Engrade is Enstyle

I've just used engrade, the stylish on-line grade book at http://www.engrade.com/. The blurry (sorry) image above is the teacher page where I inserted the student grades. Overall, I liked it. It was easy to sign up, a teacher can weight projects and other assessments, including formative observations. For example, a written test may be weighted as only 15% of the whole grade and authentic projects may be worth more. The decision is up to the teacher. One can calculate extra credit, export the document to excel to do more individual work and the grades can be easily changed. Actually, the math calculations are done by the program so human error is only possible if the grades are inputted incorrectly. A copy of the assignment can be attached and the parents and students can both access their own grades and any missing assignments are listed as such. Parents or students cannot say they "did not know" an assignment was missing nor do they have to wait for a teacher to return their telephone calls. Each student is protected by an individual access code that is designed by the teacher. A teacher can look at the average grade for each assignment and decide if a lesson should be retaught or other changes be made. (If the grade average is abnormally low then something is either wrong with the instruction or the assessment.)

The negative aspects of this site is a much shorter list than the positives. The parental/student access ability is a double edged sword. A parent may not comprehend how the grades are calculated or the theories why a project may be worth more than a written test. There may be some complaints to the teacher and needed explanations. I based all of my grades on 100 points because most people seem to understand this form. This system may requires a teacher to input grades in a timely manner so all grades are available when parents go to the site.

One thing I would like to see is a calculation for mode and an option to print grades on a bell curve. I would like to evaluate how the grades lie for each class.