Re: [school-discuss] Re: Gradebook project

[Michael Hall <olc@openlearningcommunity.org>]

This is just a query (or possibly a suggestion) re the gradebook
project.

Here in Australia, all assessment and reporting is done within a
"curriculum and standards framework" (CSF) of some kind (one for
each state and
territory) that specifies outcomes in all Key Learning Areas
("subjects").
The CSF covers all years from primary to secondary school (years 1
to 12).

So, a gradebook that records information like "Maths: 8/10, English
7/10"
etc would not really be useful for us. We would need a way of
"plugging
in" our CSF and then recording a value against each of the specified

criteria. For example:

Information Technology Level 3 -

3.1 Outcome: Student can open a web browser and use a search engine
to
locate information on the internet.

Against this outcome, we would record a value of "Achieved,
Consolidating
or Beginning". We would also need a way of summarising all such
information to give an indication of how many outcomes were achieved
at
each level by each student, etc. In addition, we would need to
record the
location of (or even better, include) hard evidence of the student
having
achieved the outcome.

Does all this sound like something that the proposed gradebook might
be
able to handle? I'm sorry if this has already been covered, I
haven't
followed the thread up to now.

If the gradebook project aspired to be useful internationally, the
ability
to plug-in and report against local curricula would probably be
essential.
I haven't really considered the technical solution to such a
requirement -
maybe XML could help?

Mick Hall

On Sun, 7 Apr 2002, mikee wrote:

> On Sunday 07 April 2002 05:40 pm, you wrote:
> > Hello, Mike.
> >
> > While writing up some preliminary specs for this project, I
found it
> > difficult to determine the scope.  Will this project develop
only a
> > (stand-alone) gradebook app or will it be the beginning of an
entire
> > student information system[1]?
>
> i think the answer is yes [as grocho might say], as evidenced by
the posting
> todate.  scope drifts without provacation. one good reason for
setting a
> delivery date is to bound the scope by the simple act of a cutoff
date.
>
> i hope whatever we do between now and june can be plugged into
other efforts
> in future.  Starting with Storm would set that precedent.
>
> if a student information system is created, it will likely be by
accident.
> this has worked well for projects like apache.org.  loosely
coupled projects
> that seize opportunities to integrate and try to avoid doing
anything that
> might discourage the opportunity.
>
> this means some level of rewrite is inevitable, but managable.
>
> >
> > Even if it's just a 'simple' gradebook app, I need to know
whether
> > people want to use the gradebook for just high school students
or also
> > for elementary?
>
> i think you should plan on both.  isn't one a subset of the other
to a
> limited degree?
>
>
> > I've attached the beginnings of my research.
>
> your attachment didn't get through.
>
> we need some teachers on the list to bat these issues around.
> i'm not a teacher, so this isn't really a first person account.
>
> mike eschman, etc
> > ----
> > Kevin Godby  <godbyk@yahoo.com>
> > 103 N. Henry St.     Phone: (641) 724-9534
> > Moravia, Iowa  52571  Cell: (641) 895-1010
>