Educators! How are you using tech to plan, organize and run your classes?

Cool Workflows
102

We just implemented an automatic app-based check in instead of attendance. An Android tablet is placed in each classroom and students use an app that detects if they are within Bluetooth range of the tablet, then they can check in themselves. At the end of the class I get an email report.

The only downside is that I don’t remember student names as well, but with classes of 50 at my university that was a challenge anyway.

1 Like
103

What’s the name of the app? Does it work with iPad, as well as Android?

104

The Anki app is great for memorizing student names (with the spaced repetition method, easy to include prior students, too!), among other things.

I grab their photos from my teaching roster and create flashcards and know them by name before they walk in the door. This blows undergrads minds (which IMO opens those minds up!).

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105

As far as I understand, GDPR and FERPA (and other such regulations) do not limit the selection software apps that you may use, they limit how you are permitted to store, work with, and distribute private information.

So, technically speaking: You can store and work with student records on a university-sanctioned computer or within its sanctioned cloud system. You cannot store or work with those same records anywhere else, even temporarily.

The latter issue IMO is a far greater concern. For example, any recommendation to use Zapier to play with student record information would first have to convince me that Zapier runs entirely locally to the device because I believe first that Zapier uses its cloud to capture and resend information and secondly that such a process is not among our university-sanctioned cloud-connection approaches.

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JJW

106

How do you import photos into the Anki app? Do you need a subscription for that??

107

It’s a custom system developed at my university, a part of the student app. It’s not on general sale.

It only works on phones, iOS and Android.

108

Exactly my understanding as well.

109

I don’t think it’s a subscription-based app, @andreasl. I have the mobile version, which is kind of pricey (but worth it in my use), and I think the desktop version may be free.

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110

Correct. And since cloud-based solutions were suggested: do you have approval to put personal data on external servers? For a company GDPR is very clear: the board has to set the rules/policies for data collection/storing/sharing and make sure employees work within these rules. So: what’s your policy on using cloud services? If you are working within the policy, you are off the hook and CEO/DPO are in charge/accountable. For my company: usage of cloud services is forbidden. This is communicated to every employee and acknowledged by signature. So, the employee becomes liable if data finds it’s way into some weird cloud service.

111

As an update to my setup mentioned above, I have made some changes that are materially different and perhaps useful in the discussion:

  1. I have moved away from DEVONthink as an active drag-and-drop bucket, and have instead switched to Keep It. Reason: friendly UI and DEVONthink To Go has some response lag and some bugs that I just can’t get over. Additionally, Keep It has clearly upgraded their syncing over the last several months. Last year, Keep It was impossible across devices (as my setup demands) so I couldn’t use it.
  2. I have dumped Notion.so for a course dashboard as the mobile experience (the primary mode by which most of my students access resources), is too complicated and demands too many clicks to get to something easily. At the moment I am returning to Canvas reluctantly, but have decided to use Airtable for my readings and handouts database (replacing Notion.so databases) as it easily embeds in Canvas (something Coda.io does as well, which may be something I try in the future).
  3. I have adopted Roamresearch.com as my personal knowledge management tool, which had been in DEVONthink. If you are unaware of the software, I suggest taking a look. It bills itself as a note application for networked thought, but I think this is a marketing line to catch a market more than its use-case. FYI: it is at the moment a web app; it is in Beta; it will be a subscription; and has a STEEP learning curve (depending on what you want to use it for). To me Roam (the software’s official name) is a mixture of Tinderbox/TheBrain & nvAlt/nvUltra. Its soul attempts to create a digital zettlekasten.
  4. macOS Sidecar is great for when I need a desktop app, but want to use my iPad as the input device.

Everything else I do has not changed much - just the software.

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112

But how exactly does one put photos in there, I cant really see how to do it…

113

Ha! I kinda sorta think that folks might operate under the guideline that … “The university set us up with (Google, Box, OneCloud, …), so we can use it anyway we want.” Actually, I kinda sorta think that some folks operate under the analogous paradigm of the days when graded exams were returned in a box outside their office door: Putting the exams in the box upside down handles all the privacy issues that should concern us.

I face the same condition with copyright restrictions for published coursework. Our university has a copyright policy for on-line content. It has however yet to require students to sign an acknowledgment of that policy BEFORE they sign into our LMS (Canvas). So, as a colleague said, should a student distribute my class notes to a wider forum, should those notes contain information that is copyright to a different party, and should that party sue for copyright violation, the UNIVERSITY (in addition to the student) can be held liable for the infringement. Also, even though our copyright policy (that dis-allows the above situation) is posted in a handbook, faculty are not entirely off the hook for the violation. They must make explicit reference to our copyright policy in their Course Syllabus when it is presented to the students.

And students wonder why my Course Outline extends to four pages.

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JJW

114

Tap the attachment icon (far right) and add a file from iCloud (or Photos). Here’s a little video:

1 Like
115

:joy: loved that video. Did you ever have a real use to learn the names of Golden Girls?? If so I need to get that story

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116

The GG’s are a go-to example when I need some default people to reference. Love them!

2 Likes
117

Don’t have much use for these AppleScripts but truly appreciate that they are being shared. I create videos on automations with the Mac and love it when someone uses AppleScript, Bash script, Keyboard Maestro, etc. etc.

I want more people to use:

  • AppleScript
  • Bash script (Terminal)
  • Keyboard Maestro

If you use another scripting language or other automation software then - great! Just make your computer work for you and not the other way around.

118

I like this. Maybe Studies would work the same way as Anki. A bit cheaper. Its on Setapp as well.

119

On quick glance, it looks like it may!