Using the iPad

I have been hearing different circles of teachers and music teachers talk about the app "iDoceo" for some time now.  For the past two years, I have used the Smart Seat app for managing my seating and daily attendance of my classes.  I made it a goal this year to give the acclaimed iDoceo a whirl.  Monday was the first day of school, so I decided to do a "baptism by fire" and jump right in using the app for this brand new school year.

Overview

iDoceo is like having your schedule, seating charts, calendar, and student information binders all in one neat little place.  You can set up your classes, then your schedule (assigning periods of the day to particular classes you've set up), take attendance, assign grades, and make annotations all in one easy-to-use interface.

Learning Curve

I am fairly quick to pick up on most things techy.  This app takes "on the fly" learning to a whole new level!  INCREDIBLY easy to use.  There were a few things here and there that caused me some confusion, but nothing that touching the "?" or doing a quick Google search didn't fix.  I would give this app for teachers an "A+" for user friendliness.

Importing

As music teachers, even if we work in a small rural school, we have a LOT of students.  After all, more often than not, we see every child in the entire school.  This makes keeping track of them all somewhat difficult.  Combine this with required parent contacts, grading policies, behavior monitoring, etc. and it can get out of control in a hurry. 

The first thing that blew me away with iDoceo was its incredible ability to import data ACCURATELY from our school district's online grading system.  We use Skyward, so getting my classes into iDoceo was as simple as doing the following:  open online grade book, click a class, click "reports," click "Roster," then click "export to Excel."  After opening the file in Excel, I did a quick highlight (click and drag) over extraneous information and hit the "Delete" key.  Then I saved the file (first, middle, and last names, and student ID numbers) in the older Excel format (xls for 2003) with a simple title - name of teacher, a dash, and the grade (i.e. Sands - 2).  I created a folder simply called "Rosters" in my Dropbox file (click here if you don't know about Dropbox) which is where I saved all of the rosters.

Using the Dropbox app on my iPad, I opened the "Rosters" folder.  I selected one of the roster files and then touched the "open in" icon (currently upper right) and then selected the iDoceo app.  BOOM!  Not only were all those names and ID numbers immediately imported (like in less than one second), but the class was appropriately named as well!  I cannot begin to explain the amount of time this little feature saved me.  800 students went into this app without a hitch.

Seating

After getting all those classes in, the next step is to get seating arranged.  This was SO easy.  On the first day each class showed up, I took their pictures to be associated with their names.  In the upper left of the iDoceo screen, there is a "seating chart" icon.  Tap it and you will see all those student names on rectangles that are reminiscent of Polaroid instant photographs.  You tap and hold a student's name.  Select "take picture,"  adjust the photo by "pinching" and just click "done."  Then, to arrange the students, simply tap and hold, then drag the student to the appropriate area on your desktop.  This is very handy especially for us music types as we don't ordinarily have the traditional row or table setup in our classes.  Here you can see one of my classes (with the faces and last names blocked).  I have four FlipForm® risers in my room, each with the capacity for three students on the top row and three students seated on the bottom.  The risers are in a concert formation.  The only thing I can't do in iDoceo is angle them in a semicircle.  You can see here how I have the students in four clusters, each representing a riser.

Scheduling

For years I had four things in front of me - my schedule (hard to remember, "Whose coming next?"), my lesson plans, my seating charts, and my iPod (or, lately, iPad).  Now with iDoceo, you need only have ONE thing in front of you.  After your classes have been created, it is very easy to set up your schedule.  If your time periods run similarly each day, I recommend setting them up once then copying them to the other days of the week.  Then all you have to do is change the class associated and you don't have to go through setting up the starting and ending times, picking a color, etc.  Once you have your schedule set up with classes associated, that's all you need - iDoceo will do the rest!  Simply have the schedule screen open.  Touch the class and BAM!  The roster and grades are in front of you.  Touch the seating chart icon and there you have your class.  Touch the icon in the upper left and then "+" and you can touch "Attend All" - double tap the check mark to mark a student absent, hold your finger down and touch "Text/Icons" and you can tap a symbol you'd like to add (like an hour glass for tardy, etc.).  Touch the icon with the "X" to exit attendance mode.  If you'd like to alter attendance later, when you are viewing the roster, simply double-tap the green check mark to change it to a red X (absent) or vice versa.

My 2013-2014 schedule.  I touch a class and can immediately see rosters, grades, and seating.

Making Notes

This is perhaps the most AMAZING feature of this app (although, the other stuff is way cool in and of itself).  In the roster view, tap and hold a student's name.  Select "Edit student" (or just double-tap the student's name).  A screen will appear with five options at the bottom.  Touch "Resources" (far right) and then touch the paper clip icon in the upper left corner of the screen.  Here you have SIX choices of ways to add data to a particular student.  Take picture (maybe of a project), Add photo (maybe you took a whole class worth of pictures and you want to assign a particular one to a particular student - this will access your camera roll on your iPad), Add file (maybe a word document of a report the student wrote - you must first upload the file to Dropbox if you're going to use this option), Record video (how cool for us music types, right?), Audio recording ("Trevor left class without permission" - the recording is date stamped, or maybe "So-mi pitch match" for grading later), and Add URL (I'm guessing this is for older students who may have a Wiki or other site for assignments).

The "resources" screen for "Joe Student."

Of course, if you just want to do standard text notations, you can do that too - just tap "Annotations" at the bottom and type away!

Transferring Students

If your classes are like mine, they are an ever evolving, ever changing, living entity.  I am challenged to have one week to the next where I don't have a student enter, withdraw, change to another class, etc.  With Smart Seat, I was out of luck - if a student changed classes, I had to re-enter their data, take a new picture, etc.  iDoceo has magically solved this.  When viewing the roster view, tap the settings icon in the upper left (looks like a screw driver and wrench), tap "students," touch the circle next to the student you would like to move.  Touch "copy" in the upper left, then a list of your classes will appear.  Simply tap the class you'd like him/her moved to - VOILA!  You'll find that student there with all their data (grades will not transfer).  Once copied, you can simply delete the student from the current class.

The "copy" student screen.

Conclusion

I am an app fan.  There are so many that are so useful in our personal and professional lives.  Rarely do I get THAT excited about an app, but after spending just one week with iDoceo, I can tell you it is the best $5.99 I've spent in quite some time.

Until next time...