Students create digital tools to solve problems

Temperatures are dropping around the UK and the summer holidays seems a long time away as schools are deep into a new academic year. Whilst students and teachers were away from school this summer, Apps for Good took the time to develop and release a new educator platform, vastly improving the way that we connect with over 850 schools across the UK. 

Our new Dashboard doesn’t just look sleeker, it’s packed with information, tools, lesson plans, CPD training and more  to help make sure that delivering Apps for Good is as straightforward as possible for teachers. There are so many ways in which a better online platform for teachers expands our impact as an organisation. Examples of this are: 

• Improved monitoring and evaluation - our new platform collects crucial information that can be analysed to further broaden and deepen our impact whilst being better able to identify and address challenges with our model, making Apps for Good a more agile organisation better able to adapt and stay at the cutting edge of what we do. 

• Improved user experience for teachers - whilst the last version of our educator dashboard was effective, our new look platform is not just more appealing visually but is built on what we have learned from teachers around what they need from the tool. It is now easier than ever for teachers to access course materials.

• Improved interfacing with the Apps for Good Expert Community - it is now easier than ever for educators to connect with our Expert Community, allowing more students to recieve feedback and advice on any of the topics covered on the Apps for Good course. 

For a more indepth look on our new Educator Dashboard, please take a look at our blog.

We are also delighted to announce that we’ve received a grant from Digital Xtra, funded by the Scottish Government Digital Skills Business Excellence Partnership, to help us grow our after-school activities in Scotland.

If you’ve known us for a while, you’ll definitely have heard of Wick, a town in the Scottish Highlands where Apps for Good-famous teacher Chris from Wick High School has had more teams win our UK national awards than any other school or learning centre (you can see some of the students’ apps here and here). We think the future of tech isn’t in London or San Francisco, but in Wick – and places like it all over Scotland.

Because of Chris and enthusiastic teachers like him – such as Liz at Boroughmuir High School in Edinburgh and Claire at Lochdonhead Primary School on the Isle of Mull – great networks like Stemnet Ambassadors, and organisations that include Coder Dojo and Code Club, we’ve grown from 5 schools and learning centres in Scotland in 2012/13 to 133 last year. Along the way we’ve been able to connect to a vibrant ecosystem of businesses, universities, schools, libraries, government and other non-profits who are all coming together to help young people learn the digital skills they need to succeed in the 21st century.

You can read more about recent developments in Scotland here.

In other news, two of our winning teams, I'm Okay and weKonnekt, had the chance to vist the Radio 1 Extra studios last month after being shortlisted for the Make it Digital award at this years Radio 1 Teen Hero Awards. The teams had a great experience meeting famous DJ's and got the chance to work with a BBC producer and professional camera crew to produce a video for Radio 1's YouTube channel!

For further updates on everything that's going on with Apps for Good, please visit https://blog.appsforgood.org 

Links:

• The Apps for Good blog
• Get involved in Apps for Good as a teacher, volunteer or partner