An NHS app Helps Track Schedule Days

By Eliza Hallabeck

Late last school year, Newtown High School technology education teacher David Defeo noticed students and his coworkers alike showing off smart phones.

At the same time, he noticed students and teacher experiencing the school’s rotating schedule, which has a different schedule rotation for regular school days and shortened school days.

Walking through the NHS halls in the morning, Mr Defeo said it was not uncommon to hear students questioning what day of the schedule it was, “And in my mind I knew there was an app for that,” he said.

The last school year, he said, saw rapid growth of applications, downloadable programs for smart phones and other devices. The growth demonstrated to Mr Defeo that apps were not a passing fad.

Over the summer, Mr Defeo said he let the idea grow to create an app for NHS. Mr Defeo also teachers at Central Connecticut State University for a topics class, where students can create their own elective that is technology based.

“I knew this would be the perfect project, and I just needed for find out which of my students this project would land with,” said Mr Defeo this week.

Brian Makuch, a junior at Central Connecticut State University, was up for the challenge. He immediately expressed interest, and both student and teacher set about learning how to create an app for the Android platform using a free software product called App Inventor, offered through Google.

Mr Defeo said he created the overall design while Mr Makuch worked on the actual program.

Their app was unveiled two weeks ago on the high school’s blog, http://dumais.us/newtown/blog.

The app, called “A Day,” is a free download on the Android Market, available online at www.market.android.com by searching for “Newtown.”

“The response has been really good, really positive,” said Mr Defeo. “The kids see this as really valuable, and there is a buzz around school that Newtown has something made just for them.”

The goal now, Mr Defeo says, is to get a student or students at Newtown High School interested in writing a version of the app for Apple products, like the iPhone.