Ideas from the north...

["Pierre-Luc Simard" <super4@Garnier.ml.Org>]

Hi,

You've been talking about making a gradebook for a while now... Nice 
Idea but, do we realy want that to be visual? I meen, yes it's look 
like it's more user friendly but when you come to think about it most 
teachers don't want 10 windows open at the same time for the simple 
reason that they don't need that. Let me explain...

I've been working in a secondary school in Quebec (Thats would be the 
equivalent of grade 7 to 11 in the English system). We had until a 
few months ago DOS box everywhere. we used WordPerfect 5.1 and a 
gradebook system made by "Coba". Everything was texte based, worked 
fine and most teachers understood how the thing worked (not to hard 
to understand texte menus). you pressed F7 to print your grade book 
and select your printer. Anyway life was easy and simple. After that 
we installed windows version of software (we received nice Pentium 
233Mhz) that's when life got complicated. Theachers continualy got 
muixed up in the 5 or 6 windows that opened when they start the 
windows version of the gradebook. they entered often got mixed up in 
the numerous windows that openned etc.

So anyway... The onlything that I realy wanted to say is: If you 
REALY want to make the thing VISUAL at lest try not to make it to 
confusing for the everyday-teacher.

Have a nice weekend
Yours

Pierre-Luc Simard
College Saint-Charles-Garnier