By Yana Sergiyenko
Eagle Eye Staff Writer
The customized “El Camino High School” app, an organized platform for all of the announcements regarding school is now in progress to be released for everyone.
The application has no limitations to the users since it doesn’t require having a San Juan District ID and is free, so everyone who is interested in El Camino is welcome to get the app. Vice Principal Evelyn Welborn would also want to make it easier for active alumni and community members to stay in touch with school news and events.
“I really want people to stay connected because it’s really the community’s school,” said Welborn.
A convenient interface, that is designed to help everybody easily access the important updates, regardless of the technological fluency of the users, consists of two pages (slides) and multiple panels, where different types of information can be found separately. It includes the newsfeed, ongoing events, bell schedule, documents, website and many more.
Since the app serves as a portable version of the website and shares similar functions, it requires internet access in order to work properly.
The ECHS app isn’t connected to Google Classroom nor the school grade keeping system “Q”, so the students won’t be able to see all of their assignments and grades synced.
Notifications, which can be enabled and set in the “My Alerts” panel on the second page of the app will be sent in order to inform users about upcoming events.
One of the benefits of the application is the presence of a language switch button that allows the feed to be translated. So far, there are 41 languages users can translate the app to, however, some of the content translations are missing and remain in English. Translated documents and forms will only be available in Spanish, Farsi, Dari, Ukrainian and Russian and cannot be translated within the app, so they will have to be uploaded independently.
Although the app is going to be advertised on social media and via email, Welborn encourages everyone to share the app with their followers on any social media platforms, using the “Share” function inside the app to spread news about its release to a wider audience.
The platform is also practical because it will still be effective after the return to in-person learning. Students, who are always loaded with school work and extracurricular activities won’t have to rush through the misleading reminders and will have everything kept in one place.
“Games, dances and [rallies]—all of those things happening—it would be a reminder for the students. I can see it even more helpful when we are back on campus,” Welborn said.
The app has also already been tested out by teachers and staff members during online trainings and they haven’t expressed any negative feedback towards it.
Despite its convenience, the app won’t substitute other communicational tools that are used at El Camino. The emails are going to be kept sent to the students and families and social media pages of the school are going to remain active to make sure the information is getting to everyone.
Updated: To download the new app search for “El Camino Fundamental HS” in your app store. Students can log in with their San Juan account to enable more features.
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