Teachers from Mahwah Create Education App

When a couple from Mahwah had a technological idea that they said might make teaching more organized, their students inspired them to make it into a reality.

“Starting your own project, and using your ideas to be creative, that’s what we tell our students to do everyday,” Mahwah resident Andy Raupp, an elementary school teacher in Ridgewood, said.

“What kind of message would we be sending students if we didn’t do that, too?”

Raupp and his wife, Ellen, who also teaches at Hawes Elementary School in Ridgewood, have been working for over a year to develop, ‘Chronicle,’ an App that they say helps teachers be more efficient in the classroom. Since the App launched this fall, the teaching couple says it’s been successful.

“Teachers at our school have been using it, and giving us feedback on it,” Ellen said. “We’ve had educators literally from around the world download the App. Now we are really hoping to expand its use to other whole districts.”

The App, the couple said, has many components to it that allow teachers to catalog student work and track student growth.

Chronicle uses the multimedia features of the iPad to record student work. So, teachers can make audio recordings of students reading aloud, take videos of group presentations, or take photos of assignments. The App automatically catalogs and organizes all of the students’ work.

“It creates a set of live data,” Andy said.

“It’s something that teachers can use to track student progress.”

The App also comes with an integrated grade book and other features that the couple says allow teachers to evaluate student work and use that to inform instruction.

The data collected by Chronicle can also be shared between teachers, so they can build on individual student learning across disciplines and grade levels, the Raupps said.

“It allows you to be more intentional and purposeful in your teaching,” Ellen said.

Find out more about Chronicle on its website.