The digital age is having a big impact on education with iPads, interactive whiteboards and B.Y.O.D. changing the way children are educated (and teacher’s for that matter), but dare you delve into the world of educational apps? Staffroom goes behind the scenes to see what it takes to build an educational app.

So you would like to build an app to help your pupils track their progress or aid your teachers with lesson planning? There is so much you can do with apps but the biggest thing is not deciding to do one — it’s deciding where to start.

Kim Clark, Deputy Headteacher at Fairlawn Primary School, tells us why her school wanted to develop an app and how the process is going.

Whose idea was it to produce an app and what were the reasons for it?

We have recently invested in a number of iPads and there has been much focus on how we can use them to develop 21st-century learners.

As part of a round of lesson observations last year, I was concerned at the level of teacher talk — the ideal ratio being 80/20.

We currently use IRIS connect technology to record ourselves and reflect on our practice. To support teachers’ engagement with this, we set up a Teaching and Learning Community. We made teacher talk time a focus and as part of this, we analysed how much we talk compared to children.

This is quite a lengthy process. It involves recording yourself, watching back and timing your talk compared to the children’s. It got me thinking about how we could make this easier. I had the idea of using something similar to a chess timer.

I found one online and thought it would be a great idea for teachers to use it on the iPads to time their talk as you could switch between pupils and adult. Unfortunately, it was Flash -driven so would not work on iPads. Also, I could only get it to count down, not up. I decided it would be useful to develop a simple Teacher Talk Timer app which simply times talk and automatically works out a ratio for you.

One day, I was discussing this idea with our Executive Headteacher, who mentioned that he had contact details for an app developer. We got in touch and a meeting was set up. We have had lots of contact with them along the way and they have done exactly what we asked for.

How has the development of the app gone so far?

Currently, we are in the testing phase of the app. We have got the app on six iPads which teachers are using to test it out. Any feedback we have will be passed on to the app developers so that they can enter the last phase of development. The app will then become live in the Apple store.

What does the app do?

It’s a very simple app which enables teachers to switch between recording the length of teacher talk and the length of pupil talk with a tap of the screen. The ratio is calculated throughout the lesson, providing instant feedback to the teacher about how much teacher talk is going on. This enables teachers to modify practice in real time. The app will be available soon to upload and we hope that schools will find it a useful tool.

What things should other schools consider when making an app?

The biggest drawback for us developing a range of apps is cost. We have only been able to develop stage 1 of this app so far. The more complex analysis function that I would like to have has a large price tag attached.

You need to consider how to make the app cost -effective in the long term and how you want to get your pupils involved in the process. Of course, there is the option to charge a small amount for the app, but we are undecided about whether to charge or keep it free at the moment.

What is the long-term vision?

We are very excited about our app going live and we hope to build up a bank of teaching tool apps. We also want to introduce a coding club to our pupils and get them involved in the app development process. SR