Re: Power.Grade and Infinite.Campus

Last I checked IC was still too hard to use and I don't
understand why administrations would choose such a program
that is so difficult for teachers to use. I actually wonder
if they want people to see how much teachers are suffering.
Otherwise, it is tormenting when such lack of respect is
shown toward teachers.

On 10/03/08, rstohc wrote:
> I am so happy to have found I am not alone in thinking that
> Infinite.Campus is a lousy program. There have been good
> programs that parents and students can use to check grades.
> I have no idea why a school would get Infinite.Campus. I
> think my school got it just because it allows parents to
> keep tabs on their child's progress. It was probably
cheap,
> but I don't get involved in what we buy - don't have time
to
> think about money. It might be good for parents and
> students, but it�s time-consuming on the teacher. I
agree -
> it is not streamlined. Let me list the things that I can
> think of off the top of my head - stuff that happens over
> and over and over and I just have to accept it without
> complaint and try to get my job done so I don't have to go
> off to Siberia. Maybe the IC people will hear my
complaints
> and be able to make some money if they can improve it.
> For one thing it takes up a lot of real-estate on the
> screen. My screen setting only goes to 1280 by 800
pixels.
> If they would just get that fancy title out of the way,
> that would help a lot. Is that supposed to advertise? To
> enter one set of grades, IC takes up more than 1/3 of the
> width of the screen and well over 100% of the screen if the
> class is more than probably about 18 students.
> I also use Excel to keep my grades. Excel is so much
easier
> and helps me find mistakes - usually the wrong possible
> points or wrong date for an assign. I try to align the
> rosters of Excel along side the Infinite Campus roster so
> that I can key grades in all lined up. But it is difficult
> to line things up because you can not make the IC.window
> small enough. Today I was entering two classes of grades.
> One class was 19 students and one was 16. It took me five
> times as long to enter the 19 students just because I had
to
> keep moving the window for Excel around to line up with the
> IC roster, and I had to scroll the IC.roster. With my
small
> 16 student class, the whole roster fit in the IC.window and
> I could key the grades in rapidly, line for line without
> having to move either roster. With Excel I can fit class
> sizes of 25 to 30 on one screen. I figured out that if
> there are more than 15 students (I think it was), because
of
> the limits on the IC window, I have to keep moving my Excel
> window to align with the IC roster so the Excel scroll bar
> disappears off the bottom of the screen. Then I have to
> keep adjusting the position of the Excel window around the
> IC window to line up the Excel roster up with the IC
roster.
> IC really is hard to work around in so many ways.
> There's really not time to enter grades every day with IC,
> and then it takes even longer if you don't because you have
> to change the date due each time.
> If you are on the phone with a parent and trying to switch
> from attendance to grades, the IC program takes a long time
> to switch and a lot of times you have to log in again.
That
> is another reason I use Excel. I use Excel as a back up
for
> attendance and grades. I always refer to my Excel back up
> as I communicate student�s progress over the phone or in
> meetings.
> Well, I hope the IC programmers hear these complaints and
> come up with a quick update. I don�t know if I can stand
> much more of this. I think I was able to do grades faster
> by hand back in the day.
> One more thing, I don�t know if it is the infinite campus
or
> what. With all the problems since getting IC, it might
well
> be related since I didn�t have this problem before. My
> cursor scroll slows to a snail�s pace. When I scroll about
> in Excel it goes slow and choppy. I managed to correct it
> just once by going to control panel, but then the next day
> it was slow again. Then I managed to report it to
> Microsoft. The next day it was fast again in the morning,
> but by the afternoon it was slow and choppy again. Like I
> say, I don�t know if this is caused by IC, but the timing
> does seems suspicious.
>
>