For those of you who can't wait to use the new placement test on your English Campus I thought I'd make a few suggestions about how you could get it up and running in your school or university.

1.     How will I upload my placement test students on to my English Campus site?

There are several ways you could do this but I think the following options would be easiest:

Use a csv file to upload a group of users with generic names like 'placement1, placement2, placement3' and then assign them all to a special placement test class.

Or get your students to register themselves into a class you have already created for the sole purpose of testing new students. This way you will get the students to write in their own details.

2.     Do I assign the placement test to individual users or classes?

I would create one class especially for new students taking the placement test. Once all of the logins in that class have been used up you can (after you've recorded the results) remove the placement test from the class and then reassign it so another group of students will be able to use the same logins. This only works if you have created generic logins. If your placement test users had personal login details you can simply delete them and add new logins to the class.

3.     I don't know how to do any of the things you've mentioned above. Can you help?

Firstly, go to the teacher support area here. If you don't know the username and password then contact me s.milligan@macmillan.com. Once logged in go to 'Guide to MEC' then 'Guide to MEC for teachers'. At the bottom of the page you'll find a placement test guide for teachers attached.

4.     How will my students know what to do when they log in to the English Campus?

I think it would be useful to make a one page document for your new students explaining how to access the placement test. This would need to be in the student's native language if they have a low level of English.

As always let us know how it goes!

Pakistan's tide of misery

This week's news item, adapted for MEC from a news article originally published in the Guardian Weekly, is about the floods in Pakistan which are estimated to have affected 17 million people.

You can find this story in the News Items section on your Work Area screen.

Ever wondered how rich you compared to the rest of the world? You'll find the answer at http://www.globalrichlist.com/

You just enter your annual income and it tells you how you compare, and it might surprise you how well off you are. An annual salary of £15,000 for example, will put you in the top 8.55% richest people in the world. It even shows where you are in a line of people representing the world's population. In case you had trouble visualizing the numbers.

This site is great for generating discussion and debate in class.

·        Are students surprised at their richness ranking?

·        What does this tell them about the distribution of wealth in the world?

You could even tie it in with a MEC News Item such as Bank that loans money to the poor is still successful or Banks to pay out billions in bonus cash.

Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest

This week's news item, adapted for MEC from a news article originally published in the Guardian Weekly, is about the way the internet has changed people's reading habits. A new movement is trying to change these habits by encouraging people to read more slowly and carefully.

You can find this story in the News Items section on your Work Area screen.

Here's a really cool way to get your students to do role play activities – get them to make movies from avatars with xtranormal.com. Go to the website and just click on 'Create a movie' to get started.

Japan's women celebrate record old age