Jake Samuelson found himself a little chagrined at some of the repetitive tasks that kept occupying his time in the classes he taught. Creating groups of students for projects, cold calling, timers, instant topic generation—he began to wonder if there was a better, more efficient way to manage these common classroom functions. This prompted him to start work on a small passion project that has eventually bloomed into “Class Action,” a free classroom management app that has just won him the American Association of Law Libraries’ Innovations in Technology Award.
Samuelson, a Legal Information Librarian and Lecturer who teaches Legal Research at BC Law, started with the basics and kept building the app iteratively into its current form with a clean, easy-to-use interface that a professor can keep open while teaching, using its functions whenever needed.
The app has gained fans around the country for its utility in facilitating a class session. “I’ve always had trouble keeping track of what works and what needs improvement in a specific lesson,” shared Chris Collins, a law librarian at the Joseph F. Rice School of Law at the University of South Carolina. “Class Action streamlines this process so I can easily record feedback and notes to myself.” Collins also praised the live question inbox function of the app, which has been successful in getting more questions out of students otherwise reluctant to ask in the classroom setting.
The app, available in a web browser or a downloadable app, is free to use for any teachers. Asked about the decision to keep it free, Samuelson was frank about his reasoning. “When I was developing it, one of the AI tools I was using to code suggested I should charge teachers for it. That’s when I knew it had to be free.”
The app is currently tailored for legal research, but Samuelson continues work on it to make it adaptable to law classes more generally.