Apps and Living

Apps and Living is our new site that will bring together our wide range of interests, from app development to drawing to coffee shops to education to financial planning.

It’s a wide range, but we believe it’s a range that is shared by many people and we hope that as we gather our thoughts, others can also find some benefit.

The app is provided as-is.

The user bears sole responsibility for any information entered into the app. Data is not stored or transmitted in an encrypted fashion; the user is solely responsible for the integrity and security of any data entered, including but not limited to sensitive data and data that can be used to identify individuals.

The app is designed as an administrative tool and should not be used for critical data. The developers of the app are not responsible for any costs or damages caused by use of the app, including but not limited to data loss, data corruption, inability to access the app.

Welcome!

Classroom Assistant is designed to be a simple-to-use app, but that doesn’t mean you’ll know all the features and how to use them without some guidance, so here it is.

Things you can do

Timetable screen

• Tap edit to make the periods wiggle so you can change the timetable
  • Tap on the time to change it
  • Tap on the day to change its name
  • Tap on ‘edit days’ or ‘edit periods’ to change the numbers of days or period bands respectively
• Toggle showing the rooms by tapping ‘show rooms’ at the bottom right
  • When viewing rooms tapping any period lets you set the room. The app remembers the last room you typed, so it makes sense to complete this by room, not by class
• Tap on the gear to go to the settings screen

Select a Class screen

• Make the period a break
• Pick a class
• Create a new class
• Remove the class
• Swipe on a class to delete it
• Tip: If you export class lists from your MIS, you can send the “classname.csv” file to Classroom Assistant and it will import the info in these columns:
  • name
  • id
  • email
  • tutorGroup
  • gender
    • You can then send a zip file full of photos using the students’ id numbers as file names to attach those

Class screen – Student list

• Change the class list
  • Tap add student for more, or tap edit to show the delete buttons
• View or change student photos by tapping them
  • You can also change the icon for the class by tapping that if you want
• Type any notes for the class in the top box
• Edit class details by tapping edit to change the name, year group and colour
• Take attendance
  • Tap on the icons to toggle between unknown, present, absent, 5 minutes late, 10 minutes late
  • Long-press on the icon to set for all students
    • I like to set all present, then a single tap on each student who is missing switches it to absent, then if they turn up 1 or 2 more taps switches it to late
• Track behaviour or attentiveness or….
  • Use the smileys to track something you are interested in; it’s quick and easy, and maybe useful
• Pick a random student by tapping the dice
  • This brings up the photo too, helping you know who has been picked
  • You can switch to a quicker random mode in settings that just highlights the student instead
• Long-press on the student’s name to quickly add a comment; it’s up to you if this is for tracking problems, good work or everything
  • Adding photos of students’ work can be a great aid for reports etc
• Tap the Share Sheet icon to send an email to the class

Student screen

• The top has the photo, class, gender, attendance summary and quick feedback buttons
• Tapping edit also reveals email, student id number and tutor group
  • putting in the emails lets you email assignments and results from the app. I don’t save this anywhere except in the app on your device. Ever.
    • after typing in one, the app remembers the ending and takes a guess at the next student’s email, which should save some typing
  • putting in the student id enables a cool feature – you can then send a zip file full of photos to the app and it will match them to the students (eg 1234.jpg becomes the photo for the student with id 1234)
• Mark assignments for the student directly here
• See the attendance data to see trends
• Look at the comment log and add new comments

Class screen – Assignment list

• See how many students have completed an assignment through the green progress bar
  • When all have done it, the progress bar empties
  • Assignments that are still due are coloured blue, others dim to grey
• See the average score or grade for each assignment
• Tap on the icon on the left to view (and change) the assignment’s image, which is handy if you’re setting assignments by taking photos of the board
• Add a new assignment and typing its name in the prompt to go to the assignment screen…

Assignment screen

• The due date is automatically set for the next lesson, but you can edit this
• Write a description or take a photo of the whiteboard if it’s already written there
• Change the Grade Set name
  • there are a few default options, but you can define your own from the settings screen
  • tapping on the (i) icon reveals the grade boundaries
• Grade students’ work by tapping on the space and either typing, picking or toggling the mark
  • Categorical grades with 4 or fewer grade options automatically use toggles, otherwise they use a picker wheel
• Tapping edit also lets you change the title of the assignment
• Tap the Share Sheet icon to get email options
  • Send the whole class an email with the assignment details and photo
  • After marking, send each student an email with their own score

Settings screen

• Watch the intro video
• Create a new timetable
  • This also backs up your current one – but NOT the photos at the moment
• Backup your timetable
  • Options to save the data and email it
  • All backups are stored in the iTunes folder in case you want to sync them to your pc
• Edit grade boundary sets
  • Choose which set you are going to edit at the top
  • Decide if it is going to be categorical (letters only), or numerical
  • Put in the min and max scores
  • Add as many boundaries as you want
    • The app will sort them by numerical value
    • Even letter grades have numerical values so the app can calculate averages
    • I like using the ‘completion only’ set and just tick off when work is done, putting in a question mark if I’ve sent it back
• Put your email in so you can be cc’ed into all emails
• Tweaking options
  • Keep the display
    • bad for battery, but good for sanity if you are using this a lot and find unlocking your phone awkward
    • turn off photos, in case you can’t make use of that feature
    • stop showing times on the timetable to save a little screen space
    • turn on quick random mode
• Send me an email!