Re: [seul-edu] grade book project

[Gerald Logan <glogan@mail.telusplanet.net>]

I suggest two student ids.  We often need to track the local student

id and the government student id.

Many report card systems allow for the importing of comments in the
form of text or a report code.  This would be useful, as would the
export file design.  Generally tab delimited works fine, but
flexibility is important in terms of fields to be exported and field

order. I am a GUI addict and I like the Filemaker ease of use for
creating reports and import and export files.

I have worked with a few systems and like the idea of setting up a
flexible system that allows the teacher to decide how the system
works for them.  Basically I have found teachers who like:

a.  categories to be test, labs, essays and final exam ( more often
high school)
b.  units, which include every mark associated with a theme and all
of varying weights, all tied in with year end or midterm exams.
(more
often Elementary or Junior High)

I also support the separation of the teacher app. and the web based
repoting app.  I think an export to web button would take care of
the
uploading to a web server, and would be as user proof as you could
get.  This paired with the idea of a publish column would solve the
problem of marks being recorded before deadlines and showing 0's for

the rest of the class.

Grade book programs should also be able to default to a 0 that is
included in the mark, or a 0 that is not counted in the average.
Some programs use a NA (not applicable) or NTI (not turned in) for
the mark that is not to be considered a zero.  Absent is also an
option.

We used CSL Marks for years and they had a nice way of creating a
column, and having it represent another spreadsheet.  Each column's
weight could be adjusted on the fly.  As a teacher I was horrible at

getting the weighting right, I was changing these until I had to
report the marks to the office.  I was tweaking for the perfect
average with the right distribution.

>hello,
>
>i created a new folder for "grade book project" and am dumping all
>e-mails from the list to it (that concern gradebook).  each monday,

>i'll publish the abstract of ALL requests/specs in the folder to
the
>list, hoping the list will make sure i don't inadvertently drop
>something.  i will also attempt to impose order on the abstract,
>hoping my mistakes in doing so will be noted by the list.
>
>over this weekend,  i am finishing a guide for a student crew (high

>school age) to edit gutenberg texts for audio production as audio
>cds and .mp3s why isn't that good enough for blue linux :-)
>
>has anyone tried out time machine / war of worlds at
>http://www.engima.com ?  does it absloutely stink ?  am i (are we)
>the only people in the world that think this is neat ?
>
>after pinocchio, we're doing the south pole journals, so hands off
>that one !  (i.e. please help us do audio books of entire
>gutenberg).
>
>i'm going to learn about blue linux now. (because i LIKE blue).
>
>just a note - jazzfest is coming up (here in the big easy) and we
>are doing a number of streaming broadcast, working with wwoz the
>non-profit jazz station here.  i hope one day k-12 concerts and
>student plays will be broadcast this way.  i think you could burn
>cds of the concerts/plays and raise money for the school.  i also
>think lecture materials might be done this way.
>
>we have been doing streaming broadcasts for about two years - it
>works great.
>does that idea stink ? not that we'd stop - too high on the fun
>quotient to give up.
>
>you guys are fun.
>
>mike eschman, etc...


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