With collections you share several materials with your colleagues at once, for example as a shared pool for a whole subject department, and you can work on them together or reuse them in your own courses.
You find collections in the sidebar. That's also where you see the "Shared with me" section. Collections that colleagues invited you to go there.
Why do I need a collection?
In your courses you plan your lessons for a specific class in a specific school year. That's where your students are, and for most cases that is enough. But if you want to go a step further, collections give you a few real advantages.
You can build a permanent pool of materials that you don't have to put together again every year, for example "Materials for 5th grade geography", whether or not you actually teach the topic every school year. You can just as well build a collection with your subject department that you use to fill all your parallel classes, whether 5A, 5B or 5C. Over time this becomes a shared pool of materials for the whole subject group, instead of everyone collecting on their own.
You keep full control: you decide which folders and materials from the collection you actually take into your current course, and you can still adapt them there to your class or to current events, without affecting the collection or your colleagues' courses. If a colleague changes something in the collection, it doesn't end up in your running lessons unasked. You decide when to take an update.
Especially when many materials are shared in different ways, it is easy to lose track otherwise. Collections give you a fixed structure where everything stays in one place.
Create a collection
Click "Create collection" at the top right and give your collection a name, for example "Biology department", if you want to collect material for your whole subject group. Your new collection then appears as a tile. At first only you are part of it.
Add material
In your collection, click the "+ Add" button. You have two options:
Create directly in the collection: create material with AI or upload your own files.
Material from another course: choose one of your courses, and you see its folders and materials. Select the materials you want one by one and click "Duplicate X materials" at the bottom right. Your originals in the course stay unchanged, only the copies you selected go into the collection.
Reuse material
You can use materials from a collection in your courses in two ways.
Way 1, from the collection: Click "Copy to course" to the right of the material title in the list and choose the course you want.
Way 2, from the course: Open the course you want to take material into and click "New" → "Add material from another course or collection". Pick your collection there and select the folders and materials you need for this school year. You don't have to take the whole collection, you can for example take one folder and leave out another.
Folders and materials you take over stay linked to the collection. More on that in the next section.
A more detailed guide, with an example for parallel classes, is in the article Reuse material.
Invite and manage colleagues
Click Edit collection: at the top right of the collection.
Scroll to "Collaborate".
Click Invite colleagues.
Choose a permission: your colleagues can either only read the material and copy it into their own courses, or you give them the "Edit" permission so you can work on the materials in the collection together.
Send the link: you get a link that you send to your colleagues. To join, they need their own Teachino account.
As soon as a colleague opens the link and joins, the collection goes to their "Shared with me" section automatically.
In the "Collaborate" section you also see who is currently working on the collection with you. If you own the collection, you can also remove colleagues from there. If you are only a member of someone else's collection, you can remove yourself at any time if you no longer want to take part.
Link between collection and course
Folders and materials you took from a collection into a course stay linked to the original in the collection. At the top of the folder or on the material you see a banner with two options:
Open folder in collection: you jump straight to the original in the collection, for example to edit it there. Changes then take effect everywhere the folder or material is used.
New version available: this button appears as soon as something in the collection has changed, whether in the whole folder or just one material in it. One click opens a pop-up with the available updates, and with another click you take them into your course.
If you instead edit a material you took over directly in your course, without jumping to the collection, that change stays local to this course. The collection itself is not affected.
This way you control when which change from the collection is taken into your course. Nothing happens automatically or unasked.
đź’ˇ If you have already made changes to your material and want to be sure you lose nothing, you find the clock icon for the version history under the undo arrow on the right of the material. There you can go back to an earlier version at any time.
Edit a collection
Under "Edit collection" at the top right you also find:
Appearance: click "Generate new" to give the collection a new color, and rename it here if needed.
AI settings: set country, state, school type, grade and subject here as defaults. This makes sense before you create materials in the collection together with AI.
Delete: if you own the collection, you can delete it here when you no longer need it.
Share a single material with a teacher
If you don't want to create a whole collection but just share a single material, you can do that directly in the course, in two ways.
Share a single material
Way 1, from the material list:
Open the three-dot menu: next to the material you want in the list.
Click Share with teachers.
Way 2, directly in the material:
Open the material.
Click the icon: at the top right, next to the "Close" button.
Click Share with teachers.
With both ways you get a link that you send to your colleague. To view the material, they don't need their own Teachino account. Only to take the material into their own course does the person have to be registered.
Share a whole course (team teaching)
If you want to share a whole course, you use team teaching:
Click Edit course.
Click General settings.
Scroll to the "Collaborate" section.
Click Invite colleagues.
Choose a permission: they can either only watch and copy materials into their own courses, or work directly with you in the course and edit everything.
Here too, your colleagues need their own Teachino account.
đź’ˇ You can see who your course is shared with under "All courses" on the course tile: at the top left there is a circle with the initials of the teacher you shared the course with.
For older users: Materials, converting the old folder structure into a collection
If you have used Teachino for a while, you may still know the old "Materials" menu item with a folder structure like "3rd grade geography". New users no longer see this menu item. It will be removed after the 2026/27 school year.
So convert your old folder structure into a collection during the 2026/27 school year:
Open the three-dot menu: next to the folder you want, under "Materials".
Click Convert to collection.
Enter a name, for example "3rd grade geography", and click "Create collection".
You then find your new collection under "Collections". From there you can copy single materials or whole folders into your courses as usual, or add them from your courses.
Do you want to add a single folder to another course without a collection, or learn more about how this differs from the old, automatically synced version? We explain it in detail in the article Reuse material.
Frequently asked questions
Can my students access materials in a collection?
No, collections are meant only for collaboration between teachers. To share material with students, you use your course instead. More on that in the article Sharing & managing students.
What is the difference between "Edit" and "Read" in the permissions?
With the "Edit" permission, your colleagues can work directly in the collection and change materials. With read-only rights they can only view the materials and copy them into their own courses, but not change them in the collection itself.
How do I get a material from a collection into my own course?
Click "Copy to course" to the right of the material title in the collection and choose the course you want. Or open your course and use "New" → "Add material from another course or collection" to add single folders or materials.
Can I leave a collection again?
Yes. If you are only a member, you can remove yourself in the "Collaborate" section. If you own the collection, you can also remove other colleagues there or archive the whole collection.
Do my colleagues need a Teachino account to join a collection?
Yes, they need their own Teachino account for that.
How do I share a single material without creating a collection?
Either click the three dots next to the material in the material list, or open the material and click the matching icon at the top right next to "Close". Then choose "Share with teachers" and send the link that is created.
What is the difference between a course and a collection?
A course is tied to a specific class and school year. That's where you have your students and adapt material for that learning group. A collection is independent of that: it works as a pool of materials you can use to fill any number of courses, even across several school years or with several colleagues.
Are changes in the collection taken into my course automatically?
No. You only get a note in the banner that a new version is available, and you decide whether and when to take it. So your running lessons never change unasked.
What happens to the old folder structure under "Materials"?
It will be removed after the 2026/27 school year. You can convert your old folders into a new collection at any time with the three-dot menu and "Convert to collection".