Any great software for teachers and/or students?

[monkeywrench67 0]

I'm going to be teaching at a new school in the fall and all of the students are issued Mac laptops. Not sure what model, but who cares! I'm looking forward to taking full advantage of this, and am looking for any great titles for students or teachers that will help me maximize this great opportunity.

 

I am teaching 8th grade ESL/Language Arts. I'm wondering if I should cough up the dough for .Mac again. I let it lapse because it wasn't worth the money for me, but now I'm thinking I can use the iWeb feature for a class website.

 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Rob 0]

I don't, yet, have any earth shattering suggestions; however, Easy Grade Pro is excellent grade management software. It's 100 times better than PowerSchool, which was developed by Apple and sold off a year or so ago.

 

Here are a couple of example of teacher websites, for ideas, ya know:

 

http://www.paloverde.org/mrs_statucki/

http://www.mr-williams.net/school/

[groomsy57 0]

As a student, I really like Schoolhouse. It's a great task/assignment management tool. It's donationware, but it's a great piece of software: Softpedia download page (would have linked to developers page, but I kept getting an error).

 

Edit: developers page now working for me. Schoolhouse Development site

Edited July 16, 2007 by groomsy57

[jroller 0]

I don't, yet, have any earth shattering suggestions; however, Easy Grade Pro is excellent grade management software. It's 100 times better than PowerSchool, which was developed by Apple and sold off a year or so ago.

 

Here are a couple of example of teacher websites, for ideas, ya know:

 

http://www.paloverde.org/mrs_statucki/

http://www.mr-williams.net/school/

 

Actually, PowerSchool was purchased by Apple then later sold to Pearson, maker of SASI (which we VERY unfortunately have to use). I hope PowerSchool will replace it; it cannot possibly be worse.

[Rob 0]

I had to use SASI for years, and I agree it's no picnic, with lots of drawbacks.

 

I moved to a district this past year that uses PowerSchool, and I can honestly say that PowerSchool is significantly worse than SASI. I'd give up my raise to get this district to move to SASI. In my previous district, the techies worked with the SASI development team to get some hacked integration between EasyGrade Pro and SASI.

 

This integration isn't necessary in PowerSchool because the gradebook program is part of PowerSchool; however, I never lost grades with the EasyGrade Pro hack. After losing my gradebook twice and spending hours re-entering grades, I gave up on PowerSchool and used it as minimally as possible, keeping my assignment grades on my laptop with EGP.

 

I honestly feel PowerSchool is the WORST student management software I've ever seen AND it is incredibly slow when everyone is trying to get grades in at once, like the end of the semester.

 

Maybe you'll like it. If you get to use PowerSchool, I'd really like to know how you think it compares to SASI. I didn't like SASI, but the grass isn't always greener.

 

-Rob

[jroller 0]

Wow... that is the first first-hand assessment of PowerSchool I have read. I just hate SASI so much, I figured nothing could be worse. SASI itself, I guess, is not really horrible, but IGPro is the single worst program I have ever used, and I have not used a paper gradebook in over a decade. Maybe there is worse out there. Scary thought...

[Rob 0]

jroller,

 

Did you mean EGP (EasyGrade Pro) or is IGPro a program.

 

I really like EGP. There are some user interface quirks that are a pain, but I find the program to be fairly easy to use, very powerful, and nicely integrated.

 

However, I'm geeky and I have the printed manual for the program. In my former district where everyone was required to use EGP, I spent quite a bit of time instructing teachers in how to use the program; so I can not claim that the program is intuitive.

 

-Rob

[monkeywrench67 0]

I currently use EGP and have been quite happy with it. I don't know what my new district uses.

[Ceoltoir 16]

One application i absolutely love is CircusPonies' Notebook. It's great for writing, or organizing. In an ESL setting i bet it would really shine. i even noticed the other day that there is even an educator's discount on the website.