September 17, 2013

Tuesday!  Goals!  We're busy around here, so let's get to it:

1. We're launching the revamped version of our website this week.  After the logo, the website was the first customer-facing thing we built.  Now it's the oldest.  Over the last six months our graphic designer, Lisa Wu, has done an amazing job creating a fun visual style for our videos and emails.  Now, finally, the website will reflect all that amazing work.  As soon as Rick sorts all the CSS nonsense out...

2. Treebeard!  We're working on a new architecture for the Thumbprint data that will allow us to start gathering richer data on how students are using the app.  What this will mean for the future, it's too soon to say.  But the pieces are starting to fall into place so that we can start asking and answering some interesting questions.

 

I Cannot Think of Anything to Write

Anyone else ever get this instruction from a teacher?  For English class, or journalism, or whatever?  I got it all the time.  I used it all the time. Is it still allowed? If anyone knows, please leave a comment.

Anyway, I now sit down to write yet another editorial, coming straight from yet another teacher meeting, so I have two reasons to invoke this ghost.  Some days, you have a great idea, and writing is easy. Most days you don't, and if given the chance to borrow rather than create, you'd do it in a heartbeat.  But not always.

Most educational tools assume that one of these - build or borrow - is the way things should always be, and give no thought to the other.  Software either focuses on content or tools, almost never both.  Reality is messy, though. Sometimes someone else's stuff is exactly what you need - you're uninspired or busy or behind schedule. Other times, you have the perfect lesson and want to build it from scratch yourself. Most often, you fall somewhere in between - you want to use someone Else's work as a starting point and then add your own personal touch.

That's why we built Thumbprint the way we did, making it easy to create, share and modify stuff. Whether your feeling creative or overwhelmed, the tools are there to get you where you need to go. If only there was an equivalent tool for blog writers...

 

September 12 Review

Right on time, Apple approved our 1.0.1 release today.  If you've got 1.0, I strongly suggest updating.  There are some major performance improvements, especially for large collections.  Basically, because all of the content lives on our servers, the app has to decide what to ask for and when.  We now have a better set of rules that distributes those calls out rather than putting them through all at once.  Some users with 400 or more items in a collection were experiencing crashes; that should be over now.

Otherwise, we've been plugging away at getting the word out, building out more content, and generally trying to make Thumbprint a great place to be.  If you've got any ideas on that front, we'd love to hear from you.