Online grade books are becoming much more common in schools today. Some teachers like to use online grade books because it easily calculates grades, class averages, and much more. Using paper grade books requires you to calculate manually every average which can allow for error. Teachers who do not like using online grade books say it’s because they are not good with technology or they do not trust that it will properly save. They are nervous about the risk of losing all the grades.
I think that online grade books are a positive piece of technology in schools because it saves teachers a lot of time because they no longer have to calculate grades by hand. The system does it all for you, all you have to do it input the grades that you want to be averages with the corresponding percentage. This system also is always correct, and makes no mathematical errors, which can easily happen when teachers make the calculations by hands.
Online grade books also can make graphs of the class averages to show students where they stand compared to the average of the class. They will be able to observe if they are doing above average, average, or below average. This will allow students to assess their work so far and improve if needed. If they are below the class average they will know to work harder and get extra help if they feel they need it. Paper grade books do not do any of these things for the teacher. If a teacher wanted to show this from her paper grade book she would have to create the graph by hand. Online grade books are also beneficial because once a grade is entered the guidance counselor can pull up a student and see all the grades. This is a good thing because if there is a problem with that student they can call the student down and ask what is going on. Overall, I think that online grade books are a great thing that a school can offer.
I think online grading books are great. My school district had an online grade book system all through my middle and high school years. It was great for both myself and my parents. We could check my grades, see any missing assignments, etc. I also have some professors that use these in college, and I wish even more of them did. My Physics professor using the online grade book from WebAssign which is a great program. It not only gives my grades, averages, and specific weights of the assignments, but it also shows the average of the entire class. It has a bar graph of how many students fall in the A range, B range, C range, etc. I think this is cool because I can see how I compare to my classmates.
ReplyDeleteOn-line gradebooks are indeed a great tool for classrooms. And, if I may, not only because it makes things easy on everyone, but because it allows for quicker feedback to be given to students. One of the biggest problems in classrooms is when teachers neglect to give timely feedback on assignments, which prevents the feedback from being effective because most students forget about their assignments shortly after they are handed in, but given that many teachers are now required to update on-line gradebooks once a week, students are now afforded the opportunity to take full advantage of, and truly learn, from that feedback.
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