Bob Jones’ Voight codes MCS Go app
Xander Voight, a junior at Bob Jones High School, developed MCS Go 2.0 while interning at the Central Office. CONTRIBUTED
MADISON –Xander Voight at Bob Jones High School has developed an innovative app that Madison City Schools families can use on iPhones.
Voight, a junior at Bob Jones High School, developed MCS Go 2.0 while interning at the Central Office. Most of his semester-long internship was devoted to designing the app’s features and dealing with legal complexities to receive approval from Apple, MCS Public Relations Manager John Peck said.
Daniel Whitt, MCS Instructional Technology Coordinator, mentored Voight during his internship. Whitt created Youtube videos to explain the tools and links that MCS Go offers on an iPhone (youtube.com/watch?v=8dwERZVnAig&sns=em).
To start MCS Go, the user clicks the MCS logo on the iPhone screen. The home screen is a social media feed that includes all MCS correspondence from Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, along with #MCSLearnFeed from Twitter and Instagram. “Five social media feeds are available all in one,” Whitt said.
A bookmark leads to four links. iNow is available for students and parents (not the teacher view) to check grades and other stats.
The “Places” icon accesses a map to the location of all buildings on Madison school district’s properties. The app also offers ‘swipe access’ to phone numbers and websites for all Madison schools.
The “Score” icon launches the scorestream platform. “Up-to-the-minute scores are available in real time with scorestream for high school and middle school teams. No more going out to Twitter to try to find the latest score,” Whitt said. Currently, the app supports football, basketball and baseball scores, with volleyball and other sports to be added soon.
The “Catalogs” section accesses the curriculum catalogs for students in high school and middle school. The user can swipe left or right to ‘flip’ pages. In addition, a link “Fast Forward” blog offers classroom projects and curriculum innovations that Madison teachers have led.
Whitt said they are planning for an Android version of MCS Go in the future.
MCS Superintendent Robby Parker and Madison Board of Education members commended Xander for his ingenuity and hard work. To access the Youtube videos, visit youtube.com/watch?v=8dwERZVnAig&sns=em.
