The Morren Gazette · No. 01 · Edinburgh · Apr 2026
THIRTY YEARS OF teaching, BUILT INTO small software.
I’m Mark Morren. Royal Academy saxophonist, then teacher, head of house, Apple PLS — and now Digital Development Officer for the City of Edinburgh Council, building tools that earn a teacher’s five minutes.
City of Edinburgh Council
Apple Professional Learning
EST.
1993 · Royal Academy of Music
BASED
Edinburgh, Scotland
I show up, notice what isn’t working, and make it a little better.
Teaching taught me this: the problem is rarely the technology. It’s the five minutes you lose looking for the right tab, or the spreadsheet that won’t print.
My career has moved from music performance, to the classroom, to senior leadership, to Apple Professional Learning, and now to a council-wide digital role in Edinburgh. The throughline has been the same: listen to the person in front of you, then build the smallest thing that helps.
Everything on this site started with a real conversation — a teacher at break, a depute head at 4pm, a colleague on Teams. Nothing here is platform-shaped. It’s all pocket-sized.
morren.uk is a personal project. It is independent of and not affiliated with the City of Edinburgh Council or any other employer.
The work
six entries · April 2026Visual TT
A classroom timetable that moves forward on its own — every learner can see it on their own device, by scanning a QR code.
Built after a Support for Learning teacher in Edinburgh asked for something she could customise for one learner managing the day. No log-in. No app. Works on the network the school already has.
Teachers set the day in about a minute — drag the periods in, add a picture, pick the pace. The class follows along on iPads, a laptop, or the projector. When a period ends, the next one comes up on its own.


SfL Tracker
A single file that replaces the spreadsheet nobody wanted to open. Prints cleanly. Works offline.
A small, focused tool for Support for Learning co-ordinators to keep track of targets, reviews and conversations across a caseload. Opens in any browser, saves on the teacher’s own laptop, and — when the paperwork asks for it — prints onto a single side of A4 per learner.
No sign-in, no subscription, no server. One file you can email to yourself. When the laptop gets replaced, the file comes with it.
iPad Dashboard
A Jamf Pro CSV, actually readable. Compliance, battery, devices near end-of-life — on one page a head teacher will actually look at.
Jamf Pro will give you a long export of every iPad in the estate. This turns that CSV into a dashboard a network lead can send upstairs — total devices, compliance, average battery, check-in ages, and a clear flag for any iPads Apple no longer supports.
Built to be boring. No log-in, no animation, no charts that wobble on load. Drop the CSV in, get the summary out, send the PDF, move on.


LC Task Tracker
A quiet place for learning-community work — the visits, the coaching, the CLPL logs — without the admin weight.
Built for digital-development work with Learning Communities across Edinburgh. School visits, coaching, INSET, DPIA tasks — each one logged against a school and a learning community, with notes, follow-ups, and mileage for the year end.
The design goal was invisibility. Add a task, move on. Export to Excel or OneNote when you need to report; otherwise the tool stays out of the way.
Class Points
Award a point in two taps. The leaderboard updates instantly — on every device in the room, including the projector.
Built for the moment a teacher wants to recognise good work without stopping the lesson. Pick the pupil, tap the point — that’s it. A separate board view runs on the classroom display and refreshes on its own. No app, no printer, no paper.
Teachers share a class with a colleague without any fuss. Co-teach support is built in: invite a second teacher, and both can award points from their own device at the same time.





Thirty years, roughly.
1993 — 2026— Education, music, early teaching
— Senior leadership, Apple, Edinburgh
Get in touch.
If you’re a teacher, a depute, a council, or anyone who thinks a tool here might help — please email me. I answer everything, usually the same evening.
For TestFlight access to StoryBuilder, or private builds of the trackers, a quick line is the fastest way.
[email protected] →