Oh, the dreaded task of any educator: grading papers and entering grades in a gradebook. Even more dreaded is the calculation of final grades. Do I count my tests twice or not? How do I weight this project over regular homework assignments?
You can purchase expensive software to do this for you. Or, you can look into the many free online gradebook programs.
My personal favorite is SnapGrades, which is super easy to use and is very reliable. Reports can be printed for parents showing each individual assignment and grade for each. This makes conferences simpler and allows parents to see where Junior is messing up. An individual, school, or school system can pay for SnapGrades and get even more features, including the ability for parents and students to have their own passwords to look at their individual assignments and grades. A middle school in our system successfully used this system; parents were very responsive to the ability to check their child's assignments at any given time. I did not pay for this feature, but often printed reports for parents who requested them.
The state of North Carolina has been moving toward a uniform gradebook system for all of its schools, and our county was initiated last year. In the 08-09 school year, we only used NCWise for attendance. The teacher went in and selected absent or late for the necessary students, checked "attendance complete" and was done. Now, our grade 3-5 teachers are using NCWise as a gradebook program as well. While it is nice to have everything in one tidy place, NCWise's gradebook function is by no means as user-friendly as many other options. Setting up a gradebook is probably the most difficult part; after that it is simply remembering how each step must be done. The protocol for NCWise is very picky, and does not appreciate people trying to do things out of order or from the wrong screen. If a person who is fairly capable of manipulating most online gradebooks has to use the how-to video for a software, it is probably poorly designed.
This video was made by S. Anderson, the tech guru of Stoke County Schools that I bow to at least once per week.
At any rate, it is required and I am becoming accustomed. I just loathe leaving a wonderful program for one I feel is not the best. However, as NCWise becomes a more regular part of my day, I tend to get along with it more. I only wish I could access it from my home computer, which was the whole point of moving toward using this system. I have a Linux-based OS, and NCWise does not have the supports necessary to work with this OS. Our tech support said it could be forced to work on a Mac, but Linux users are simply out of luck. So much for doing all my grading at home in front of the TV--but on the up side, I do leave more work at school this way.
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