Seatsmart Thaddeus McCleary
winget install --id=ThaddeusMcCleary.Seatsmart -e a classroom participation tracking application
Seatsmart is a classroom participation tracking application designed to streamline classroom management and encourage student engagement. Built using Electron, Vue.js, and websockets, Seatsmart provides educators with tools to track participation, manage seating charts, and conduct real-time formative assessments.
Key Features:
- Offline-First Design: All data is stored locally on the user's machine, ensuring reliability even in unstable internet environments.
- Real-Time Remote Access: Instructors can use the Remote feature to access basic functionality from a mobile device when internet is available.
- Secure Data Storage: Participation records are encrypted and stored transparently in the user’s documents folder, separate from application files.
- Cross-Platform Compatibility: Built with Electron, Seatsmart offers a native experience on both PC and Mac with a single codebase.
- Real-Time Assessments: Instructors can engage students in Activities for real-time formative assessments, powered by a realtime server backend.
Ideal for educators seeking to enhance classroom engagement and simplify participation tracking, Seatsmart is designed to be Humane by Design, focusing on user experience and accessibility. Its color palette and design inspiration draw from educational contexts while maintaining versatility for diverse user groups.
Seatsmart can be installed via winget, ensuring seamless setup for users familiar with package managers.
README
Seatsmart
Seatsmart offers a convenient way to to manage classrooms by encouraging learners to make positive contributions during a lesson.
Application Scope
Internet connection stability is a serious concern in educational settings. In addition, the application deals with student records related to participation, which should be stored securely. Seatsmart is designed to be offline-first, with all data stored on the user's machine. This storage is transparently located in the default documents folder for the user, which is separate from application files. This allows the user to update (replace) the application without impacting participation records.
When Internet access is available, instructors can use the Remote feature to access basic features from a mobile device. They can also engage with students in Activities for realtime formative assessments. Data is encrypted during transport and this information is not stored in any cloud database. This is powered by a realtime server on the backend.
Every attempt is made to ensure design and UX consistency for PC and Mac.
Core Dependencies
Electron JS
Electron allows the application to be packaged and installed for offline use with a more native OS experience for Seatsmart users. It essentially wraps a browser-based application within a basic browser environment (Chromium) with platform-specific APIs. Both PC and Mac users can enjoy a similar application experience with a single codebase. Electron was chosen over alternatives due to its maturity, solid support, and active community.
Vue JS
Vue is a growing JavaScript framework for user interfaces in the browser. Seatsmart uses CLI tools such as .vue files to organize the application in terms of interface components. State management (Vuex) and routing (Vue Router) help make the codebase readable and easy to build upon. Localization is another strength of this framework, with its Chinese documentation and developer community of particular relevance given the context of Seatsmart users.
Design Concepts and Inspiration
Seatsmart was initially developed as a simple implementation of instructor classroom management practices that are considered effective for courses conducted at Fort Hays State University (FHSU) satellite campuses in China. Though paper-based seating charts with spaces for annotation had been in use for some time, Seatsmart offered a digital alternative as a convenience with added features that are difficult to implement in analog (e.g. trend calculations, randomization, etc.).
New York City Metro signs were of particular inspiration, which feature circular icons with solid colors. The color palette is based upon FHSU branding colors, with the choice of red as a standard alert indicator.
While the choice of colors and typography is still meant to fit the university context (adult learners), since version 2.0.0 Seatsmart has removed FHSU-specific features to provide a better experience to a wider variety of users.
Seatsmart strives to be Humane by Design.
Running / Building on a Local Machine
to install dependencies
$ npm install
or
$ yarn
to serve the application during development
$ npm electron:serve
or
$ yarn electron:serve
to build the application on your platform (PC/Mac)
$ npm electron:build
or
$ yarn electron:build