Robyn Hauptman SED 690 Fall 2012 November 21, 2012 Grading Program for Physical Education Background

Daily attendance is a huge priority at any school site and in any district. It is the primary way schools make their money. George K. Porter Middle School/Gifted Magnet, located in Granada Hills, is no different. We have approximately 1800 students of varying ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. I am part of the physical education department, where we service every student on campus. There are seven physical education teachers and one adapted physical education teacher, who teaches one period a day. My school has a policy that attendance should be submitted at the beginning of each period. When attendance is missed, or if attendance has been submitted late, teachers receive a note from the administrators reminding us to take timely attendance. The physical education department functions mostly outside, where computers are not easily accessible. Having this rule in place made it impossible for physical education teachers to take attendance on time. Students come into the locker room to get dressed then meet outside in roll call for attendance. It was not reasonable for the teachers to take attendance outside on paper, and then leave their classes to come into the office, where the computers are located, to take attendance on ISIS. For that reason, the principal at Porter Middle School last year bought the entire physical education department iPads. We can now take attendance almost anywhere on campus. All of the physical education teachers use Easy Grade Pro as their preferred grading program. It has almost everything we could ask for. The main draw for using the program is the multiple and editable fields for attendance. Physical education teachers need to note when students are absent and tardy just like classroom teachers, but they also need to record when

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students are not dressed in their uniforms. Easy Grad Pro allows teachers to change the fields of attendance to allow for non-dresses to be recorded. It has a seating chart, grading features that are easy to use, and the ability to have multiple classes; copy assignments from one class to another and easily move students from one class to another. In years past, the technology we used were Palm Pilots, which we could load Easy Grade Clipboard onto and use a modified version of the desktop software. At the end of the day, each teacher would sync their Palm to their desktop computer, entering the daily marks into the Easy Grade Pro program. A few years ago, Palm decided they were going to stop making Palm Pilots, which made Easy Grade Clipboard antiquated. As that year progressed, more and more of our Palms died. Some teachers chose to try to replace them by buying slightly used models, but those devices soon died as well. Current Problem As a physical education teacher, I have learned to adapt to teaching outside. Before the principal bought iPads for the department, all of my attendance and grades were done using a Palm device and before that paper and a clipboard. Since the department now has iPads, attendance can be recorded easily, but other things that we normally would write down on paper, such as non-dresses or non-participation, are no longer easily recorded. Grading outside has become difficult. Instead of just having a clipboard with that information, we are now required to have our iPads. Having just the iPad makes it difficult to record the daily work habits and grades that students earn. Having a clipboard and an iPad has become cumbersome and awkward. The number one question I have answered from my department members since receiving the iPads has been, Can we put Easy Grade Pro on it? Unfortunately, the answer is and will

Grading Program continue to be no. I have contacted the owners of Easy Grade Pro about writing an iPad or iPhone application, and the answer was, Our developers are looking into the possibility of an iPhone/iTouch compatible product, but we cannot anticipate when such a thing might be

available. (Easy Grade Pro, email communication, September 29, 2009). Three years later from that email communication, the question has not been answered. It is clear that what my teachers need the most is a grade book that is mobile and comprehensive. Our iPads have become almost useless. I previously have researched applications for the iPad and they have never been quite as complete or user friendly as Easy Grade Pro. I suggested some for teachers to try, but they end up going back to Easy Grade Pro. Additionally, I have shown teachers remote desktop applications, which allows teachers to access their computers on campus through their iPad. This has become a solution for some teachers, but it has huge drawbacks. For example, some teachers use a grade book program at home, which makes accessing the grade book from the iPad difficult. Additionally, wifi does not reach some spots on campus, so accessing a computer on the schools wireless network is not possible in those spots. Most of a physical education teachers grading is done by observation of a skill execution, fitness scores, or participation. Other grades are given for written assessments. Class sizes are huge, anywhere from 50 to 70 students in a class, giving the teacher a total of 250 to 350 students to assign grades. Grading becomes so difficult and time consuming because of the amount of students we have. The problem, simply stated, is the physical education teachers are having issues grading a large group of students quickly, and having access to a useable program anywhere on campus. Potential Solution

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While paper and a clipboard seems like it would be the best solution, it does not meet the needs of the teachers and the school in the capacity it needs to. A grade book on the iPad that has the full functionality of current grade books with special qualities that works specifically for physical education would be the best solution. It allows the teacher to get rid of the paper and clipboard solution while carrying around the iPad. Unfortunately, the iPad grade books that are out there fall short in one way or another to meet the needs of a mobile outdoor teacher. The perfect grade book for a physical education teacher would have multiple capabilities. To start, it needs to be accessible on the iPad, a computer, and online with a synching capability similar to that of the Palm devices. A server on campus would keep the master database, which would keep up to date information accessible by both machines and allow for them to be backed up in case something happens to the iPad or the computer. It would allow a teacher to take the grade book to class with them on the iPad, submit information during class and be up to date on both machines. Having the grade book online will also allow for parent/student access as soon as the teacher updates the inputted information. Additionally, the iPad software needs to function without wifi. Often schools do not have wifi everywhere on campus or have dead spots in certain places, which are often in spots outside where physical education teachers are teaching. Not being able to access the grade book in those time makes using any application difficult. The grade book should be able to save the information in the application, and then later update the grades with wifi when accessible. Grading options in a grade book are one of the most important aspects in deciding what application to use. Physical education teachers need grading options just like any other teacher. We need weighted categories, ability to add assignments, the function of filling every students grade with the same score (a mass grading function). The difference in grading for a physical

Grading Program education teacher is the ability to group students and grade students based on their grouping. The ease in which this could take place makes or breaks the application for a physical education teacher. Grading needs to be so easy that using paper to grade becomes superfluous. Built in assessment in a grading program is an aspect of software I have never seen. In physical education, a lot of the assessment that is given to students is performance driven based on a rubric. It would be very helpful to be able to assign the criteria a teacher is looking for and have a check off list for the teacher to use as he or she is observing students performing a skill.

Since it is part of the grading program, it would then automatically enter then grade given on the rubric into the grading program. Along the same line, physical education teachers use running and improved running scores for grading. Typically how it works is students are assigned a roll call number each lap students call out their roll call number and their teacher records their lap with a tally mark next to their roll call number on a piece of paper. After class, teachers record their scores into their grade book. Having a part of the program that allows a teacher to tally laps and auto assigning a grade to a total number of laps or similarly, tallying for participation in class and giving credit for it would help physical education teachers speed up the process of assigning grades. Attendance keeping is mandatory in a good grade book because schools want teachers to take accurate attendance. Besides present, absent or tardy, physical education teachers need to note additional dated items such as whether or not students are in their uniform each day and medical notes from doctors, which excuse students for a specific period of time. These items would be easily tracked in an attendance keeper with multiple options for maintaining these fields. Additionally, it would be beneficial for a fields to be editable for each teachers unique

Grading Program needs and the ability to have a quick addition of a note to those fields where a teacher can type any pertinent information to remember for a later time. Most grade books are also missing a log of parent contacts made by the teacher to the

parent. The grade book should allow for a teacher to log when an email has been sent to a parent or a phone call has been made. LAUSD schools require teachers to turn in this log with their grade book at the end of each semester. The last part of the grade book specific for a physical education program is to implement a locker management system. We assign students lockers with locker combinations. Students often forget their combination after long breaks, like winter break and spring break. If each teacher had access to the locker assignments and combinations, helping students remember locker combinations and reassigning students with broken lockers to new lockers would be much faster. Cost/Benefit Analysis As of today, there are no grade books that encompass every aspect of a mobile teachers day with his or her students. There are some grade books that come close. In order to get most of what I want in a grading program, I would need to have the software created. This would be the most expensive part of the grading application. To create software, since I do not know how to program, I would need to hire a computer programmer, possibly two programmers depending on the expertise of the first. The programmer would need to create software to work with four different platforms: Mac OS, iOS, Windows, and web based. According to the United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics reports computer programmers make approximately fifty dollars an hour. After speaking with a computer programmer, he suggested the website creation should come first and

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could possibly take a month to create, which at 40 hours per week, equals 160 hours of time (M. Landers, personal communication, November 21, 2012). After the website is finished, since it contains a lot of the back end information for the software, the other platforms should be created. The iOS software would take about three weeks (120 hours), the Mac OS software would take approximately two weeks (80 hours) since a lot of the information can be ported. Lastly the PC version would take another 120 hours. At $50 per hour, the cost of developing the software is roughly $24,000 on the conservative end. Besides just programming time, developers fees are required to place anything on the Apple App Store, $99 for each iOS and Mac OS. In order to use the software, server space would need to be purchased. This cost will grow with the number of users using the software. To begin, it would cost about $50 per month. Although on the conservative side, this calculates to a grand total of $24,248 to create and get the software usable. Implementation Plan Teachers in my department already have iPads and computers. Consequently, implementing the software would require mostly teacher training. Professional development days would need to be devoted to showing and allowing teachers to interact with the software. Mock classes should be created, whether importing or adding students to a class is necessary. Teaching scenarios should be used so teachers are forced to locate where information is recorded. Additionally, materials should accompany the training so teachers have access to this information after the training sessions. Follow up sessions should be provided to help teachers continue to receive help using the program. Part of the implementation process would be to create the database of student information. This is a collection of information on each student, such as Student Name,

Grading Program birthday, period of the physical education class, teacher name, locker number and combination,

and any other information desired for the program to run smoothly. This would be implemented in SQL, which would allow me to add information into tables (M. Lander, personal communication, December 11, 2012). Making sure the grade book is secure is another part of the implementation process. Student information is very sensitive information. The master database would be stored on the server. This is where teachers would access their information by using a password to log in to the servers database. If the server were hacked, a lot of information could be compromised. Making sure all sensitive data that is stored on the server is encrypted properly is important. Additionally, the passwords teachers use to access information on the server need to be properly hashed and salted. This will aid in keeping the server security high and safe from hacking (M. Landers, personal communication, December 11, 2012).