The document summarizes research on the Student Activity Meter (SAM), a tool to provide awareness of student activity for self-monitoring and teaching purposes. Through iterative design and evaluations, SAM was found to enable detection of students doing well/at risk, provide course overviews, understand time spent, and find new insights. Visualizations were powerful for awareness but real-world settings and tracking data were challenges. Overall, SAM contributed to better awareness and was perceived as useful.