Engrade.com Evaluation
On a scale from 1(worst) - 10 (best), I give Engrade.com an 8.5. No matter what content area a teacher specializes in, Engrade.com can assist educators with their gradekeeping, attendance, announcing upcoming events, and allowing teacher-student messaging. Any teacher will find it time consuming to use their gradeslider to find what the grade would be for a student who scored 17 points out of a possible 40 on a Math test. Then the teacher must take that grade and input it in her/his gradebook. At the end of the quarter, the teacher must add up all the Math grades and come up with an average. For one student, this may take a total of five minutes, possibly. Now multiple that by 150 students! A teacher may spend up to 12.5 hours computing a classes' quarter grade. That is insane! It's no wonder why some teachers are burnt-out by their second year of teaching. With Engrade.com, cut the 12.5 hours down to one possible hour, max! I believe Engrade.com is a wonderful software program teachers can utilize which will ultimately save them precious teaching time and sleep!
Engrade.com is an user-friendly software. You do not have to be extremely fluent with technology in order to understand how to use it. It is really quite simple. I find the physical layout of the program welcoming and non-intimidating as well. I believe teachers who are hesitant at first to utilize this program in their teaching will definitely consider using it due to its welcoming appearance.
The features it has to offer can be helpful for teachers who are willing to utilize them. I believe giving students and parent’s online access to grades, assignment scores, attendance, upcoming events, and teacher-student messaging is a wonderful perk of this program. The teacher must set the student up with a "unique secret access number" which will permit the student to enter the website. This will allow students to see what assignments they may be missing without asking the teacher numerous times. Also, this will allow students who are absent to see what they've missed. Parents can benefit from this program by monitoring what their child should be doing as well as feeling as if the parent knows what is going on in their child's classroom.
The actual gradebook section of this program is an excellent tool. I honestly cannot believe how simple it is to set up a class and how fast it is to input grades. I briefly inputted grades into a program called GradeKeeper and this program is so much easier to navigate through than Gradekeeper. For example, in Engrade.com, you can tab down to the next student. Gradekeeper does not allow you to do that, you have to hit the down arrow which I find inconvenient.
Here are some of the features I enjoy using and believe are extremely helpful for educators who use Engrade.com:
- Ability for students to have access to their grades
- Ability for parents to monitor their child's' progress in school
- Teachers being able to send out messages
- Calendar feature which will allow teachers to post assignments and news/notes
- Weighted percentages in the gradebook. This allows teachers not to have to constantly look at the grade-slider
- The EC, extra credit, and drop the lowest grade feature
- Printing options: gradebook, student reports, missing work reports*
- *Missing work reports is probably my favorite feature on here because it does not require the teacher to physically look through the gradebook and write down all the assignments that are missing for each student. With just a click of a button, the teacher has the printable report in her hand!
- It's FREE!
The only potential problem I can see with Engrade.com is that like any other website, it can possibly stop working at anytime. Whether the website is temporary down or if a teachers' internet is not functioning, this may cause a problem. I also feel that if someone really wanted to hack into the system, they probably could. Therefore, I would question the security of this program. I am not a teacher yet, so I do not know what aspects I would change regarding this program. I'm sure if I was more familiar with another program like Gradekeeper, I could compare the two and be able to discuss the similarities and differences between them.
The overall grade I would give Engrade.com is an 8.5 for its user-friendly and welcoming appearance. I would consider using it when I begin teaching if my district does not have a program already set in place. I believe it is a great program teachers can utilize in their career. Of course there will be teachers who will not use the program because they are comfortable with their pencil and paper gradebook method. However, these teachers are losing precious teaching time and sleep! Hopefully, these teachers will come out of their comfort zone and try this program, or one like it! It can only benefit them in the long run.
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