At the beginning of class we had a grad student come in to talk to us about using Fresh Grade. Though I had heard about this software before I had never seen or used it before this class. During our development day during out 2 week practicum some of the teachers at my school spoke about Fresh Grade. They were happy that didn’t have to use this method to assess their students.
I wish we had had more time to actually use the software. It was interesting to see the pages she had created and the ways she had used the software to organize her planning and assessment. Overall, I think Fresh Grade seems likes a great idea I just worry about how efficient it is. It also seems like a bit of slideshow act that hooks parents but doesn’t actually help children that much. These are a few questions I have about using it:
- How can student’s privacy be protected if the device the teacher uses is lost or stolen?
- Is it fair to the students to be spending so much time assessing them instead of interacting with them?
- Who is this software aimed at helping – parents or students?
- As teachers, who are our ‘clients’? Are we aiming to please students or their parents?
