Keeping a grade book is basic Teaching 101. You need to do it, there are a gazillian ways to do one, find a way that works for you. Last year I came across the program Gradekeeper. I liked what I saw and bought it, downloaded it and have been using it ever since. Despite the title to this blog, I really love the program. It is powerful enough and flexible enough to do what I want it to do, without a lot of zoomie gizmos that sound good but are actually unusable in a teacher's life.
I have copies of the program running on both my at home PC and my laptop I use for school and travel (my school is one of those international academies that have not coughed up the funds for computers in the classrooms).
With that as a background you should know today was a big day for my seniors. They have a graduation-required senior project they must do. Today they had to turn in their research proposals. While the proposals are fairly short, I try to grade them as quickly as I can because it is the end of the Quarter, and if some of them need to redo something, there are only a few days left for them to make adjustments before their grades finalize.
So I gave my senior classes some in-class work to do, then sat down and graded, in between questions and worried stares. I recorded several in my laptop's gradebook and turned the graded papers back to the students. Bell rings and I tell the rest I'll grade tonite and have the results to them in the morning.
In the evening I check my laptop - the grades are not there. When I shut down my laptop at school I somehow neglected to save the grades.
Urg!
Now, tomorrow, I'll have to make up a story to my seniors as to why I need to see their proposals again. Try doing that with a paper grade book!
I still love my Gradekeeper, but sometimes it does show just how stupid I can be.
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