Week-12 Reflections put to the test

This week focused on assessment and on grading software. The image above is a screen capture of a sample page from engrade.com electronic grade book software. The evaluation provided here fulfills assignment A6EES to critique that software. First let me say that I am not a teacher, and have never used a gradebook, so this was my first exposure to one, albeit electronic. I thought the 12 minute video demonstration on the website was clear, concise, and explained the features well for both teachers and students. I created a free account then tried the software including creating a sample class, adding students, grade categories, weightings, and grades. Afterwards, I signed in as a sample student, read the grade report, and sent an message to the teacher. Finally, I signed back on as the teacher, received the message, reviewed the grades again, exported them to a spreadsheet and archived them. In all cases, I found the software to work well, have an intuitive feel, and to format the data in a common sense way. At one point I entered grades but did not see them show up. As it turns out I failed to click on the "Save Assignment" key. I could easily see using this tool in a real class to record student grades. I like the "Archive" feature that lets the teachers save past classes. I found the Extra Credit feature took a little getting used to, but worked well. Extra Credit can be awarded as EC assignments, or can be added to the grade of a regular assignment. The reports exported nicely to Excel as well. A nice optional feature allows the teacher to receive email notification of messages sent via engrade to the teacher from parents and students. As a parent, I very much like the idea that I would be able to regularly check my child's grades instead of waiting for report cards or contacting the teacher. Engrade emphasizes the security of the software, however one reservation I have with this tool is that engrade.com does not automatically sign off when the web browser is closed. A teacher would need to be disciplined about signing out before closing the web browser. Otherwise, an unauthorized user with access to the teacher's computer can easily change grades. Overall, I would say this is a very nice piece of software, with 5 years of field testing, that requires that everyone (teachers, students, and parents) remain alert and vigilant.

This week we also reviewed the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) 2008 National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS-T). In our collaborative groups we reviewed each standard and performance indicator and considered the applicability to each of our assignments this semester. We then build a matrix on our Group Wiki cross referencing the standards with our assignments with included reflections.

As mentioned at the onset of this week's reflection, our focus was to be on assessments. I found the emphasis on assessment to support learning to be a valuable refresher. However, I found it overwhelming to have 15 readings and videos, 5 written assignments, and preparation for a PPT presentation all assigned in a single week late in the semester while also trying to put together at least 3 semester long projects for this class.

A final word on assessment -- I feel it is a matter of basic fairness to be clear with students regarding how they're learning will be evaluated. Paradoxically, I remain perplexed regarding the assessment scheme for this course.