New Features of the PowerTeacher Grade Book Part II

Teachers,

With 2009 we have upgraded to the new 1.5 PowerTeacher Gradebook. It still uses Java, however, again, do NOT upgrade to the latest version 6, the program still only works with JAVA 5 - up to version 17. If you have any problems with the JAVA please e-mail me and we will see how to work through it.

Here are some pictures of the changes - no new training is necessary. This is the last 3 of 7, the December 30th post has the first 4:

You'll notice now when you "right click" on the quarter or final grade you not only have the option of using "Score Inspector" but you also have the option to use the "Fill Scores" feature. This would be most helpful for specialized teachers.



In this next picture,it's my favorite new feature - Spell Check! Notice as I typed a word wrong the red line appears below it to show me a misspelling. I right click on the word and the program gives me correct spelling options to choose from similar to any word processing program.



In the final picture in this blog entry, notice the new look of the "Fill Scores" option. You can now choose more than one type of entry - "Late" as well as a score. There is a separate tab for comments that are from the diocese in the "canned comments" section.



More information in 2009!

Here's what's new in the new Gradebook! Part I

Happy New Year Teachers!

With 2009 we have upgraded to the new 1.5 PowerTeacher Gradebook. It still uses Java, however, again, do NOT upgrade to the latest version 6, the program still only works with JAVA 5 - up to version 17. If you have any problems with the JAVA please e-mail me and we will see how to work through it.

Here are some pictures of the changes - no new training is necessary. This is the first 4 of 7:



In this picture you can now see your "Categories" in the lower left hand side of your gradebook. You can also still reach the Category box using Tools-Categories. This makes it easier to see the categories for each class while you are creating assignments. This will help eliminate category weighing issues when the teacher uses the categories correctly.



In the second picture you can see two other new views. On the upper left you can see the quarter is listed as "Quarter in progress." Toward the right hand side you are able to view assignments by the assignment or final grade. The assignment view allows you to see the grade for the assignment while the final grade view allows the user to see the points earned versus the points possible.



You will notice in this third picture that the "Class Info" button is replaced by a "Class Content" button. The Class Content tab allows the user to type in information for the parents regarding the class description the same as the prior application. The addition has three buttons above the description box - Class Info, School Content and My Content. My Content allows you to add links to websites that are for you, the teacher to keep. These links stay with you EVERY YEAR NO MATTER WHICH CLASSES YOU TEACH. It is a great way to keep links to send to families or help with your lessons.

This fourth picture shares the information you can fill in for your Content Folder. School Content is a way for the school or diocese to place links and websites to use, however you can not add or delete them.



Part II will be posted tomorrow.

Scheduled Maintenance for December 16th

Teachers,

Holiday blessings to you all! In anticipation of the new upgrades to PowerTeacher, we have scheduled a maintenance upgrade for December 26 -29th. If the upgrade is assisted by Pearson, we will experience short intermittent downtimes. If you can not log onto the system during that time, please try back later. Any changes that occur from the upgrade will be posted here.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Adele

Reminder on how to put comments on the Progress Report

Teachers,

To put comments for Progress Reports or report cards, you MUST enter them through your gradebook - the comments you enter through the "backpack" in PowerTeacher DO NOT go in either of these places. Grades K-4 MUST put comments in homeroom for them to print, Grades 5-8 can put comments in by subject. This includes specials. Specials for Grades K-4 who have comments must submit them to the homeroom teacher.

To enter a comment, open you gradebook. Make sure that the quarter showing is the one you in which you want the comment to appear. Then right click on the quarter grade and the only choice you should have is Score Inspector. (Click on the image to see it bigger. To go back to this page, click the back arrow on the top of your screen.)



Once the Score Inspector is open, you can choose to hand write your own comments or choose comments from the comment bank. You can use the arrows next to the child's name to move from child to child. There is no save button, the comments automatically save. You will see a small blue "C" once you close the Score Inspector. If you want to change the comment you simple have to follow the directions above again and make the changes.

Repeating directions for using the Progress Report - Quarter 2

Teachers,

I have created a progress report that can be used at anytime and puts all grades and comments on one piece of paper for each child. Here's how you use it:

First, it can only be used by the homeroom teacher. Also, you can click on each of my pictures in this post to make them larger. Once you view them you can click the "back arrow" on your screen to go back to the directions and blog.

Click on the picture of the printer from PowerTeacher.


Then choose the report that has "Progress Report" in its name.



Once the Report Queue screen appears, you will see the word "running" on the right hand side. This means you need to click on the blue word "refresh" on the page until the word running turns into the word "completed."





Once you click on the word "completed" it will open up in a .pdf file (you need Adobe to do this, its free.) Then you can print the reports you want to send. It prints the whole class in the pdf file, however, you can choose to print some students from the Print screen.