For Teachers: new campus grade book features

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Available now for teachers….  a new redesigned grade book.  You’re not required to use the new grade book option.  In fact, you can even switch back and forth between the current grade book and this new “beta” grade book.  It can be found under INSTRUCTION -> GRADE BOOK (BETA)

What are the major highlights?
Java will no longer be used or required to run the grade book.  Instead, it will switch to using HTML5, meaning that more devices should be able to connect to the grade book, including iOS devices such as iPads.
Another highlight – lots of additional visual representations and quick stats that are available to teachers. The usage of built in visual graphs will make it easier to spot students who are struggling as well as see how the entire class did on a particular assignment.

Will this change how the grade book is viewed by parents?
No.  The new tools and graphs being added are only available to teachers and are not available on the parent portal.

Can we see some of the specifics?
This is a view of the new grade book that will available to teachers next summer. In this example, a specific student has been selected and additional visual queues are provided to assist with understanding the students progress.
This is known as a box and whisker chart, which display the four quartiles. The area between the top green line and the green box is the 1st quartile, the green box is the 2nd quartile, red box is 3rd quartile, and between red box and bottom red line is the last quartile. In this example, the specific student is the yellow circle, showing that they scored in the 1st quartile compared to the rest of the class.
Teachers will be able to see basic stats for each assignment, including: Mean, Median, Range, Std Dev
Teachers can also view these basic stats by scrolling the mouse over each assignment.
The process will be slightly different for posting grades – there is now a clearer process for deciding WHICH grade gets posted to WHERE.
Palo Alto, California is one of the beta test sites and they have posted a more detailed view of the new gradebook.  http://www.paly.net/stafflinks/IC_gradebook_beta.pdf

Student computer/network accounts have been reset.

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Passwords for all WDMCS student computer/network accounts have been reset.  Note: this does not include Infinite Campus accounts/passwords, they have been left intact.

Q1.  Why are student passwords reset??
A1. Because a high number of students can not remember their password from the previous year. Over time, we’ve found that its much easier to reset all the passwords, this enables students to quickly get back into the system.

Q2.  What is the format of the accounts?
A2.  Same format as last year…    First Initial of First Name (or first initial of nickname, if available), First Initial of Last Name, then student number.

Example:  Will Doe, but goes by Bill Doe, so Bill is listed in his nickname field.  Student number is 12345.

His user id is therefore:    bd12345,  If he doesn’t have Bill listed in the nickname field, then his id would be wd12345.

Q3. What would the students password be?
A3.  Student passwords have been reset to match their unique user id.   Once they log in, the system will require students to change their password.

Q4. If they were a student last year – do they still have the same files in their H drive? 
A4. Students who moved from 6th grade to 7th grade are starting over with new, blank H drives.  However, all other students who had accounts last year, were allowed to carry over their files from last year.

Q5 . How often are accounts made/updated?  In other words – a new student walks in the building, when can they use their account?
A5.  Accounts are process every 6 hours.  This means that in most cases, it will be the next day before all accounts are properly processed.

Q6. Are students computer accounts being run by Infinite Campus this year? or do the buildings manually control the student accounts?
A6.  Students accounts will continue to be run automatically by the information in Infinite Campus.  Several times each day, the system looks to Infinite Campus for new students and/or changes to existing students – and then automatically handles the updates to the student accounts.