This afternoon's Apple event was focused on news for education, something the company has been working hard on for a few years.
All of Ma's investments in this area are aimed at helping teachers and students in such a way that technology is seen as an ally in the teaching and learning process. But instead of trying to take the place of small businesses and app developers in the education segment, Apple created something to serve as a foundation and boost their work even more; so came the API ClassKit, which integrates with the newest app School Project (Schoolwork).
With the School Project app, teachers can take advantage of the power and creativity of the apps available on the iPad. () O Schoolwork and applications that take teachers to a new perspective on the performance of their students, helping them to adapt their teaching to the needs and potential of each student. With the School Project app, teachers have a summary of each student's overall performance and can check student app activity and progress on their assignments.
The app, which will only arrive in June, offers a common place for teachers to pass exercises and assignments to students and, at a touch, stay on top of each other's progress, as well as they can correct and give feedbacks In real time. In the student's view, on the other hand, it will be possible to access different subjects and not miss any work, since all will be gathered by class, date and also priority.
As already mentioned, it will be easy to add new materials such as PDFs, documents, links in general, in addition to being a great way to send announcements and reminders about the work (for the whole class or a specific student). However, the app does even more than that: relying on the developers' work with ClassKit, other apps can also be integrated into the School Project, allowing teachers to spend exercises in different apps but have everything in one place.
Some of the most useful educational content is within apps. But students, especially the youngest, find it difficult to find these materials. The School Project takes your students to the right place in the right app.
Teachers will be able to choose some activity in a specific application (for now, those that support integration are only the most popular ones like Quizlet, Duolingo, GeoGebra, etc.), go to the “Material” area, inside the application, and choose to add the chosen activity from another app. By doing so, everything is much easier for students, who will only touch it once inside the app and will be taken with the exact activity requested by the teacher.
Over time, more apps will be available and will be integrated into the app. For this, developers will need to pay attention to some details within the framework ClassKit: it will be necessary to “tag” the content structure of the app, so that it is easy for teachers to find and send the activity to students, the contents may include a hierarchy of mathematical problems and quizzes, concepts of programming and exercises or chapter of books.
Another feature that needs to be available in applications from the framework the ability to record progress and submit to ClassKit, so that teachers and students can access a complete report within the School Project application. The type of “report” that appears depends on the application; can be time spent on just one activity, percentage, score quiz, and others.
ClassKit, which was even discovered in February by the famous Guilherme Rambo, enables resources in educational apps for iPad, which can be used by educational institutions with Apple School Manager and manageable Apple IDs.
It is also worth mentioning that both the new app and the new framework carry the same privacy philosophy as all Apple products and services. Therefore, the only people who will have access to the data generated in the apps will be teachers and students (that is, the devices used by each one).
Privacy is in everything we create.
Teachers can see all the incredible things that their students create. We, no. Each Apple product is made with an integrated approach to privacy and security. We provide schools with devices, apps and services that keep students' jobs and personal information safe. And with managed Apple IDs, the school controls student information and can choose to enable or disable apps and services like iMessage, FaceTime and student performance reports in the School Project app.
Developers will already have access to ClassKit in Xcode 9.4 beta and iOS 11.4 beta, but it will be necessary to have an Apple School Manager account and a beta version of the School Project app to set up and test.
If you are a developer and want to integrate the framework in your app, you can fill out the form on this page and you will be notified when tests and developments are available.
· • ·
Perhaps the event and its news did not excite the great public, but as I am from the education area, I am just in the clinic, anxious to get my hands on all these news! May June arrive soon! 😃
