Re: [school-discuss] Easy-to-use gradebook software

["Kyle Hutson" <smyle@rockcreek.k12.ks.us>]

On 2 Apr 2002 at 16:39, Kevin Godby wrote:
> Hello.
>
> After looking at a large number of gradebook and school
information system
> packages, I've yet to find one that's easy to use.
>
> Many teachers would like to use the computerised gradebook
programs as
> easily as they would their dead-tree gradebooks.  The user
interfaces of
> many of the programs I've encountered make this a difficult task.
>
> Does anyone here have any recommendations of existing software
that they've
> used and liked?  Does anyone else have similar feelings to the
teachers that
> I work with?  (Am I the only one?)

Have you looked at PowerSchool? Several of us tech coordinators from

around the state (Kansas) were talking about student info systems.
Most of us were complaining about ours. Somebody made the comment
"Everybody complains about what they've got." And three people
immediately said "not me, we love ours." All three were running
PowerSchool.

It's not free/open (far from it), but it is web-based, so even your
linux clients can access it (except the gradebook itself which is
Win/Mac, but they've said they'll have a web version out this
calendar year). PowerSchool was bought by Apple a year or two ago,
but the server runs on either NT or a Mac. The Mac server has a very

nice component to it, though:  the "home access" part (so parents
can
check on assignments/grades/attendance, etc. from home) can use a
text-to-speech converter, so those without computers can call and
get
the same info.

Sorry if I sound like an evangelist here - I have no affiliation
with
PowerSchool, but I'm sick and tired of SASI.
--
Kyle Hutson /  Director of Technology  / Rock Creek Schools:  USD323

smyle@rockcreek.k12.ks.us                               785-494-8591

Actually I am a laboratory mouse posing as an engineer as part of an

               elaborate plot to take over the world