GradeWise Release 178 Notes (August 2008) General Setup/Technical Info:
•· The GradeWiseàSPM interface has been updated to allow for faster load and response time. The following changes have been made: •- Only modified assignment info and spreadsheet grades will be sent to SPM, unless primary key data is changed on course assignment information (a change in the order, number of points, etc.). •- GradeWise now keeps a flag for every assignment, spreadsheet grade, and all data elements (saved to SPM or not saved). If all data items are saved, nothing will be sent to SPM. Therefore, some saves may only save to the local network. •- When GradeWise is opened, nothing will be sent to SPM, since it would have been sent on the last save (unless logged in locally).
•- GradeWise will still receive information from SPM on an open (active students, grade info, etc.).
•· A new menu option has been created to send all data to SPM, regardless if any changes were made. It is located under File à Send All Data for This Class to SPM.
•· Since GradeWise will now only normally send modified assignment info, the "Send Only Modified Assignment Info" option, located under Settings à Set Send All Assignments Flag, has been removed.
•· The "Send All Assignment Info" option, located under Settings à Set Send All Assignments Flag, has also been changed to "Send Assignment Info." Only 2 choices now exist (You can send assignment info or not send assignment info).
•· Log files were being generated when post errors occurred. This has been fixed. A check has been added to ensure any log files are automatically deleted when GradeWise is closed.
•· Changes were made to allow up to 12 marking periods and up to 9 semesters. Since changes had to be made to the data structure, once you go over the 8 cycle mark, GradeWise will update the version flag in the data structure so that you cannot open the file with an earlier version of GradeWise.
•· Routines were added to update all reference ids on every open and save.
•· GradeWise has a max of 80 classes per teacher. A change has been made to allow for more than 80 classes provided that only 80 classes have students (the others cannot at this time have any students). •· The Login Date, and information about whether the grading period is open or closed has been added to the title bar of GradeWise.
•· The letter grade table screen now checks to make sure that a capital letter for a grade has been entered. It also shows another sample grade table for non integer mode.
•· You can now map special grades from the special grades table to a letter grade in the letter grade table. This can be done by going to Settings à Special Grades. A new column has been added titled Map To?. Fill in the letter grade from the letter grade table that you want the special grade to map to.
•· Course section numbers are now checked for a different number of zeroes on the left. (i.e. 1 vs 01)
•· Blanks are now stripped from the course section number. This was causing a problem when a blank was on the left hand side of a course section number when receiving information from the SPM broker.
•· An error 1002 (warning) was displaying if a teacher saved or opened a class on a date when the class did not meet. This error can also occur if GradeWise loses connection to the internet. The message has been modified to more clearly state that the class will be opened in local mode and that no information will be transferred between SPM and the local GradeWise files.
•· GradeWise was originally designed to only break a marking period on different weeks (for example, you could not have a marking period end on a Tuesday, and a new marking period begin on the next day Wednesday). GradeWise would work fine on other weeks, but you might get 1002 error messages on the week that the marking period changes. The calendar was also not splitting properly. GradeWise has been modified to allow for the split week.
•· Errors relating to the network being down have been reworked. Before, up to 3 error messages could possibly occur. Now there will only be one. •· GradeWise was getting an Unable to connect with SSL error when trying to connect using https. The mode was changed to protocol version 2-3 (it was using version 2).
Attendance/Seating Chart:
•· In the Daily attendance screen, the ability to enter attendance comments has been added. You cannot enter a comment unless there is a valid attendance code. Comments that were entered in SPM will show up in the gradebook. If a comment is deleted in GradeWise, it will be deleted in SPM, unless the teacher does not have access to update a particular attendance code (i.e. any code besides 'A' or 'T'). •· The attendance code, along with the first-letter character, now displays in the Daily Attendance screen. Only districts with spelled out attendance codes (i.e. 'ABSENT' instead of 'A') will notice a difference. •· In the Seating Chart, the ability to enter attendance comments has been added. A comment button has been added to the seating chart tool bar, along with a new menu item under the Edit menu called Edit Comment. The same rules for entering comments in the Daily Attendance screen (above) also apply to the Seating Chart.
•· JPG picture files, as well as BMP files, are now supported in the seating chart. Before, only BMP picture files were supported. Contacts/Sending email:
•· Added the ability for receiving/displaying multiple contacts from SPM. By default, the number of contacts sent from SPM is 1. To change this, your SPM POC will need to log into the Websage Service Editor, go to the TeacherWeb Function Attributes, and add the following attribute:
•· Emails are now automatically sent to all student contacts listed in GradeWise (that have an email address). If duplicate email addresses are found, GradeWise will only send one email to that address. •· A change was made to get the email from the parent record rather than the student record. An email address must be listed in the Contacts area of Student Maintenance in order for SPM to send the email address.
•· The individual student semester lock was not working. This has been fixed.
•· The Student Yearly Record screen did not support the locking of individual grades. This has been added.
•· The GradeWise gradebook and the broker (gradewise.p) were both updated to allow the sending and receiving of grades for course override information (for example: a class meets during marking period 1 only and requires a final grade that is reported for the marking period 2 time period). •· Checks were added to check for bad data getting into the student comment fields.
•· Save buttons have been added to the Progress Comment screen and to the Report Card Comment screen.
•· A Sent Info button has been added to Progress Comment screen, the Report Card Comment screens, and the Spreadsheet screen. The sent info shows what was sent to SPM (this used to only be available from the Grades menu in the spreadsheet only). The Exam, Semester grade, comments, and attendance have been added to the sent dialog box.
•· Modified the send routines to send out a semester grade or exam that is NOT in the current term, but is marked for sending.
•· The semester mark information was not available to GradeWise unless you were in live mode. If you opened the gradebook in local mode, it was unable to determine semester breaks. Files have been added to hold this information and local mode now uses these files.
•· In the Semester Calculate dialog box, you can now edit the start and stop cycles. If you do modify the start and stop cycles, you must check the "Use Start Stop Override" check box in order for the semester grades to use these new values.
Assignment/Spreadsheet Screen:
•· A check was added in the assignment screen to look for assignments that have bad data entered for percents.
•· The student's attendance code for the logged in date has been added to the spreadsheet in the AVG column. If a student is absent or tardy, it will show to the right of the student's average inside of brackets (example: [A]).
•· In the spreadsheet, the "Remove Lowest" feature was only allowing a teacher to remove the first lowest grade. You can now remove as many as you want (as it was in 1.75).
Reports:
•· In the report generator, a known issue existed in which the progress report comments were not showing up on the custom reports. The work around was to click on the "No Report Card Comments" drop down, choose "No Report Card Comments," then choose the progress comments. This has now been fixed.
Help Screens:
•· Help dialog boxes were added for setting the name of a student, setting the name of a teacher, changing the grading method and grading type, setting the email of the teacher, and showing cycle or semester attendance. (This is located under HelpàHow do I?)
•· A menu item was added to the Help Menu. "Check a Date for a Class Meeting Time" was added to allow testing for a valid date from the server. •· The Semester Grades Dialog Box and the "How Do I" dialog boxes were too big for smaller screens. These have reduced slightly in size. |
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