Any Table Can be an App
As a no-code app platform, Glide can turn nearly any table into an app. That means big things for the vast amount of school data we keep in separate spreadsheets. That's lightning in a bottle.
My journey to using Glide is an interesting one. I mean, it's interesting if you care about how people figure out their personal productivity approach. If that's not you, bear with me for a moment.
I was looking for a new way to take notes -- dissatisfied with Apple Notes, Evernote, and others. I eventually found a tool called Notion, which was quite special because it went beyond notes and allowed me to create simple wikis and databases to go along with my notes. This got me wondering if I could find other supercools like Notion. I found some other ones called Airtable and Microsoft Lists but stuck with Notion. However, in my research I found Airtable driving a new breed of no-code apps. That's when I found Glide, an app that lets you turn a table of data into an app. A connection was made. Lightning had struck.
Any Table = An App
Nearly any table of data could be an app. It doesn’t even need to be in a major database - Google Sheets, Excel spreadsheets, Airtables, and (of course) Glide tables can do it. This was a big deal to me. At this time, I was working as the Interim Experiential Learning Coordinator for our school district. It was my job to track a whole lot of students and help link them with various career-connected experiences. My predecessor left me with a tremendous amount of data, conveniently organized into spreadsheets. She also expressed her displeasure with the process students had to go through to find an experience, a topic I explored previously.
Where Else Can We Go?
In the past two weeks or so, I've taken a deep dive into where we have a great deal of data sitting inside spreadsheets. I've especially focused on spreadsheets where the data is important but hard to manage due to its volume -- the same formula that led me to create the Student Experiential Learning app.
Here's what I've found so far:
- Walk-Throughs | These quick classroom observations with accompanying positive feedback for teachers.
- Professional Learning Session Sign-Ups | Teachers sign up to lead sessions for other teachers and attend those sessions.
- Workshops | Teachers also sign up for workshops where they can work with a designer (like me) to build new lessons or curriculum
- Teacher Feedback | Teachers provide feedback on all of these professional learning experiences on yet another Google Form.
What's interesting here, is that the people impacted by this data (the teachers) can't really see it. Opening up access would give them access to colleagues, which feels a bit intrusive. Also, if they have data in one spreadsheet, it's not linked or related to another spreadsheet. This leads me to the idea for my next app:
A Professional Development App for Teachers
Using forms and relations in Glide tables, I'm beginning to dream of this entire experience as a single app. Teachers would be able to sign up for sessions, create sessions, see their walkthrough feedback, and provide session feedback all in the same app.
Furthermore, we could use the app to distribute right-sized learning experiences like quick articles, research summaries (we call them Card Drops), or data insights they find helpful.
This could really elevate professional learning while being respectful of teacher time and expertise. Pulling this all together in one place is going to be a challenge. Wish me luck as I dive into my next build!
By the way...
In this post, I mentioned a pretty killer app called Notion. If you feel like trying out Notion, please consider using my affiliate link. I get a small commission for helping guide people toward that app. I only use affiliate links for apps that I personally find super helpful.