Everything Classroom Diaries does
Record a lesson, transcribe it on your Mac, pull out what you taught and publish it to the class’s Google Doc. Here is everything along the way.
Record the classroom or the call
Each class remembers whether it’s taught in the room or online. In person, Classroom Diaries records your Mac’s microphone. For an online lesson it also records the call’s sound, so both you and your student are in one recording. You can also import audio you recorded somewhere else, such as on your phone.
- Online lessons tested on FaceTime calls, with both sides recorded
- Live notes and a Unit field while you teach
- A recording limit per class (100 minutes by default) with a countdown before it stops
- Hide a recording and keep working on other lessons
- Your Mac stays awake while recording, and a recording survives a crash or an accidental quit
Transcribed on your Mac
Transcription uses Apple’s on-device speech recognition, so your lesson audio never leaves your Mac. On macOS 26 and later it uses the same long-form engine as Voice Memos, with punctuation. Earlier versions of macOS use Apple’s older recognizer, which works but is less complete.
- English (US) transcription
- Several lessons can transcribe at the same time
- Tells you when a recording has no speech in it
- macOS 26 or later
- Apple’s long-form on-device engine, with punctuation
- macOS 14.2 to 15
- Apple’s earlier on-device recognizer
- Where it runs
- On your Mac
Only what you actually taught
Classroom Diaries sends the transcript text to Anthropic’s Claude, using your own API key, and gets back four lists: vocabulary, corrections, pronunciation and grammar. The prompt keeps to the items you taught on purpose or a student asked about, not every advanced word that came up in conversation. It also writes the lesson’s subject line, such as “6A Reading & Grammar pg 31-32”.
- Claude Haiku by default; Sonnet and Opus can be chosen in Settings
- The cost of each extraction is shown, usually a cent or two per hour-long lesson
- Notes you typed during the lesson count as priority terms
- Retries on its own when Anthropic’s service is busy
- Vocabulary
- Corrections
- Pronunciation
- Grammar
Plus a subject line under the date, which you can edit.
Your prompt, your classes
The extraction prompt is yours to edit, with a version history and a reset to the default. Each class can add its own guidance on top, starting from one of six templates, and a live preview shows the combined prompt. The class’s CEFR level (A1 to C2) is passed along as context.
- Coursebooks per class shape the subject line: unit codes, numbered books, named lessons or conversation
- Unit codes are checked against the transcript and never guessed
- A Unit typed while you teach always wins
One entry, in the right place
Sign in with Google once and link each class to its Doc. Publish inserts a formatted entry at its date: the date as a heading, the bold subject line, vocabulary in aligned columns, and each category in its own colour. Re-Publish replaces only that entry. The app never edits or deletes anything else in the Doc.
- A duplicate-date check stops double entries
- Copy to clipboard works with or without Google
- Cancelled classes can be published as “Canceled Early” or “Canceled Late”
The small things that add up
-
Lesson history per class
Every class keeps its history, with publish status and time, even after the audio and transcript are gone.
-
Re-extract any time
Improved your prompt? Re-run the extraction on a saved transcript. The audio and transcript stay as they are.
-
Move lessons between classes
Recorded under the wrong class? Move the recording or the lesson where it belongs.
-
Retention you control
Recordings delete themselves after 30 days by default. Transcripts and history have their own settings, and any class can be stricter.
-
Keys in your Keychain
Your Anthropic API key and Google sign-in are stored in the macOS Keychain, never in the app’s own files.
-
Signed and notarized
Developer ID signed and notarized by Apple. No analytics, no crash reporting, no accounts.
Planned Search across lesson historyExport to JSON or CSVA retry queue for Doc writesAn iPhone recording companion
Classroom Diaries is an independent app and is not affiliated with, endorsed or sponsored by Apple Inc. Mac and macOS are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.