Online Grading

Online grading has been something that has taken schools by storm. When I first began teaching, which was not that long ago; I remember hand writing my grades in the grade book and breaking out my calculator and doing averages. That was in 2002! After I finally got my “steady” job and learned from my mentor to do grades on Excel~ things got easier, but it was always a multi-step process. First you had to record the grades, post the grades, then once your averages were done on Excel you would have to record the grades using the districts reporting method. In our case, it was filling in bubble sheets to record grades for report cards. (Talk about a confusing process!! In order to give a child a “G” you would have to fill in a totally different code for the bubble sheets… I think I have blocked out the process because it was truly that painful!! :) )
With “InteGrade Pro you can manages students’ scores, assignments, and obtain up-to-the-minute calculations on grades, which helps teachers to track student performance over the duration of a course. With InteGrade Pro, teachers can organize tasks and put them into categories such as homework, quiz, or lab exercises. You can reward good performance with bonus scores and correct poor performance by graphically showing a student where they stand. At the end of a term, InteGrade Pro can transmit final grades back to the main office system to print report cards, reducing administrative time and effort” (description taken from Pearson web page).
This process has made life easier for the teacher. It’s like one stop shopping! You obtain the grades, you plug them into InterGrade Pro and the calculations and weighting is done for you. Also, since InterGrade Pro is linked to our main server in Sayreville, no further work needs to be done to submit the grades. The only “extra” step the teacher has to perform at the end of a semester is to set up end term spreadsheets. Just a few clicks and you are finished. It really does make the administration part of teacher a heck of a lot easier.
When having a choice between Excel and InterGrade Pro, the choice is obvious! InterGrade Pro has made my life as a teacher a bit easier. Excel was a wonder choice when that was all that was offered. But since technology has burst into the classroom, programs such as InterGrade Pro have made the reporting process a less overwhelming task.

Play Around

I was playing with Week 5 of 2.0 Learning- "Play around with with an online image generator." Cute thing... As you can see my Mr. Skinner comic didn't work so well. I got a computer error message that the full graphic did not load. He is missing a line. It should say, "the best thing about teaching is June, July, & August". Just a little teacher joke! Scroll down to see. :)

Animoto

Animoto... where are you!!?? I thought that I put in an Animoto video, but it's not there.
Oh wait... that's right it took FOREVER to load! Is Animoto a new site? I am going to try uploading a slide.com presentation too... let's see-- stayed tuned! :)

school is almost done!

I have no clue why I thought that I would have "time" to do fun things with the kids since it is the end of the school year? I thought that since our reading and spelling lessons were done, we could do unit projects, etc... No that is not the case. I feel like there is no time... There is so much to get done for the end of the year, cum folders, report cards, checklists, end of the year parties, gifts, etc... I am organized, but still~
I am always happy to see that June is around the corner, but I forget all that comes with the month! Oh well... it will all be over soon and all I will have to worry about is my SPF level!
:)

Days Left of School

FYI... only 9 more days of school~ and one of those days is Field Day, so that doesn't count!

Technology

I feel that blogging is more like venting. I could be wrong, but I defiantly see how it's an outlet. Anyway, I am venting about technology in classroom and school in general. I am constantly sent to technology workshops and that is what I gravitate towards for professional development, but my classroom environment doesn't support it!
I have an ancient old computer- I think it may run on Windows 98... Hi, that was 10 years ago! OMG- ten years! My school only has 2 SMART boards, that we are "fighting" over at this point and time. It's just nuts. Our budget didn't pass so I don't think that we will be seeing many new things for the upcoming new year.
How in the world am I suppose to run a technology friendly classroom with one computer? Yes, one computer! I am also expected to do online plans and an online grade book, so that one computer I consider "my" computer. I don't let the children play on it. (deep breath)
What is a teacher suppose to do?

Avatar

Oh my! This avatar things is so weird... First of all... all of the "ladies" are these silly little stick figures.... I clicked on "plus size" and those seem to be normal looking figures, but of course now I have a complex... "plus size" I'm not "plus size". LOL...
I know it's only a computerized figure and actually looks nothing like me, but come on! Anyway, I made my first one and I have her doing my favorite thing~ shopping! Like Carrie Bradshaw said, "Shopping is my cardio!" ;)