Surfboard vs MidMando

* Overview * Can you imagine a Field Experience program that requires no administration, improves learning and retention, plus prints your end of year reports in a single click?  What about one that doesn’t use spreadsheets, the honor system, or waste ridiculous amounts of time?  We did… and that’s not even the best part. It’s free to try. It’s inexpensive to run. It’s up and running at your school in 5 minutes. * Summary of the Program * 1. The Surfboard is setup for the University. 2. Student downloads the Surfboard from the App Store. 3. Student self-registers on the App. 4. Student scans a unique University QR Code. 5. Student chooses their Class. 6. Student chooses their Placement. 7. Student carries phone on visit to Placement. 8. Professor tracks the Student’s progress during the semester. 9. Placement reports are filed at the end of the semester. * Life without the Surfboard * Honor System - Students manually keep track of their time and compile their own reports. At the very best, this is time consuming and leads to errors. At the worst, this leads to dishonesty and a lack of proper training. Mentor System - Professors burden the Mentors with being babysitters for the Students. Along with trying to be Teachers, Mentors are tasked with keeping logs, providing updates, and producing the end of semester reporting. Partial System - Schools implement partial measures that meet some but not all of their requirements. This usually results in inaccurate, time consuming reports, typically requiring Spreadsheets, Mentors, and Students to produce them. * Life with the Surfboard * Accountability - Students are held accountable for their visits, which means they actually go and learn from their Mentors. Retention - Teachers know immediately when a Student is falling behind, which leads to an earlier intervention and a higher retention rate. Accreditation - Administrators can have confidence that their Teachers are running a credible Field Experience Program. Tracking is effective, reporting is comprehensive, and the benefits to the Student are real. * Positive Impact at All Levels * Administrators want a modern University that embraces technology. Students don’t want to go to a school that fills out paper logs and spreadsheets. Professors care about their Student’s education. They want to spend more time teaching and less time doing administration. The Surfboard frees up time and enforces learning. Students love the Surfboard. Students have given the App a near perfect rating and tons of positive feedback. They love checking their progress and knowing how they’re doing. Mentors enjoy being a part of the learning process for the Students… and that’s it. They shouldn’t be involved in the administration of your field experience program. * Security * Controlled Access - Only Authorized Faculty are granted access to a Class and a Student’s Placement Activity. Delayed Reporting - Placement activity is never reported when in-progress and completed placements are intentionally delayed. Plus, only dates are visible to Professors. Limited Tracking - Placement activity is only recorded in predefined windows. Under normal schedules, this means no tracking on weekends and after-hours. Student Control - The Student accepts and has full control over all tracking. They authorize and accept the placement and can end it at any time. * Full-Service Solution * We create and configure each class, minimizing the time required to get the program started. We create each location with an expertly placed geofence for optimal tracking of visits. We add the user accounts, restricting access to the classes being administered that period.

MidMando is a free Mandarin course for iPhone and iPad. It takes you from your first character to HSK 9, with a daily plan that fits your day and a memory that never lets a word slip away. There are no ads, no subscription, no account and nothing to unlock. It is free because the best Mandarin app should not cost anything. What we ask instead is that you tell us how to make it better. YOUR DAILY PLAN Open the app and today is ready: the word of the day, the next class in your course, the words you bookmarked, the words you met outside the course, a review of what is slipping, and the pairs you keep mixing up. Choose a plan of five words or fifty. Miss a day and it is still there tomorrow. ONE CARD, FIVE WAYS Every word is asked five ways: read it, give its meaning, pick its tone, hear it, write it. New words are asked by reading until you know them, then the other skills join in. A MEMORY THAT WORKS Spaced repetition schedules every word from your answers. Words you keep getting right drift out to months. Words you miss come straight back. Your progress page shows how many words are solid, warming and shaky at every level. THE WHOLE COURSE 11,323 words across HSK 1 to 9, in short classes of about fifteen. Each class has nine parts: learn, quiz, type, sentences, listening, tones, translation, write, and a test that unlocks the next class. The HSK Levels screen shows every character you have met, coloured by how well you know it, at whichever of three scales you want: the whole course, one level, or one class. EVERY WORD HAS A PAGE Tap any word anywhere: the character in large serif, the reading with audio, every meaning, example sentences, words it is not the same as, tone traps, the pieces it is built from and your own history with it. TRANSLATE ANYTHING Paste a message, a menu, a lyric or a sign. You get the Chinese, the pinyin, the English, and a list of the words you have not met, ready to add to your plan. Everything you translate is kept with the new words underlined so you can read it again. THE LIBRARY Radicals and components: 514 pieces and 201 radicals from the national standards, with lessons in the order you need them. Every character in the app can be taken apart. Idioms and sayings: 5,187 of them, with the literal reading, the meaning, the story and an example. Pin the ones you like and they join your plan. Poems: 127 classical poems with pinyin and a plain English line beside every Chinese line. Provinces: all 34, with the number-plate character, the capital and who lives there. Slang and texting: the words people actually type, with the register explained. Songs: 66 Chinese songs ordered by how many of the words you already know, with a lyric sheet you fill in yourself and a karaoke mode. Teacher: keep your classes and students if you teach. SEARCH EVERYTHING One search box for words, idioms, poems, songs, places and your own history, in English, pinyin or Chinese. STREAKS AND ACHIEVEMENTS A calendar of every day you studied and 155 achievements that mark the milestones. YOURS, EVERYWHERE Everything works offline. Your progress syncs through your own iCloud to your other iPhones and iPads; we never see it. Works in mainland China without a VPN. I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU There is a report-a-bug button on almost every screen and a feedback page on our site. Every message is read by the person who makes the app.