A number of teachers have asked about setting up electronic markbooks for the new academic year. Microsoft Excel will of course more than adequately do the job but if you are looking for a ready made product here are a couple I know.
Gradekeeper
I've used this product for the last 3 years and it has saved me an incredible amount of time when it comes to reporting. You enter your student names, semester dates and the grading scale you want and it does all the work for you. I set up an individual gradebook for each strand in the report card e.g. one for 'Speaking & Listening', one for 'Writing & Shaping' etc. This saves me a lot of time when report writing. You can print your gradebooks off as class reports of individual student reports. It does cost about $24 once the 30 trial period expires however.
Engrade
I came across this web based option last year and I will be using it as my electronic gradebook option this year. It essentially does all the things gradekeeper does but it is web based and it is free. Although it is online it is both private and secure. It comes with many extra bells and whistles including the ability to enable student/parent access but that's not an option that I think I would be enabling myself at this stage.
The requirement to now provide parents with "information that clearly shows their child's achievement in the subjects studied in comparison to that of other children in the child's peer group at school" is easily and accurately conveyed using either of the 2 above-mentioned tools.
Feel free to ask me if you have any questions about either product.
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