Here’s another blog post from my new g1.
I have an attendence policy for all of my classes. Students get a certain number of free absences (2-3), and every absence after that results in a small point deduction from their final grade.
The Android Marketplace has a simple spreadsheet program called “Shead Spreet,” and you can use it to quickly take attendence each day. You can also efficiently use your semester long tallies when calculating final grades.
For a while, I did something like this with a Dell Axim Pocket PC, but entering the data wasn’t nearly as easy as it is with this program using the g1’s slide out keyboard. (So you can do something like this with any mobile device with a good spread sheet program, but so far the g1 has been the quickest and most convenient that I have used).
How to Take Attendence With Google Phone
1. Setup your Main Gradebook spreadsheet for your class on your main computer with your student names in the left-most column.
2. Import that to Shead Spreet.
(You have to download this from the Android Marketplace, but don’t worry – the program is free)
3. Use the first column next to the students for the first day of class.
4. Scroll down the cells of the column using the return key. If the student is present, leave the cell blank and hit RETURN. If the student is absent, ENTER a ‘1’ and hit return.
5. The next day, go to a cell in the column for the previous class date and insert a column. This shifts the other columns to the right and you now have a fresh column next to your student names.
6. At the end of the semester, insert a column and do a sum function. You’ll get the number of absences for each student next to their name.
7. Export this. Open it in a spread sheet on your main computer. Paste the column into your Main Grade template. You now have a column in your gradebook for total absences.
8. Crunch that total however you see fit. Perhaps the easiest method is to subtract it from the final grade percentage. That amounts to a third of a letter grade for each absence. If you want a more stringent policy, you can multiply the number first by ‘2’ – and if you want a buffer for some freebies, then substract from the total before you use it.
This method is much faster, more efficient, and more convenient than keeping a paper tally and manually doing the tally at the end.
Final Thoughts:
1. I was going to defend the practice of having an attendence policy here, but I’ll save that for a future post.
2. This method is also useful to use in conjunction with what will be my new laptop policy for students. I’ll explain that new policy soon (probably in my next post).
I’ll be interested to see the defense of an attendance policy. I’ve generally been against them, though I’ve seen some almost-convincing arguments solely regarding freshmen.
Hi, I’m the developer of Shead Spreet. I just wanted to clear up a possible point of confusion. You say that Shead Spreet is free. This both true and false. As of midMarch I switched the standard installation available through the Market to a lite/pro pair and the lite version (free obviously) is limited whereas the older version you refer to was not limited. However, anyone wishing to use the previously unlimited version (which is less sophisticated than the new lite/pro pair but is the same version you reviewed in this article) can still download it for free off my website.
Cheers!
Looks like your blog didn’t post my website. http://keithwiley.com/software/sheadSpreet.shtml
Keith,
I just noticed that paid version a few days ago. Thanks for the heads up.
I haven’t bought the full version yet because I haven’t had time to read the reviews.
I had a few weird issues with file importing, file access, and force closing with the free version since I first posted this, but I’m assuming those have been fixed in the paid version.
I’m going to check out the reviews soon.
UPDATE: Based on the reviews I’ve read the new Pro Version looks pretty awesome. I may have to shell out the three bucks to try it myself.