Sneak a Peak at My Gradebook!

I have provided you with a link will give you a sneak peak at the gradebook I created online at: http://www.engrade.com/


Click here for a sneak peak at my gradebook:
Engrade / Regents Chemistry / Gradebook


I investigated the free online gradebook, Engrade, from www.engrade.com . Here’s what I liked and disliked about this gradebook:

What I Liked:
* Can drop a students lowest score in any particular category (example: quizzes)
* Can print out grades for individual students so they can see not only their grades but also
any assignments they are missing
* Able to enter extra credit assignments which adds points for students that complete the
assignment but doesn’t penalize those students that do not complete the assignment
* Can excuse a student from an assignment without penalty
* Can enter the letter ‘m’ for a missing assignment and a zero is calculated in
* Can do daily attendance for each class
* Class averages are shown for each assignment
* Can add comments for students – especially helpful to keep track of miscellaneous
information that comes up on a daily and regular basis
* Students and parents can access grades online at any time
* Can upload various types of files, in addition to grades, that parents and students can access
(notes, syllabus, assignments, etc)

What I didn’t like:
* Can not just print for a single assignment, such as a test, all the grades of the students in the
class to post in class for the students to view
* Can not see all students assignments and grades at the same time – only for one student at
a time; this makes it cumbersome to change or modify grades especially if need to modify
multiple grades from multiple students
* All grade recalculations are done in excel which I find very difficult and extremely time
consuming to use (just a personal opinion)

Online gradebook systems can be considered as a useful tool for teachers. Every teacher will have a personal opinion as to which program they prefer and why. All of these gradebooks have pros and cons. Online gradebooks have the advantage of being able to automatically calculate grades which is a huge time saver over handwritten gradebooks. Online gradebooks empowers parents because it allows them access at any time to their child’s grades. Students may or may not like online gradebooks depending on whether or not they are doing well. It does allows them to access their grades at any time so they can see their progess (or lack of) as well as what they are missing.

The school district I work in uses the grading system Integrade Pro. I have used it for five years now and am very comfortable with it. There are a few features available in Engrade that I wish were present in Integrade Pro. These features of Engrade are:
* the ability to allow for extra credit
* entering m in as a grade which signifies a missing assignment and therefore calculates the
grade as a zero
* the ability to drop the lowest score in any assignment category
* allows parent and student access without extra work by teacher