Set up your iPad.
First, go in to the settings app on your iPad and click on the Bluetooth section. Ensure that bluetooth is turned on.
Sometimes there might be a button that says "Allow New Connections" near the bluetooth toggle. If that appears make to sure tap it and confirm you want to allow that.
Once you've confirmed bluetooth is turned on, reopen the TeachScribe app on the iPad. Then, take our microphone and double tap the button on it. The microphone's light should flash red and blue for about 5 seconds.
If the light doesn't flash red and blue for about 5 seconds check the following:
What Happened? | Solution |
A blue light briefly appears once or twice, when you're tapping, or shortly afterwards, but nothing else happens. | The microphone is looking for two taps within 400 milliseconds of each other. If your taps weren't quick enough it will flash a blue light briefly after each tap, but nothing else will happen. The solution is to speed up your double tap. |
No lights appear. | The microphone may be out of battery. Plug it in to charge for 5 minutes and then try again. Also double check you're tapping fast enough as described in the solution above. |
Something else, or the solutions don't fix it. | Please get in touch with support through the live chat or email. |
If the light does flash red and blue though - the next thing to check is that the iPad is detecting it correctly. Double tap the microphone button again and you should see a small banner appear at the bottom of the TeachScribe app on the iPad.
The banner shows that the microphone has successfully communicated with the iPad, and it's battery life. If the microphone battery life is below 40% we'd recommend you charge it.
How to use the microphone to make an observation
You need to press the microphone button down for the duration of your observation. This is because the microphone only records when a button is held down. If you release your finger from the microphone button part way through the observation, it will stop recording. If you just tap the microphone button at the start of the recording, nothing will record at all.
Note: If you release the button accidentally halfway through an observation, press it down again and continue, there's a grace period of about 2 seconds where you can press the button down again and it'll continue the original observation.
Once you have finished speaking your observation, and released your finger from the microphone button, the microphone will transmit your observation to the iPad. You'll see a banner at the bottom of the iPad app which states "Recordings Synced From Microphone".
Then, if you go to the observations list in the app, you'll see an indicator which lets you know an observation is processing.
Once it's finished processing an entry will appear in that observations list. It may take up to a minute for the observation to appear.
What happens when the AI isn't sure of something?
The app may need your help to clarify things when the AI isn't sure about something. In that case it will present you with an entry in the observation list which asks for your help. They could be for things such as when the AI isn't sure what child you mentioned, or isn't sure who it is that's speaking. These list of things needing review can also be accessed through the "Needs Review" tab on the app sidebar.
Whenever the app is asking you to help clarify something, instructions will be provided as to exactly what to do.
How to make sure an observation is tagged against the correct child
TeachScribe determines the what child to tag an observation transcript against by listening out for the child's name within the observation. This means that if you wanted to make an observation about George, you would need to say George's name in the observation.
The AI is smart however, so if you initially make a mistake, or forget to say a child's name, as long as you clarify what you meant at the end of the observation, it will still tag it to the correct child.
For example, the following would be valid observations, and tagged against George:
"George tidied up the toys after he was done playing with them"
"He tidied up the toys after he was done playing with them, oh sorry I meant to say George"
"Jack tidied up the toys after he was done playing with them, oh wait actually whoops it was actually George that did that"
However an invalid observation would be:
"He tidied up the toys after he was done playing with them"
You can also make speak about the activities of more than one child and TeachScribe will generate different observations for each child based on the actvities which they performed.
For example if you said "George was tidying away the toys and oh I can just see Jack and Emily playing with a ball in the playground, he's showing a big improvement in his throwing skills." then three observations would be created.
An observation for George tidying away the toys
An observation for Jack playing with the ball with Emily and how he's shown a big improvement in his throwing skills
An observation about how Emily was playing a ball game with Jack in the playground.
This can be helpful if there's a group activity and you want to record the activities of all the different children at once.
If the AI doesn't know what child to tag the observation transcript to, it'll add the transcript to the "needs review list" and you will be able to manually assign it to one or more children later on.
How detailed do observations need to be?
You should include as much detail as you think best in an observation. The use of AI doesn't change anything in that sense. As always though, it paints a fuller picture of a child's activities when observations contain enough detail, and this will help the AI link it to the correct goals and summarise it.
Does it matter if I make a mistake while recording?
No, it doesn't matter if you make a mistake while recording, it can easily be recovered from, you can either:
Stop the recording by taking your finger off the push to talk button on the microphone for 5 seconds, and then pressing the button down and starting a new observation from scratch
Or you can correct yourself as you go (which is probably easier)
For example, if you say:
"George was playing with the fire engine set and set off the fire alarm before pushing the fire engine out of the station, oh wait no sorry i meant that he beeped the horn on the toy fire station"
Then the AI will determine that what actually happened was that George was playing with the fire engine set and beeped the horn on the toy fire station before pushing the fire engine out of the station. It won't include the mistake about saying he set off the fire alarm.
You should wait 5 seconds between different observations so we can determine that it is in fact a different observation.
If an observation with a mistake does get through, you can edit the observation or you can delete the observation. More details on how to edit or delete an observation can be found here.