An Engaging Online Gradebook Suite

I know this post is not relevant to computer-assisted language teaching, but I thought this will help educators like me to manage their gradebooks easily and in a secure environment.

I have heard of engrade a while before from many educators on my PLN like twitter, Classroom2.0 … . So now I decided to give it try as I was concerned about the continuity, sustainability, security, and privacy of engrade since it is free for educators ( we always have the feeling that free means insecure:)

The interface of engrade is great and it really engages the teacher, student, and parents in the ongoing student assessment. Teachers can have students and their parents see their grades on engrade by supplying them with student access only. In addition to its excellent computational assistance of grade averages, engrade enables teachers to :

upload files for students and parents
comment on a particular student’s academic progress for students and parents to see, as an ongoing evaluation. This makes parents more envolved in their children’s academic endeavours.
Construct classes as much as they need
send direct messages to parents/students

Engrade website has a great demo video for those who consider using their services, click to view the demo before you proceed reading:)

Here is another registration demo screen casted by an educator.

OK Then, What about Security, Sustainability, and Privacy?

Website says that thousands of teachers have used it and not a single breach was reported. They claim that their servers are secure and that website will continue to be free. The people behind the website also claim that teachers’ classes and grades are absolutely private. How about that :) . You can access their security policy here and their privacy policy here.

Teachers and administrators should be cautious though as to keep their passwords secure and change them once in a while.

I was informed by my educators on my PLN that they have used engrade for quite a time now and that it is secure, safe, and engages parents and students in students’ assessment.

Try it and tell me what you think! If you had the chance to try engrade before, please do share your experience to inform us.

I will definitely go paperless this year and use engrade for a change from Excel and Microsoft’s free Classroomgradebook.

Comments

Have You Ever Died of PowerPoint Presentations?

Today I had the privilege to attend a so-called workshop on Teacher Anger Management. The presenter holds a PhD in educational psychology and has been conducting workshops and training sessions for many years. What made the workshop unusually tedious and droning was how the presenter used PowerPoint as a tool to replace him. I mean, here is a PhD holder in educational psychology and an experienced teacher trainer, yet he does not have any clue on effective presentation, regardless of the presence of a visual aid such as the PowerPoint. He clearly didn’t have a clue on the basics of multimedia theories and practices. If he had ever read anything in terms of working memory and long term memory and the effect of the verbal and visual channels on the attendees’ minds, he would’ve definitely revamped his presentation and restructured his workshop. At the end of the workshop, teachers said that they learned one important thing from the workshop: Not to use this type of PowerPoi...

Moodle 2 Interactive Tool Guide for Teachers

Moodle has been at the forefront of online learning for learning institutions. And, since it is open source, and free for all, it is common that the community that benefit from Moodle to give back in various ways. One such help comes in Moodle Tool Guide for Teachers. It was first done by Joyce Seitzinger , and then adapted to Moodle 2 by Sue Harper. I have added the feature of interactivity to the guide however. By adding videos to the tool, anyone who wants to learn how to use any tool can just click on the interactive layer and watch the video. I surely hope this helps teachers learn Moodle tools easily and know how each tool affords different learning outcome. I will hopefully later add more interactivity in terms of instructional design, such as Bloom's taxonomy, assessing learning etc.

The 4 E model for Pedagogical Technology

If you look at the image on the left, you will notice the four key components of technology integration, what Collis & moonen (2002) refer to as key components of “flexible learning in a digital world”. The components ( institution, implementation, pedagogy, and technology ) are nested in each other, which means that each depends on and feeds from the other. The approach for the flexible learning can be seen in a top-down, that institution-wide to technological aspect, or in a bottom-up, that is from the technological aspect all the way up to the institution. The 4 E Model as a Guide: Collis & Moonen suggest a 4 E model that will guide anyone who wants to integrate flexible learning in each and all key components E ase of use E nvironment Personal E ngagement E ducational E ffectiveness Now, I will not go into details of the activity-flexibility abstract framework and its U pedagogical approach. All I want to focus on here is how the 4 E model would guide th...

Technology-Enhanced Learning

Search This Blog