The major advantage of the Digital Gradebooks System is it gives an overview on the performance of students in a school. A gradebook is a reflection of the work that has been done in the classroom. It echoes the learning that the students have experienced and serves as a launch pad for the coming academic. It also gives an accurate description of the students’ progress in school over a period of time
Using a student management system that manages gradebooks is one of the best ways to create a guidebook that will help the parents and the teachers effectively understand the students and guide them towards academic excellence.
Digital grade books have become very popular. As a part of cloud management systems, digital grade books mark student assessments. It is an online version of a physical grade book. The teacher can give grades and also take formative assessments. A teacher can also include student assignments, descriptive notes, and audiovisual notes on the CC app.
Digital grade books are supported by cloud technology these days. So, the teachers can put all their classroom data on the cloud and share it with parents, other teachers, and the management. Not only this, the teacher can store all the multimedia notes, grades, instruction needs of the individual student on the cloud and download them whenever she needs them. The calculation of grades becomes extremely fast and easy with digital technology.
Don’t be mistaken: a gradebook doesn’t just show you the grades of a student for a specific subject. It also holds information regarding assignment details, instructor notes, feedback, downloads, student and parent queries, and so on.
Digital gradebooks have brought about spectacular innovations in teaching, where instructor no longer have to worry about maintaining and protecting the abundant volumes of student grading documents manually. This gradebook allows a teacher to input in grades in a fast and efficient manner, and also makes a note of each grade entered. All information stored in the Digital Gradebook are preserved and protected with external requirements. Also, a lot of these digital gradebooks are cloud-based, so every piece of data can be easily stored, analyzed and retrieved at any time.
Digital gradebooks also provides students with 24/7 access to grades, activity calendars, assignment notes, instructor feedback, etc. This cuts down a teacher’s work to a little less than half: as a teacher you not only reduce the time you spend on checking and replying to dozens of emails, but also waste time in sharing assignment reviews and scores of the students in the class with their parents. Along with entering scores, digital gradebooks are regularly updated to automate tasks that report those scores to the administration and students.
Best Gradebooks for Teachers and Instructors
The following are some popular examples of online gradebooks that are available for teachers and schools:
Chronicle Cloud
Chronicle Cloud is the cloud-based class management system and a digital grade book designed with the simple thought of using technology and integrating teaching tasks, allowing teachers to focus on their passion for teaching. CC is one of the best cloud-based class management apps that helps teachers in note-taking, giving student feedback, taking formative assessments, and using multimedia for making teaching engaging. During the pandemic, it also helped teachers organize frequent individual meetings and interactions with students and the parents via the “Chronicle Cloud Parents App.”
ThinkWave
ThinkWave is an online grade book system that features an intuitive, simple, and clean interface designed to ensure easy navigation. Teachers do not need to have different accounts for different groups. They can manage multiple groups within a single ThinkWave gradebook.
As a totally cloud-based gradebook, ThinkWave software doesn’t have to be installed in various systems. You can access your account from all devices from any location. It can be accessed through Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, MAC, an iOS or Android device, and Linux.
Jupiter iO
Jupiter iO is an all-inclusive gradebook offered by Jupiter Ed, an education technology company that has been operating since 2004. With continuous development and innovation, the company has been striving to make education easier for teachers, students, parents, and administrators.
Jupiter iO provides teachers with options to assess students online, analyze results instantly, keep students informed of any grades and assignments, track student performance in real-time and personalize lessons for individual students.
Promising maximum data security, the cloud-based solution aims to ensure continuous improvement in students’ academic achievements by enabling anywhere-anytime learning.
JumpRope
The JumpRope gradebook is designed to offer a standard-based solution that’s adaptable to all different learning environments. Standard-based solution means that student assessments can be aligned with one or many standards. In other words, teachers can divide a course into units and add standards for a better performance tracking.
An important feature is that it allows instructors to assess students on habits of work besides academic standards to generate and convey a complete picture of a student’s progress that can then be shared with the students and their parents. Also, in addition to traditional formats, JumpRope generates transcripts that are totally compatible with graduation requirements.
In addition to basic grading functions, JumpRope allows instructors to track college applications, attendance, student data, and even behavior.
iGrade Plus
iGrade Plus offers both an online gradebook for individual teachers and a school management system for schools and districts. For its gradebooks, it offers a free and a premium subscription.
As a web-based application, iGrade plus can be logged in from any device or computer through all types of browsers such as Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Safari, as well as from Mac OS-X and Linux. Its easy-to-use interface has evolved since 2011, developing a highly efficient gradebook with an intuitive design.
Teachers with a limited budget can subscribe for the free gradebook which provides a highly customizable solution to manage student grades, behavior, and attendance for free.
The premium gradebook subscription, on the other hand, offers all the features of the free subscription and a wide range of features including custom report generation, document sharing, a bulletin board, a daily lesson log, student and parent communication portals, an event calendar, a teacher’s blog, and student assignment submission.