classroomtools.io

Research-driven tools for the classroom.

Each tool comes from testing two instructional approaches in the same class. The research behind them is here if you want it.

Tools

5 live · more coming

Close Reading

Structured visual analysis before interpretation

A step-by-step tool that guides students through sustained looking before they reach for meaning. Prompts slow the process down: what repeats, what shifts, what is ambiguous. Students build an evidence base before they make any claims.

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Constellation Board

Place images in relation. Find what connects them.

A Warburg-inspired tool for arranging images spatially and discovering the patterns that emerge from adjacency. Students juxtapose works, articulate connections, and build arguments before they are given explanations. The board becomes a visible record of their thinking.

Open tool

Curatewith.art

A class-built, revisitable image bank

A shared archive that the class builds and returns to across a unit or course. Students add images, annotate connections, and revisit earlier entries as their thinking develops. The archive grows with the class and becomes a cumulative reference.

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Attention Heatmap

Make looking visible across a whole class

Students mark where their eye goes first, second, and third on an image. Class results build up visually, making viewing patterns visible and giving everyone something concrete to discuss.

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Lockdown Browser

Soon

Fullscreen exams on your local network, no internet required

A cross-platform desktop app built with Electron. Teachers create exams and host them locally. Students open the app, enter a code, and get locked into a fullscreen exam — no tab-switching, no shortcuts, no escape. Everything runs on your local network.

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Invigilation Clock

Soon

Visible timing and pacing for in-room exams

A display tool for managing exam time in the room. Shows remaining time, marks key intervals, and gives students and the teacher a shared reference throughout the assessment.

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JPEG Degradation

Watch an image lose data every time it is saved

A demonstration tool that makes lossy compression visible. Each time a JPEG is re-saved, it loses data. Run the sequence and watch the image degrade. A provocation for a lesson on what platforms do to images in circulation.

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Research

How should teaching respond when attention is shaped by algorithms?

Students today encounter most information through ranked, adjacent, algorithmically curated surfaces. This project asks whether classroom teaching should work with that logic or against it — and what each choice costs. It is an action research study comparing two instructional models across a single course and class.

Read the research