training centres — they run placement tests, teach you a skill, then challenge you on it:

📖 Word Lab (inside English Lyceum)

Vocabulary and spelling from Kindergarten to Grade 12, over 500 words a grade, in levels of 12. Open ✒️ English Lyceum and press 📖 Word Lab. It has four parts:

• 📝 Assessment — tell it your grade and answer questions on meanings, spelling and words in sentences. It goes up while you get them right and stops where they get hard, and that's where you start. Choose I don't know instead of guessing.
• 📖 Learning — your level's words: what each one means, how to say it (press 🔊 to hear it), an example sentence, and words that mean about the same.
• 🎯 Practice — games with your words: choose the meaning, fill the blank, pick the sentence that uses the word right, match words to meanings, unscramble, listen and spell, and flashcards. Every answer tells you why.
• 🏅 Evaluation — the level test. Score 80% and you move up to the next level.

Word Lab remembers each word for you. A word you miss comes back in your next practice; a word you get right comes back after a day, then 3 days, a week, two weeks and a month. Get it right four times like that and it's ⭐ Mastered. The due for review number on the Word Lab page is how many are ready to check today.

And eight more that are games first:

Games open inside the page. ⛶ Fullscreen makes one bigger, ← Back to Games gets you out.

Math Dojo: checks and the Graduation Path

🥋 Math Dojo has five ways to train: 🎖️ Belt Test, 🥋 Training Grounds, ⚔️ Sparring Arena, 🔥 Retention Gauntlet and 📈 Progress Check. Three of them are worth knowing more about.

🎓 The Graduation Path

Every student works through the same 65 core skills before graduating. The 🎓 Graduation Core panel at the top of the Dojo shows how many you've finished, and Next up names the next one, plus the skill to start with if you need something first. Tap it to open the whole path.

• The core, in solid gold, marked Required.
• Stage 7: College & Assessment Readiness (66–73), for anyone heading to college or a placement test. It isn't part of the 65.
• Four branches: STEM, Business, Trades, and CS & Games. Each has its own colour and a dashed edge. A branch opens as soon as you've mastered what it builds on. You don't have to wait until the core is finished.

Tap a skill on the path to open its lesson, or to see what it still needs. In Training Grounds, a skill's card carries a Core number or its branch's badge.

📈 Progress Check

This shows you how far you've come. It goes through the 65 core skills, easiest first, with two questions on each. Never seen a topic before? Press 🆕 Never seen this. It isn't counted as wrong. When you reach topics you haven't learned yet, the check notices and stops there, so you don't sit through work you haven't been taught.

Each skill comes back ✓ Secure, ~ Shaky, ✗ Not yet or · Not reached, and the results name your edge: where to keep learning. Every check is saved, and your teacher can see it too. The next one shows what moved up and what slipped since last time. Your past checks are listed on the Progress Check screen.

College Prep Check is the longer version. It covers the same 65 skills and then the Stage 7 skills, which you only reach by getting through the core.

🎖️ The Belt Test

The Belt Test places you. If it shows you know the harder material, it opens up everything underneath that you haven't done yet, so you can start on any of it. Opened doesn't mean mastered: you still have to practise those skills to master them.

Answers and practice

• A right answer written another right way counts. 9 = y is fine for y = 9. x = 3 or x = 5, x = 5, 3 and {3, 5} all count, and so does x = ±2. An intercept can be a number or a point. You still need every answer, though. Leave out one of two roots, or add an extra one, and it's wrong.
• "5 correct in a row" means five different questions. Each practice question takes one answer. Clicking the right answer again doesn't count twice.

Skill trees

🌟 Skills is where you see what you've unlocked. Nine subjects: Math, Science, Language, Technology, Creative, Social Studies, Bible, Life Skills and Physical. Pick one and your tree for it opens.

You don't earn anything on the Skills screen itself — it's a map, not a game. Skills move along by playing. Every skill is one of four things:

• Locked: you need the skills before it first.
• Ready to start: everything before it is done, so you can begin.
• In progress: you've started practising it.
• Mastered: your mastery reached 80% after at least 3 practices.

A mastered skill you haven't practised for a while shows Needs a refresh.

RTC — River Tech Currency

You earn RTC for real work: mastering skills, assignments, and awards your teachers give out. Your balance is on your Home screen, and on the Games and Skills screens if you sign in with a PIN.

One rate you can see for yourself: the Retention Gauntlet in Math Dojo pays 3 RTC for a recent skill, 2 for a touch-on, 1 for a retention — and each individual skill only pays once every 24 hours, so grinding the same one doesn't work.

🏦 The Bank

You can leave RTC in the bank and it earns interest each month. Taking it out costs tax — unless you withdraw during the tax-free window, which the bank screen tells you the dates of. Watch for "Tax-Free Window Active!".

🛍️ The Store

Two tabs.

If a button says Need 40 more RTC, that's the price minus what you have.

Clubs, sport and band

🏆 Activities under 🧭 More. Two tabs — My Activities and Browse All. Each one shows the coach, where and when it meets, and how many places are taken.

The button tells you where you stand:

• Join — you're in.
• Tryout — a sport that picks its team; this asks to try out.
• Full — no places left.
• Leave — you're already in it.

🎵 Worship / Band is its own page. If you're not on the team yet you'll see 🙋 Ask to join Worship / Band — pick the instruments you'd like to play (you can pick more than one), add a note if you want, and press Send my request. You can cancel it while it's waiting, and if you're turned down you're welcome to ask again.

Part 4 · Your settings

All on the 👤 Profile screen.

What you can change

• Your password — type a new one twice and press Update Password.
• Your email address — you have to click a link in both your old inbox and your new one before it switches over.
• One email setting — New Assignments, which is on unless you turn it off.
• How the site looks — six themes, including a Light one if dark is hard to read. You can also set your own colours and a background image.
• Your cosmetics — the avatar, title and badges you bought with RTC.

Your theme follows your account, so it looks the same on a school computer and at home.

What you can't change

Your name is read-only, and that's on purpose: it's what every register, gradebook and pickup list calls you, so it's the school's to change, not yours. If it's wrong or spelled badly, tell the office and they'll fix it.

Also set by the school and not by you: your grade level, your Games PIN, your RTC balance, and whether your account is switched on.

Quick reference

Other guides: parents · teachers · administrators · all four