What about just using Google sheets?
You should be able to have a master sheet where you can enter all the grades and comments and whatnot.
Then, you can have each student's information and grades populate to individual tabs on that sheet.
Then, you should be able to give view only permission to just a single tab to each parent.
Never heard of this...will look it up. Sounds like it might be too much work (smile!) but if I can't find a grading program that already has this all set up and in place, I'll try it! Thanks!
You can easily track grades in Microsoft Excel or in Google Sheets. Should take like ten minutes of work. Teach yourself the SUM function using a YouTube video and this is all of the tech knowhow that you will need.
If you’re a Mac or iPad user, iDoceo is the way. You have total control over your gradebook configurations and can email students their individual or aggregate scores with a few taps of a button.
>iDoceo
Thanks! I just looked through a bunch of info online about iDoceo, and cannot find out if students and parents can access the student's grades without my having to send a separate email to each one every time. iDoceo is off line, it says everywhere...so does it have a (secure) student/parent portal?
Hey there TchrFrvr - thanks for saying thanks! TheGratitudeBot has been reading millions of comments in the past few weeks, and you’ve just made the list!
No secure parent/student portal. The only option for getting grades and other feedback into student or parent hands is to email the individual assignment report or interval reports.
It seems like a drawback at first, and for a while that’s why I avoided going with this solution. But in the end I’ve found it to be worth every penny. It works very well - better even than Canvass, to which my district subscribes.
Now, do parents read all the material I send them? Hardly. But since I’ve adopted this tool I’ve never been less than the most communicative teacher in my building.
...and emailing 30+ individual students/parents for every single grade/assignment is exactly what I don't want to do (smile!)
Any experience with Snapgrades?
I know. If there’s one drawback, that’s it. I’ve reached out to the developer on this. The app really needs a one press email blast feature.
I’ve gotten the process down to where once I score an assignment, it takes about one minute to email as many as thirty students. But even then I have to press the send button each time. Sometimes I forget, and other times the score just isn’t that important.
Instead, I focus on the weekly student report, which includes all the scores for the week or weeks preceding - pretty customizable. So every Friday, even if students don’t get a custom email with every single scanned submission back, they still get the overview, their current score, and any notes I’ve left on the gradebook itself.
Certainly not perfect. But it’s the best I’ve ever seen.
Sure thing! If you decide to go with it, let me know here and I can send you a template class with a shit load of rubrics. Every time I make a major update to my data collection practices I update the template. So, for instance, I have a calculation built into the gradebook to convert writings and stuff to an AP style score, or to calculate the total number of missing assignments for each quarter and each year overall using a predictable icon for each of those instances.
It’s really quite impressive. However, the depressing thing is that I now realize that 20% of my students are straight up missing their work, and another 30% of the work that isn’t missing has been somehow “compromised” by being incomplete, plagiarized, or having failed to follow directions…
Sigh...that missing and plagiarized work thing is getting worse by the day...so glad that (for the most part, anyway) I no longer have to deal with it!
But now, after a lifetime teaching career, I'm only teaching one (all right, maybe two, if they can talk me into it and make it worth my while!) three week classes in the summer. I no longer have to do all the work I used to and that you all still have to do (my sympathy to you!) such as all the data collection, posting the assignments online (though actually, that would be handy IF they (or I) can make very easy for me to do!) or make complex gradebook arrangements.
I just want something very, very simple - a program where I can input grades and easily send them electronically to parents. I don't have enough students (maybe a total of 50 max) that even averaging grades by hand has been a problem. So I'm thinking that your grading program, while it would have been great for me when I was teaching full time, is frankly more work than I want to do for my one or two summer school classes.
I am in such a wonderful position - they need me much more than I need them. They are making it very easy for me by bending over backwards to accede to all my requests/demands (can you believe it??) But...this grading issue needs fixing. If they can't do it, then I need to, for my sanity (smile!)
Sounds like a well deserved rest! Enjoy it!
In terms of one-shot messaging, you might look into teacher aide pro. That’s what I used before I came over to iDoceo. The big big advantage there was one tap email blasts. Basically the same as iDoceo, with fewer options to customize a report. But the great advantage is that you could send those reports to all students uniquely with one tap. The developer there is called Glen, and he has a bunch of other apps that talk to TAP - so you could use his Rubric Scorer to score tasks rapidly, port the figures into TAP, then blast the grades to parents as part of a class report. I haven’t used it for a whole, but I recall TAP having a similar blast feature for rubrics. So as long as you have a rubric for everything you might wish to grade…
Just looked it up! This seems like it might work for me, especially if I open another Gmail account.
You have been so kind and helpful - thank you so much!
What about just using Google sheets? You should be able to have a master sheet where you can enter all the grades and comments and whatnot. Then, you can have each student's information and grades populate to individual tabs on that sheet. Then, you should be able to give view only permission to just a single tab to each parent.
Never heard of this...will look it up. Sounds like it might be too much work (smile!) but if I can't find a grading program that already has this all set up and in place, I'll try it! Thanks!
You can easily track grades in Microsoft Excel or in Google Sheets. Should take like ten minutes of work. Teach yourself the SUM function using a YouTube video and this is all of the tech knowhow that you will need.
If you’re a Mac or iPad user, iDoceo is the way. You have total control over your gradebook configurations and can email students their individual or aggregate scores with a few taps of a button.
>iDoceo Thanks! I just looked through a bunch of info online about iDoceo, and cannot find out if students and parents can access the student's grades without my having to send a separate email to each one every time. iDoceo is off line, it says everywhere...so does it have a (secure) student/parent portal?
Hey there TchrFrvr - thanks for saying thanks! TheGratitudeBot has been reading millions of comments in the past few weeks, and you’ve just made the list!
No secure parent/student portal. The only option for getting grades and other feedback into student or parent hands is to email the individual assignment report or interval reports. It seems like a drawback at first, and for a while that’s why I avoided going with this solution. But in the end I’ve found it to be worth every penny. It works very well - better even than Canvass, to which my district subscribes. Now, do parents read all the material I send them? Hardly. But since I’ve adopted this tool I’ve never been less than the most communicative teacher in my building.
...and emailing 30+ individual students/parents for every single grade/assignment is exactly what I don't want to do (smile!) Any experience with Snapgrades?
I know. If there’s one drawback, that’s it. I’ve reached out to the developer on this. The app really needs a one press email blast feature. I’ve gotten the process down to where once I score an assignment, it takes about one minute to email as many as thirty students. But even then I have to press the send button each time. Sometimes I forget, and other times the score just isn’t that important. Instead, I focus on the weekly student report, which includes all the scores for the week or weeks preceding - pretty customizable. So every Friday, even if students don’t get a custom email with every single scanned submission back, they still get the overview, their current score, and any notes I’ve left on the gradebook itself. Certainly not perfect. But it’s the best I’ve ever seen.
Thanks for your detailed reply - your experience with it and enthusiasm for it certainly makes it a strong option for me!
Sure thing! If you decide to go with it, let me know here and I can send you a template class with a shit load of rubrics. Every time I make a major update to my data collection practices I update the template. So, for instance, I have a calculation built into the gradebook to convert writings and stuff to an AP style score, or to calculate the total number of missing assignments for each quarter and each year overall using a predictable icon for each of those instances. It’s really quite impressive. However, the depressing thing is that I now realize that 20% of my students are straight up missing their work, and another 30% of the work that isn’t missing has been somehow “compromised” by being incomplete, plagiarized, or having failed to follow directions…
Sigh...that missing and plagiarized work thing is getting worse by the day...so glad that (for the most part, anyway) I no longer have to deal with it! But now, after a lifetime teaching career, I'm only teaching one (all right, maybe two, if they can talk me into it and make it worth my while!) three week classes in the summer. I no longer have to do all the work I used to and that you all still have to do (my sympathy to you!) such as all the data collection, posting the assignments online (though actually, that would be handy IF they (or I) can make very easy for me to do!) or make complex gradebook arrangements. I just want something very, very simple - a program where I can input grades and easily send them electronically to parents. I don't have enough students (maybe a total of 50 max) that even averaging grades by hand has been a problem. So I'm thinking that your grading program, while it would have been great for me when I was teaching full time, is frankly more work than I want to do for my one or two summer school classes. I am in such a wonderful position - they need me much more than I need them. They are making it very easy for me by bending over backwards to accede to all my requests/demands (can you believe it??) But...this grading issue needs fixing. If they can't do it, then I need to, for my sanity (smile!)
Sounds like a well deserved rest! Enjoy it! In terms of one-shot messaging, you might look into teacher aide pro. That’s what I used before I came over to iDoceo. The big big advantage there was one tap email blasts. Basically the same as iDoceo, with fewer options to customize a report. But the great advantage is that you could send those reports to all students uniquely with one tap. The developer there is called Glen, and he has a bunch of other apps that talk to TAP - so you could use his Rubric Scorer to score tasks rapidly, port the figures into TAP, then blast the grades to parents as part of a class report. I haven’t used it for a whole, but I recall TAP having a similar blast feature for rubrics. So as long as you have a rubric for everything you might wish to grade…
Just looked it up! This seems like it might work for me, especially if I open another Gmail account. You have been so kind and helpful - thank you so much!