Re: [seul-edu] Student Anecdotal Reporting System

[Chris Lehmann <clehmann@beaconschool.org>]

On Wed, 26 Jul 2000, jeremy hunsinger wrote:

> umm, so you are tracking stories about students or just tracking students?

"Anecdotal" is a Beacon-specific word, probably... what the program does
is allow teachers to write about how students are doing in their class, so
other teachers (specifically the student's advisor) can keep track of how
kids are doing.

It's "anecdotal" because it's a written note, rather than just an on-line
posting of numeric grades. It comes from Beacon's system of writing
"Anecdotal" report cards twice a year, where teachers do write ups of
every student, as well as include the student grades.

Pedogagically, the theory is that schools function better when teachers
can see a more holistic view of a student. This allows teachers to do
that.
 
> Now, i know this has been done on an informal basis for years, i just worry 
> about having a "permanent record" type deal with peoples "anecdotes" about 
> certain aspects of childhood.  are there security measures involved here, 
> encryption or something?

Well, the whole faculty system is password protected at Beacon so that
only faculty members have access to this system. I would *hope* that any
school that uses this software would do the same. (And I strongly
recommend that in the documentation.)

-- Chris