This project was selected as part of the John and Violet Kay Fellowship and involved developing an auto-scheduling assignment creation tool to assist 'Iolani School teachers in managing the new rotating block schedule in combination with the Canvas Learning Management System.
In 2022, ‘Iolani School adopted a rotating block schedule, where there are 8 periods in total but only 6 are held each day. For example, on A days, periods 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 are held, while on B days, periods 7, 8, 1, 2, 3, and 4 are held. This means each class meets at different times on different days, requiring teachers to manually check their calendars to set open and close dates for assignments. Since teachers have multiple periods of the same class, this process had to be repeated multiple times.
The tool addresses this challenge by automatically setting the correct open and close dates and times for assignments, tracking the rotating block schedule, and creating assignments via the Canvas API. The code was written in Google Apps Script and can be run in Google Sheets to ensure teachers could easily adopt the tool. This streamlines the process of creating new assignments on Canvas and reduces the administrative workload for teachers.
Finally, when completed, this project was presented at The John and Violet Kay Fellowship Symposium and distributed to 55 'Iolani School teachers for use.