Grades to stay offline

Newtonite - Volume 87, Issue 3 - Friday, March 7, 2008

BY MOLLY SILVERMAN

Students and parents will not find students’ grades online, said special education teacher Dianne Lochhead, a co-chair of the Streamlining Communications Committee. For now, teachers will be able to learn how to use a program to present assignments, curricula and handouts, but teachers “can use it at their discretion,” Lochhead said to the faculty Tuesday. At the meeting, the faculty focused on communication in the school and on a Student Showcase Thursday, April 17.

Posting grades daily on line has benefits, drawbacks -
Newtonite 87.2

Newtonite - Volume 87, Issue 2 - Friday, Feb. 15, 2008
Mass Interview by Rebecca Harris and Georgina Teasdale

On a voluntary basis, teachers might post grades on line every day using a
program called Edline? so students and parents can see them. The Streamlining
Communications Committee will be talking about possibilities in a faculty
meeting March 4. Meanwhile, members of the school community gave their views on
the pros and cons of this possible change in practice.

Faculty might put their grades, assignments on line

Newtonite - Volume 87, Issue 1 - Friday, Jan. 25, 2008

BY BEN PLOTKIN AND HAO-HUA WU

On a voluntary basis, individual faculty might decide to use a web-based
program, said special education teacher Dianne Lochhead, a co-chair of the
Streamlining Communications Committee.

With the program, called Edline?, they could “post assignments and grades and
help students stay on track,”she said. Students and parents could also
use the program to check out announcements, school news and upcoming events, she
said.

Communications is one of the most challenging aspects of any project. It is also one of the most important to get right. It is a cornerstone to understanding what customers experience, need and want and to managing their expectations throughout the lifecycle of a project.

This page will help us develop and execute our communications plan for the School Portal Project. It includes the four following sections:

Stakeholders - who are they, what do they experience, need, want, don't want?

• Teachers - For this phase, especially those who have already expressed interest at NNHS, NSHS and Bigelow
• Students - Especially NNHS, NSHS & Bigelow
• Parents

Channels - what are the channels, or mechanisms, through which we can communicate with them?

Attached is my k12planet evaluation. This seems like the right place to put it.

Note -- Although I was initially positive about using this as an interim solution, my final conclusion is that it's just not going to work very well. Skip to the Overall Conclusion section near the end if you want to get to the punch line, as my reasons for recommending against this solution aren't really captured well within the formal evaluation criteria.