Edu Admin Functionability, Classroom Management/File System Hierarchy
Good Morning,
My name is Ian Kanakaris, a Music Teacher in NYC and I am currently servicing 12 classes and approximately 325 students through Soundtrap during the current health crisis.
I brought some of my success, and concerns up with Audrey O'Clair in an "Office Hours" Google Hangout, and she recommended I bring some of the topics up to Soundtrap through this forum.
I was curious if there was anything that could be done about how the Edu Admin page functions.
Currently it is rather clunky-
I understand that the GUI is to make Soundtrap inviting, and it does that well.
However, as a teacher I am more of an "Industrial User"
As if Microsoft word is for the people, and Excel is for the workers.
What I mean is that with that many students and that many projects it becomes quite cumbersome and gets in its own way of being helpful by having the interface so big. The file hierarchy system also seems to be a bit bulky.
In an ideal world, I should be able to have a Master Folder, with sub-folders for each class created (this could be done automatically when I register a class). Within each class folder, as a project is assigned a new folder should be generated for each project to live in that students would submit. Students would only have write access to the project they were working on, and wouldn't need visibility to this file system, however it would make sorting student work and projects far easier.
In an ideal world, students projects would appear in these folders not as a preview track with a visual which might slow down a more basic machine (typically the kind we work with in schools). As is, on my slower machine, having 101 projects in one folder takes time to load through the page to view content: On my faster (personal) machine, projects often stutter, and I get the "overload" message and Soundtrap looks to freeze all tracks to save memory. -- I realize that all systems, especially internet based systems are under increased stress, so this may be the cause here.
--Still I think that having students assignments show up in a simpler form might benefit many projects.
For projects that do not require for the teacher to hear the work but rather see that the student has completed it, a screen shot might suffice; wheras a project that requires the student to meet specific criteria I need to go into the studio to view their work. The ""waveform-wrapper.ng.-star" is redundant, and only slows funcitonability.
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It would also be great to be able to access more specific data about student use.
The other day I was in a meeting with Audrey O'Clair, and I asked about seeing more specific data about student use, and Jess Kertz sent me a readout of student data specific to total time spent. If that function is available to others, why do I not have access to it as a teacher?
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Official comment
Hi Ian,
First of all, thank you for reaching out to the Community with these requests! This is the perfect spot to start these conversations.
We take your input and expertise seriously and will share it with the appropriate teams at Soundtrap to help guide product development.
In regards to your request about sharing usage data, this is not currently a self-serve feature in Soundtrap but we're constantly looking at ways to improve the service while maintaining appropriate safeguards to protect student data, and will certainly take your suggestion into consideration.
Cheerfully,
Audrey
Comment actions -
I agree that the folder system on the education side is a bit clunky. I think that the addition of sub-folders to an Assignment Folder would be a great addition. Ideally, the teacher creates an assignment, and shares the link to their classes. As work begins to come back to the main Assignment Folder, the teacher could create a sub-folder that could be linked by student groups/classes so that all projects by students completed in the main Assignment Folder would flow to the newly created sub-folder and any work that is received after that sub-folder's creation could be found there. OR - When you set up the template as an assignment you could choose to create sub-folders based on select-able criteria like student groups or alphabetical range.
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