[seul-edu] Re: Gradebook project

[Kevin Godby <godbyk@yahoo.com>]

Hello.

> 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 presume then, that development will commence with just a gradebook

app?

> 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.

Well, from my point of view (I'm a lowly technology coordinator), I
think that the student information systems will be the inevitable
extension of the gradebook program.  So if I were the one coding
this
(thankfully, I'll leave that up to you!), I'd try to keep things
fairly
modular.  To this end, I would have the student/class management
system
be a separate interface from the gradebook (i.e., 'enter the
scores')
system.

> i think you should plan on both.  isn't one a subset of the other
to a
> limited degree?

At the schools I've worked with, the elementary grades are more
subjective.  Things like 'plays well with others' and the 'grades'
are
similar to 'S - Satisfactory', 'U - Unsatisfactory', etc.  High
school
grades are the regular A-F letter grades.

> your attachment didn't get through.

I'll try to resend it.  Did it not go through at all or you couldn't

read it?

> 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.

I'm not a teacher, either.  I just play with them on a daily basis.
:)

----
Kevin Godby  <godbyk@yahoo.com>
103 N. Henry St.     Phone: (641) 724-9534
Moravia, Iowa  52571  Cell: (641) 895-1010

gradebook.pdf