The October 2020 meeting of FMburgh, the Pittsburgh FileMaker Developer Group, took place on Wednesday, October 7. Since the state and national health directives related to COVID-19 encouraged social distancing when possible, the meeting was held in an online-only format.
We welcomed our own Thomas Waters and his colleagues Karen Pater and Kris Schonder from the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy to the virtual podium for the evening’s presentation, “Using FileMaker as a Workplace Innovation Platform in Higher Education”. They gave us a preview of their session for the 2020 Assessment Institute hosted by IUPUI which took place at the end of October.
Student engagement in co-curriculum activities is essential to their professional development. It can be challenging, however, to quantify student experiences and the skills they gain through activities performed outside the curriculum. This presentation described the development of a web app using the FileMaker Platform as a way to engage students to manage their own professional development while tracking activities and skills gained through the co-curriculum.
As is our custom, we opened the floor for additional discussion following the official presentation. While this meeting marked FMburgh’s eighth anniversary, everyone had to provide their own cake and ice cream (or Dairy Queen ice cream cake) since we were unable to meet in-person to celebrate.