As I've shared before, we teachers have a lot to do and very little time to do it in. One of my least favorite things to do is to grade work and input it into my electronic gradebook. I'm always worried about losing my grades, so I like to have them in at least three different places (my work computer, eGradebook, and my flash-drive). Our school server crashed 3/4 of the way through my first year and I lost 90% of my files...lesson learned. Even though it's important, it's a pain to record things multiple times. Enter my saving grace...GradeCam.
I first found out about GradeCam by accident when entering data into my benchmarking program. They had an ad about how you could the both programs together. I was intrigued and followed the link. What I found was pure teacher gold... A cheap program that uses a tablet, web cam, or document camera to scan bubble sheets. I immediately signed up for a free trial. I have been hooked ever since.
Our school uses the tests provided with our curriculum for all subjects. 90% of these test are multiple choice, and our Benchmarks are also multiple choice. I know there's a huge debate over multiple choice tests, I don't want to get into that. I use what I'm required to use, and I supplement with other types of assessment. So please don't judge.
Since the majority of my assessments are multiple choice GradeCam is perfect for me. Each time I need to administer a test, I log in to my GradeCam account and print off bubble sheets. I can choose to print them with or without student information once I have setup my class. I always print an extra blank bubble sheet for myself, which I use to make a key. Here's a little video I made for you guys explaining how I use GradeCam, bear with me it is my first ever video...
One thing I forgot to mention in the video is that in GradeCam TeacherPlus (the paid version) you can correlate each question with a standard. This enables you to get standards based reports for each assessment. It's a huge help to those of us who do standards based grading. In my case, our report cards have traditional grade reporting with a condensed version of standards based grade reporting.
I also forgot to say that you can export your grades with the hot key as many times as you want. Very helpful when you keep grades in multiple places like I do!
Like I said in my video I definitely recommend the paid version, it's only $9.99 per month. For the amount of time I save, the amount of useful data, and the ease of use, I think it is well worth that price. By the way, I have no affiliation with GradeCam. It just happens to be software that I really love. If you sign up using my link below we both get 3 free months of the full GradeCam TeacherPlus version! And if you recommend the program to other teachers you get 3 additional free months of GradeCam TeacherPlus for each teacher that sign ups with your link and they get 3 months free too! It's a win for both of you!
If you'd like use my referral link to get 3 free months of GradeCam Plus click here.
Happy Grading!
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