Software Critique: Engrade

I investigated the free online gradebook, Engrade, from www.engrade.com. This was a very interesting setup for a gradebook. In the school district that I work in the gradebook we use is called Integrade Pro. I have listed below my likes and dislikes:

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What I Liked:

- Can drop the lowest score in a particular category (example: quizzes)
- Can print out for individual students the assignments they are missing
- Able to give extra credit for any assignment
- Can excuse a student from an assignment without penalty
- Can enter a letter m for a missing assignment and a zero is calculated in
- Can do daily attendance for each class
- Class averages are shown for each assignment
- Can add comments for students – especially helpful to keep track of miscellaneous information that comes up on a daily and regular basis
- Students and parents can access grades by setting up an account Can upload various types of files for parents and students to access (notes, syllabus, assignments, etc)

What I didn’t like:

- When printing out grades from gradebook cannot just print for a single assignment, such a test, will print out all grades for all assignments for each student
- When need to change grades cannot see all students assignments and grades at the same time – only for one student at a time; cumbersome to change one student at a time if you have multiple grades from multiple students to change
- All recalculations are done in excel which I find very difficult and extremely time consuming to use (just a personal opinion)

I believe this could be a very useful tool for teachers. I think that each teacher will have personal opinions as to which program they like and why. I don’t think any one is better than the others. They all have pros and cons to them. Any gradebook such as this is a very helpful tool. The grades are automatically calculated for you which is a huge time saver. Parents will like this as well because it empowers them by giving them access at any time to their child’s grades. Students may or may not like this gradebook depending on whether or not they are doing well. It allows them to access their grades so they can see what they are missing at any time.

I have used Integrade Pro for five years now and am very comfi=ortable with it but I wish it had a few of the features that Engrade has. Engrade has the ability to allow for extra credit, put an m in as a grade which signifies a missing assignment and therefore calculates the grade as a zero, the ability to drop the lowest score in an assignment category, allows parent and student access without extra work by teacher. These features are not available with Integrade Pro.