Plan the year. Run the day.

Two jobs, one place. The year is your classes and your bell schedule, set up once in August and barely touched again. The day is what you are actually doing on Tuesday. Class Dash keeps them together, so the period you are standing in already knows which class it is and what the plan says.

The five moves below get you there. Ten minutes once, then it runs itself. In a hurry? Open the menu at the top right and pick Load a sample setup to see a finished one.

The yearSet up once, holds all year

The dayA few minutes the night before, or the morning of

The periodThe screen your class looks at

That is the whole setup. Steps 1 to 3 you do once. Step 4 is the only one that comes back, and Copy from another day makes most of those a few seconds. Everything past this point is detail you can pick up as you go, and every tab above has its own page here.

The Board is the screen your students look at. Plan on the left, a big display area on the right, tools down the side.

This is the period end of the app. Everything you set up on the other tabs shows up here without you asking.

Showing something

• Tap any item in the plan and it fills the display area
• Text items render with your formatting, links and videos embed and play
• Tap it again, or pick a different item, to swap what is up
• The class dropdown at the top of the plan follows your bell schedule on its own, but you can override it any period

Timed items

An item with minutes on it gets a countdown in the corner of the display area.

• Start, pause, and reset it without leaving the item
• Handy for a do now or a build call where the clock is the point

The toolbar

Down the left edge. Each button opens a floating window you can drag, resize, and leave open.

• Picker, Timer, Stopwatch, Clock, Music, Schedule, Groups
• Tap a lit button again to close that window
• Windows remember where you left them and what size you made them
• Draw turns the display area into an ink surface, with pens, colors, and an eraser

Two buttons that follow you everywhere

• The music note and the calendar clock at the top right open the Music window and the current period card from any tab, not just the Board

The Agenda tab is where you write plans. One plan per class, per day, kept as long as you want them.

This is the day end of the app, and the only tab you come back to regularly.

Getting to the right plan

• Class chips run across the top left, the date controls sit on the right
• The arrows step a day at a time, Today jumps back
• Copy from another day pulls a whole plan forward, which is the fast way to run the same lesson with a second section

The three item types

• Text opens a small editor with bold, italic, underline, lists, fonts, sizes, and colors
• Video takes a YouTube link and plays it in the display area
• Link takes any web address and shows you a live preview while you paste it, so you know it will work before class

Order and timing

• The arrow on a row moves it up the list
• Remove takes it off the plan
• Add minutes to an item and it carries a countdown onto the Board

Classes hold your rosters. Everything else in the app points back at these.

Year work. Set these up in August and you are mostly done with this tab.

Making one

• New class, then name it
• Paste a list of names takes a whole roster at once, one name per line, straight out of your gradebook
• Or type them one at a time in the box at the bottom

Living with it

• The x on a name takes them off the roster for good, which is different from marking them out for the day
• Rename and Delete sit at the top right of the card
• Under the class name it tells you which periods use this class, so you can spot a class you never wired up

Here and out

Absences are a daily thing, not a roster thing.

• Uncheck someone on the Picker or the Groups tab to mark them out for today
• They drop out of the wheel and out of grouping until you check them back in
• Both lists show the same thing, so it does not matter which one you use

The bell schedule is the engine. Once it knows your day, the app knows which class is in front of you and how long is left.

Year work, and the piece that makes everything else automatic.

The two views

• Whole schedule lays out every period as a card
• Just this period is the big one for the wall: period name, time left, and a hall pass bar
• The same card is available from any tab through the calendar clock button at the top right

Day types

Set this once under Settings, on the Schedule page.

• Weekdays for a normal Monday through Friday
• A / B days for a two day rotation
• Numbered days for a longer rotation, with an anchor date so it counts correctly
• After a snow day, bump today to the right one and the rotation catches back up

Hall passes

The bar under the countdown is color coded, so students can answer their own question.

• No passes closes the first and last minutes of a period, ten by default
• Last call gives an amber warning before passes close
• Red is closed, green is open, amber is last call
• Never applies to lunch or planning

The rest

• Bells run nudges everything a few seconds if your bells are late
• Bell notice takes over the screen for a moment when a period ends

Preview mode

In the plus menu at the bottom right. The way to see all of this on a Sunday afternoon.

• Jump to any period or passing block and the app behaves as if it is that time
• Run a bell change puts you ten seconds before a period ends, so you watch the countdown land, the bell notice take over, and passing time start
• Last call for passes and Passing time drop you at those moments
• Timer warning starts a real timer that warns five seconds later
• A dashed bar across the top says you are previewing, and stops it in one tap
• Loading a sample setup starts you in preview during first period, so there is something to look at

Four ways to split a class, with rules about who works with whom.

The four ways

• By groups: you say four groups, it deals them out evenly
• By size: you say four per group, it works out how many groups
• Jigsaw: the cooperative learning structure, explained below
• Custom: empty cards you fill by hand

Rules

• Tap names in the list, then Together to keep them in the same group or Apart to keep them separated
• Rules stick to the class and apply every time you make groups
• If a rule cannot be met with the number of groups you asked for, it tells you rather than quietly breaking it
• In Jigsaw, Together is replaced by Share a topic, since sharing a topic already puts two students in the same sharing group

Seeding and filling

The move that makes Custom worth it.

• Make empty groups, drag a leader into each one, then hit Fill the rest
• Your leaders stay put and stay first in the list, everyone else gets dealt around them
• Clear on a card empties just that group, Clear groups wipes the lot
• Clear a couple of cards and Fill the rest reshuffles only those, differently than before

Jigsaw

Two rounds. Everyone becomes the only expert on one topic, then teaches it to their sharing group.

• Break what you are teaching into topics, one per letter
• Round one: all the A students meet as expert group A and learn topic A. All the B students learn topic B
• Round two: they move to their numbered sharing group, which has one of each letter, and teach their topic
• Every student reads as a code like 3B: start in expert group B, then join sharing group 3
• Signs on the wall reading 1A, 2B, 3C make the transitions painless
• Share a topic puts two students on the same letter, so they prepare together and present together. It needs a spare seat in the group, so it will tell you when the numbers leave no room

Keeping and showing

• Rename any card by tapping its title, and the name sticks for that class
• Save this set keeps a grouping you liked, so you can bring it back another day
• Show on the Board drops the groups into today's plan as an item

A name picker that knows who is here today.

Spinning

• Tap the middle of the wheel, or hit the space bar
• The winner comes up big, with Spin again and a button to take that name out
• Four styles under Settings: the wheel, a name roller, a grid spotlight, and a name flash

The list beside it

• The checkbox marks someone here or out for the day
• Select all puts everyone back in, Put back clears the picked names
• Picked list flips the card over to show who has come up, newest first, and Class list flips it back

Fair turns

Under Settings, on the Picker page.

• After a pick can take the name out so everyone gets a turn before anyone repeats
• Or leave it in, if you want a straight random draw every time
• Click sound is the tick as the wheel slows down

A countdown, a stopwatch, and a clock. Any of them can float over the Board while you teach.

Timer

• Tap a preset, or set your own minutes and seconds
• Start, +1 min when a class needs longer, and Reset
• In the floating window those three sit right on the dial, and the preset pad tucks behind Set time

Warnings

Under Settings, on the Timer page.

• Add a warning at any point, or use the quick picks for one minute, thirty seconds, ten seconds, or halfway
• Each one can fire a chime, a color change, an on screen message, or a spoken cue
• Turn any of the four off if it is too much

Stopwatch and clock

• The stopwatch does laps with split times, good for run throughs and fitness testing
• The clock shows the time big enough for the back row, with alarms you can label and repeat daily

Faces

• Under Settings, on the Look page, each of the three can be digital or analog, and the timer can be a ring or a dial

Play a playlist through the app, and have it come on by itself during passing time.

Adding a playlist

• Settings, then the Music page
• Give it a name and paste a Spotify or YouTube playlist link
• It tells you which one it recognized as you paste
• Keep as many as you like and switch between them with the chips in the Music window

Passing time

• Pick which playlist passing time uses, then check the passing blocks you want it on
• Select all turns on every gap in that schedule
• YouTube starts and stops on its own, as long as you have clicked somewhere in Class Dash that day
• Spotify cannot be started from outside its own player, so the window comes forward and you tap play

Volume

• The slider under a YouTube playlist sets the level, and it sticks for next time
• Tap the speaker to mute and again to come back
• Spotify manages its own volume, so use its player or your speakers

Both services want you signed in to hear full tracks rather than short previews, and some school filters block one or the other. Worth a test run before a class is in the room.

Everything lives in this browser, on this computer. Nothing goes to a server, and there is no account to make.

What that means

• Your classes, schedules, plans, and settings save themselves as you work
• A different computer, or a different browser, starts empty
• Clearing your browser data clears Class Dash with it

Backups

In the menu at the top right.

• Save backup file writes everything to a file you keep
• Restore from file reads one back, which is also how you move to a new machine
• Worth doing at the end of a unit, once you have a few weeks of plans in here

Starting over

• Load a sample setup fills the app with a worked example, good for seeing how the pieces fit
• Start with a blank slate clears everything and gives you an empty app

Privacy, in one line

Nothing you type leaves this computer.

• No account, no server database, no analytics, no cookies, no trackers
• Student names you type are stored in this browser only, so treat the machine and your backup files the way you would treat a paper roster
• The only things that reach the internet are videos, links, and playlists you choose to embed
• The full Privacy and Accessibility pages are linked in the menu at the top right, and district reviewers are welcome to get in touch through the contact form

Making it yours

• Settings, then Look: four themes, a color palette, an accent color, and the faces for the timer, stopwatch, and clock
• Display size has a laptop setting and two larger ones for a projector or a touch board
• Full screen, in the menu, hides everything but the tool you are on

A handful of keys, chosen so your hands can stay off the mouse while a class watches.

The two that matter

Where you are

Typing

Nothing fires while you are typing in a box, so a student name with a d in it will not turn the pen on.