Conferences

Even though I've been keeping grades with some sort of computer program for maybe fifteen years or more, today is the very first time I went to parent teacher conferences with no printout of grades, just my laptop. I think in the past I was afraid it would take me too long to find the information I wanted. But I experimented with the PDF of individual reports, and it seemed relatively quick to click on a certain class and click the arrows (I know, I am demonstrating once again my lack of tech savvy!) to get to a particular student. It was not ideal. Sometimes I couldn't remember whether a student was in 2nd hour or 3rd hour, and it was sometimes difficult, too, to pick out the correct class among five overlapping on my desktop.

Then our dept. went to dinner, and Joe told me his system: all the students lumped together, not by class, and using the search function to find the name. When I had a little break with no parents in line, I ran the new report. So with 45 minutes to go -- I did it Joe's way, and wow! It worked great.

More paperlessness. Although, I might still be tempted to run copies as a backup in case my battery runs low or something.