This was the busiest week of the semester by far. I really didn't have much tech coach work (just had to install Flash for Ms. T, whose classroom is on the opposite end of the school from mine, and who seems to be avoided by the other tech coach, imho, whose room is much closer to Ms. T's), but I had the biggest part of my semester project.
Our school uses Engrade (www.engrade.com), a free program with many options for teachers. Originally, it wasn't a school-wide mandate, but our former principal began requiring it last year. Since so many of our faculty were already using it, we didn't realize all the potential of using it as one unit. Someone discovered the school feature this year and suggested we all get on it. Okay. So far so good. What happened, though, was that most of the teachers had different ways of numbering their students. Some let Engrade number the students. Some made up their own ID numbers. Several of us actually used the system-assigned ID numbers. For roughly 1100 students, we had over 5500 entries! Most students had at least two ID numbers, and some had as many as seven. It was a mess.
To make things worse, when teachers enter a new class for their profile, Engrade's first option for the school year is 2012-2013. Uh, we're not there yet, Engrade! Do most teachers check to see what school year automatically pops up? Evidently not, judging from the number of classes I had to put into the correct grading periods.
The easiest thing to do would have been to clean it out completely, but timing was not on my side. The fourth grading period began on March 19. The last day to put in grades from the third grading period was March 24. Even though we had a week of no school before March 19, I had to give the other teachers (and myself) time to get those last grades in. I had at least one student who had missed her midterm exam and had to make it up and two that were so behind I was trying to help them by giving them extra time (they still didn't get their work in and failed anyway). I'm sure there were other teachers who had the same thing going on.
I had to rush and get my administrative privileges with Engrade. That was fun. The only admin we had on the account was a technologically challenged graduation coach. I love him to death, but he had no idea what I wanted when I emailed to ask him. I finally chased him down to his office and showed him how to find what I wanted. So, I got him to write down the code and voila!
I gave the faculty several days (with the approval of the assistant principal who got me into all this) to print their previous classes' grades and prepare to have the rest deleted. As you can imagine, this did not work out well. Several teachers insisted that they knew how to make their rosters with the right numbers. Meanwhile, I had discovered that I could merge data into correct accounts so nobody's data needed to be lost. Oh, that sounded so awesome. What I didn't consider was how long this process would take.
As I am writing this, I am still working on merging data. It's April 28. I started on March 26. Now, the first couple of days I spent 10, 12 hours working on the project... AND teaching... AND taking another course besides this one. My family was pretty supportive. I mean, they don't expect much from me as far as domestic responsibilities. The hubby enjoys cooking (Thank God!) and the son doesn't care as long as frozen dinners are available. The daughter's on her own now, for the most part. Anyway, I got very little sleep that week and I was in a daze most of the time.
Because of Engrade's suggestions of incorrect grading periods, I had students who had graduated last year, and probably even a few who had graduated in 2009. They were easy to delete... Engrade does have a feature for deleting students who are not enrolled in classes for a grading period. However, if last year the teacher didn't change Engrade's assignment of 2011-12 for the grading period, I had students from last year who WERE enrolled for this year - or so Engrade thought.
There are still probably 20 teachers in our school who aren't affiliated with us through Engrade. They may have their own accounts. I am not pushing the affiliation issue. No. One problem I have had has been that I have had teachers affiliate after I merged accounts, so that their students from previous grading periods (and I deleted everything before the fall of 2011) were all in Engrade with their made-up numbers. AAAAACCKK!!! AND their 2012-13 grading periods, too! So, no, if they're not already affiliated, I'd be just as happy if they'd wait until next year.
When school starts, I know exactly how to teach the teachers what to do, and how to put in students. I wasn't sure I wanted to teach again next year, but if I do, I have plenty of jobs ready to go. The principal told me yesterday he is going to suggest I be re-selected by the county technology department, and he also assigned me another technology-based job at the school. (It doesn't pay much, but I'll get an iPad!) All that, and three classes to teach each semester. I'm not overwhelmed - I'm in demand!!!
I learned that from Ms. T.
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