An app a day keeps Rummel, Br. Martin smiling

    Archbishop Rummel and Brother Martin high schools have leaped into the digital ocean with both feet, legs and arms, and at last report, the water’s just fine.

    Archbishop Rummel and Brother Martin are the first two Catholic high schools in the Archdiocese of New Orleans to develop a smart-phone app that puts each school’s website in the palm of a prospective student’s hand.
    Technology gurus at both schools said the rationale for designing their smart-phone app was to give students, prospective students, parents and alumni an easy way to keep track of important school information when they are on the go and away from their home or office computer.
     Doug Neill, a 1998 Rummel graduate and the school’s new assistant principal for educational technology, used his computer science degree from Loyola University New Orleans to develop Rummel’s app for iPhones, iPads and Android phones. Neill launched the smart-phone app in November 2010, the first for a school in the archdiocese.
    “I’m a big iPhone and iPad user, and, to be honest with you, nobody else (in the archdiocese) had done it before,” Neill said. “So I said, ‘Why not do it? Why not try to be the very first?’”
An in-house job
    Working completely on his own, Neill spent weeks researching various apps, trying to unlock the secrets behind the programming that made them work seamlessly. Although he had an extensive programming background, Neill had not designed a smart-phone app before, “so I put my degree to work.”
    The most challenging aspect of building the design actually was not the behind-the-scenes work in getting it to work properly, Neill said.
    “The toughest thing was getting it to Apple,” Neill said. “The whole submission process was challenging. It’s a lot easier now. I just updated the app three months ago (to include a true iPad app and other things), and the second time around it was much easier. But I don’t want to discourage anybody.”
    Neill said the app is important for several reasons. Current students can get the information they need about upcoming events and lunch menus quickly. Prospective students and their parents like the ability to see important dates for open house, registration and sample coursework broken down by different grade levels. The school calendar also is prominently displayed.
    “It’s designed so you don’t have to navigate the full website,” Neill said. “I took the top 15 things that I thought prospective students would need to know and put that into the app – things like the admissions process, important due dates, curriculum and honors and AP courses. The full website has so much information. I just tried to narrow it down to the most important things. I’ve included a link to go to the full website if they need to go there for more information.”
Br. Martin’s huge success
    Brother Martin launched its smart-phone app last August, and it has been hugely successful, said Brett Napier, a 2003 graduate who is the school’s web master, social media manager and alumni and development assistant.
    “People say they like it and that it works well for what it’s designed to do,” Napier said. “Overall, I think it’s a good tool for us to say that we have it.”
    Napier said Perryn Olson, a 2000 Brother Martin graduate who is vice president of Design the Planet, did all the back-end code that makes the app work.
    “The app automatically pulls stuff from the website, and other things can be manually updated,” Napier said. “I know the design company had a lot of work to do making sure it was capable of being opened on (various) mobile platforms. The operating system differences were probably the biggest obstacle.”
    The most compelling reason to have a smart-phone app is to cater to people who are on the go, Napier added.
    “In the world we live in, everyone wants to know everything now,” Napier said. “You can pull up school classes on your phone versus going to your computer. You can figure out when the next football game is and when your kids’ exam schedule is posted. We picked five or six things off the web – the main news feed, the alumni news feed, the school calendar, lunch menu and other more generic things about academics and extracurriculars.”
    Design the Planet revamped Brother Martin’s website before the 2011-12 academic year and then unveiled the smart-phone app in May 2012.
    “From our (web) traffic overview, we determined that a lot of people will use iPhones and iPads to access the school site, so that’s why we designed the app,” Napier said. “There’s an Apple version and an Android version. For any other users, there is a mobile version of the site.
    “We think this is incredibly important for parents. We get a ton of visitors to the site every month, and if something isn’t up to date, they will say, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’”
    Both Neill and Napier agreed that keeping the mobile site uncluttered and easy to navigate is extremely important. Rummel can get 1,500 to 2,000 hits every day on its website, and Brother Martin has seen its web traffic spike above 66,000 hits in preparation for open house month.
    “Regardless of the competition, schools need to have this because of the age we live in,” Napier said. “Everybody wants to access everything immediately.”
    “I’d say the sky’s the limit,” Neill said. “There is a great sense of accomplishment when you’re finished it. It’s not the easiest thing to do in the world, but I’m very happy with it so far. It’s just going to grow from here. We’re giving iPads out to every student and teacher this year, and that’s going to spark even more interest.”
    Peter Finney Jr. can be reached at [email protected]