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K-State Today

September 15, 2014

An app a day keeps the costs away

Submitted by Patrice Scott

New app

An app a day keeps the costs away.

That's the philosophy behind a new app being piloted this semester by a College of Education faculty member.

Tonnie Martinez, assistant professor in the department of curriculum and instruction, developed the app for her course Teaching as a Career for sophomores. Martinez was awarded funds under the college's open/alternative textbook initiative.

To download the app to their mobile devices, students can scan a QR code or receive a link via email. Martinez worked with an app developer in Olathe who also is a teacher, and with colleagues in the Division of Communications and Marketing to ensure K-State's branding guidelines were followed.

The result is a clean, easily navigated app divided into several pages: syllabus, student handbook, assignments, community, social media, video and locations.

"We have 270 students simultaneously looking for local schools, so we added geocaching to help them find out exactly where they are and how to get to the school if they get lost," Martinez said. "We tried to think of as many things as possible but know we will continue making adjustments as we get feedback from students."