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School Tools

Citations, mind maps, and LMS helpers for Canvas, Moodle, and Google Classroom.

What’s in This Section

School Tools help with academic work. Generate citations automatically, plan and revise with a mind map, integrate with your school’s learning management system, and organise research materials.

Features: Citations, Mind Map (beta), Canvas LMS, Moodle LMS, Google Classroom

Citations

What It Does

Automatically generates citations in academic formats. Capture source information from any webpage and format it correctly for your bibliography.

How to Enable

  1. Click the AssisT icon
  2. Open the Writing group
  3. Toggle Citations ON

Supported Formats

FormatCommon Use
APA 7thPsychology, social sciences
MLA 9thHumanities, literature
Chicago 17th (author–date)History, some humanities
Harvard (Cite Them Right)Business, general academic

Whichever you pick is remembered, so you set it once at the start of an assignment rather than every time you save a source.

How to Capture a Citation

Method 1 — Save a page:

  1. Visit the webpage you want to cite
  2. Press Save Citation in the popup’s Citations tool, press Alt+C, right-click and choose Save Citation, or select text and press Cite in the highlight menu
  3. Source information is automatically detected
  4. Review and edit if needed in the Citation Library

Method 2 — Add a source yourself:

  1. Open the Citation Library
  2. Paste a DOI or DOI link and press Add, or press New citation and fill in the form
  3. Copy the formatted citation

What Gets Detected

The citation tool automatically extracts:

  • Page title
  • Author name(s)
  • Publication date
  • Website/publisher name
  • URL
  • Access date

Citation Library

View and manage all your captured citations:

  1. Press Citation Library (full page) or Quick View (in the popup) in the Citations tool
  2. See all captured sources
  3. Export the whole library
  4. Delete or edit individual entries

Export Options

  • Copy individual citation
  • Export all citations as formatted text
  • Export as BibTeX, RIS, CSL-JSON, CSV, AssisT JSON (a backup of your library) or a plain-text reference list

Rebuilt in 1.0.0

The citation manager was rebuilt for version 1.0.0. As well as the reference list, it now handles:

  • In-text citations with page locators, copied in a rich and a plain flavour at once so they paste correctly into a word processor or a plain text box
  • A mismatch checker that compares the citations in your essay against your reference list and tells you what is in one and not the other. It runs on your device and does not send your essay anywhere
  • Quote, locator and note capture at the moment you save a source, so you still have the exact words later
  • Add a source by DOI, looked up in Crossref after AssisT asks you once, and import an existing library from Zotero as BibTeX or RIS
  • Book chapters, theses and undated sources among the 10 source types
  • Bulk select, copy and export, and a trash you can restore from if you delete the wrong thing

Want more control? See Citations Deep Dive.

Mind Map (Beta)

What It Does

Plans an essay or organises a topic as an outline that is also a map. You type the outline; the same structure is drawn as a branching map on a canvas beside it. Both views edit one model.

How to Enable

  1. Click the AssisT icon
  2. Open the Study group
  3. Toggle Mind Map ON, then click Open Mind Maps

Alt+Shift+M opens the library from any page.

What You Get

  • Six templates: essay plan, lecture notes, compare and contrast, project plan, reading notes, blank
  • A library of your maps with search, rename, delete and import
  • Export to Markdown, OPML, JSON, FreeMind, SVG and PNG, and open maps made in XMind, Coggle, MindMeister, Freeplane or FreeMind
  • Focus on one branch, select several nodes at once, and move nodes by dragging or with “Move to…”
  • Read aloud for a branch, using your stored voice
  • Study mode that hides children for recall practice, where each miss can be turned into a flashcard
  • Add to mind map in the highlight menu, to send a phrase from any page into a map
  • Map this page, which builds a map from the page’s headings without using AI

Mind Map works with AI switched off. With a provider set up, an AI panel can build a map from a page or from pasted text, suggest sub-points, explain a node, and turn a branch into recall questions, each as a suggestion you accept or discard.

Mind maps are stored on your device in IndexedDB and are never uploaded.

Full guide: Mind Map Deep Dive.

Canvas LMS

What It Does

Integrates AssisT features with Canvas LMS. Read assignments aloud, use accessibility features on Canvas content, and navigate more easily.

How to Enable

  1. Click the AssisT icon
  2. Open the Study group
  3. Toggle Canvas LMS ON

Features on Canvas

Assignment pages: a Read Assignment button reads the assignment aloud.

Quiz pages: Quiz Helper is off until you turn it on. When it is on, it reads questions and answers aloud, highlights the current question and adds keyboard navigation.

Other AssisT tools, such as Focus Mode, Reading Guide and the Pomodoro Timer, work on Canvas pages as they do on any page.

Settings

The Canvas LMS support has its own settings: Assignment Reader, Quiz Helper with Read Answers, Auto-Read on Focus, Highlight Question and a Highlight Color, and Keyboard Navigation.

Automatic Detection

Canvas LMS activates on *.instructure.com and *.canvas.com. If your institution uses its own address for Canvas, use Enable Everywhere in the popup so AssisT can run there.

Moodle LMS

What It Does

Integrates AssisT features with Moodle LMS. Similar functionality to Canvas LMS, optimised for Moodle’s interface.

How to Enable

  1. Click the AssisT icon
  2. Open the Study group
  3. Toggle Moodle LMS ON

The Moodle LMS support has its own switches, each for one kind of Moodle page:

ToggleWhat It Does
Assignment ReaderReading help on assignment pages
Forum ReaderReading help on discussion forums
Page ReaderReading help on course pages
Quiz Helper (Coming)Not available yet

Automatic Detection

Moodle LMS activates on *.moodle.org and *.moodlecloud.com. If your school’s Moodle uses its own address, use Enable Everywhere in the popup so AssisT can run there.

Google Classroom

What It Does

Integrates AssisT features with Google Classroom. Read assignments, announcements, and materials with accessibility tools.

How to Enable

  1. Click the AssisT icon
  2. Open the Study group
  3. Toggle Google Classroom ON

The Google Classroom support has its own switches, each for one kind of Classroom page:

ToggleWhat It Does
Assignment ReaderReading help on assignment pages
Stream ReaderReading help on the class stream
Classwork ReaderReading help on the Classwork page

Automatic Detection

Activates on classroom.google.com. Classroom pages, such as assignment instructions, the stream and comments, are ordinary pages and AssisT works on them as normal.

Documents you open from Classroom in Google Docs, Sheets or Slides are different: Google draws them on a canvas, so tools that need the document’s words do not work there. See Troubleshooting.

More in the Study group

Two more switches sit in the Study group. Both are off by default.

  • Keep a record of how I work - counts which tools you use, your reading speed and your streak, on this device only, to pitch AI answers at you. See what is recorded shows it and Delete this record clears it.
  • Offer help when reading gets hard - watches your scrolling, how long you stay on a paragraph and how often you look words up, so it can offer to read aloud or simplify. Nothing is saved.

For Educators & Parents

Why School Tools Matter

For students with learning disabilities:

  • Citation automation removes mechanical burden
  • LMS helpers make course content accessible
  • Same accommodations work across platforms

For students with ADHD:

  • Organised citation manager prevents lost sources
  • LMS integration reduces navigation complexity
  • Focus Mode helps during online assignments

For all students:

  • Correct citation formatting saves time
  • Consistent accessibility across school platforms
  • Tools available wherever students work

Classroom Tips

  1. Teach citation tool early — Reduces plagiarism concerns
  2. Enable LMS helper for all students — Universal design benefits everyone
  3. Use Focus Mode during tests — Especially for online assessments
  4. Encourage bibliography export — Easy to include in assignments

For Remote Learning

School Tools work on any device with Chrome:

  • Home computers
  • School Chromebooks
  • Personal laptops

Settings are saved on each device separately. Nothing syncs across devices; to carry a setup from one machine to another, export a profile as JSON and import it there.

Privacy Note

Citations: All source data is stored locally. Nothing is uploaded.

LMS Helpers: AssisT does not access your LMS login credentials or course data. It only applies accessibility features to visible page content.

Learn More