Copyright: version 1.0


 Altissima: Teachers Gradebook Help

Contents

Introduction

Overview of the program

Basic navigational tips

Preparation & setup

Prepare/Options

Prepare/Master Lists

Prepare/Classes

Prepare/Students

Everyday usage

Attendance/Display & Enter Attendance

Scores/Display & Enter Scores

Grades/Display Grades

Notes/Display & Enter Notes


 Altissima: Teachers Gradebook Help

Introduction

Welcome to Altissima: Teacher’s Gradebook program.

It was designed with the help of a teacher with years of experience and tested by working teachers.  It is a tool that will save you time and effort.  It was especially designed to be simple and easy to use.  It will give you access to information that have eluded you until now for lack of time.

Open the program and this help file on screen together.

Explore the demo classes, and look at the features in the help file.  The step by step procedures in the help file will answer most of your questions about the program.  At the end of the help exercise, you will know the program well.  You can repeat the exercise until you feel confident that you know your new software tool well.

There is also an instructional slide show on the CD that will guide you through the program step by step.

View the contents of the CD in your file manager, “windows explorer” or “my computer”.

Go to the directory named “slideshow” on the CD.

There is no need to copy the slide show file to your hard drive, the CD is fast enough to display it.

Start the slide show by clicking on Slideshow.exe.

Advance each slide with the Right Arrow key, go back one slide with the Left Arrow key. Finish viewing the slideshow with the Escape key.

If you still have an unanswered question or a suggestion for a feature that the program does not yet provide or if you would like to suggest an improvement in an existing feature, please visit our web site - www.habarbadi.com/gradebook/

You may send us your questions, suggestions and comments from there.  (Needless to say, if you find a bug, please write us immediately!)


 Altissima: Teachers Gradebook Help

Overview of the program

This program is organized into several screens or pages.

Consider the program as being divided into two sections: Preparation and Everyday usage.

The preparation requires that you define master lists, years, terms, classes, categories and assign students to classes. You can also set options.

The everyday usage is divided into Attendance, Scores, Grades & Anecdotes.

You can record and view attendance, scores and notes.

You can view grades which are calculated based upon scores and the weighted categories.

Preparation

Options

If you wish, you can set program options.

These include the colour of the active tables, the grade alert set point and color and a password. Be sure to use a password that you will remember. Record it in a safe place.

For more detail, see the section on Options

Master Lists

The first necessary step is to prepare the master lists of classes & categories.

Select the menu Prepare/Lists.

The program is shipped with several terms and sample classes. After you explore and understand the program, you may wish to change the names to suit yourself or delete the defaults and enter new ones.

For more detail, see the section on Lists

Classes

The next step is to prepare the years, term divisions, classes and categories.

Select the menu Prepare/Classes.

TAB to the word ‘Start’ in the tree on the left. Press the right arrow and the tree will open. The default years will spread out beneath the word ‘Start’.  Press the down arrow to move to one of the years. Press the ENTER key.  This will activate the selected year and let you add terms.  If your school uses Quarters, select Quarters 1-4. You may of course change these.  The important thing is to keep the dates consistent.  The school year starts and finishes on certain dates, and each term starts and finishes on certain dates.  Please ensure that these dates are accurate and that they do not overlap.  Overlapping dates of years and terms will prevent the proper functioning of the program when entering attendance, scores and calculating grades.

For more detail, see the section on Years Terms & Classes

Students

The last step in preparation is to assign students to classes.

Select the menu Prepare/Students.

Select a Year, Term and Class from the tree. Press the ENTER key.

This will display a table of the students in the selected class.

On the right side will be three tabbed pages which hold new students information, existing students and existing classes.

For more detail, see the section on Students

Add New Students

To add a new student at this point, enter their first and last name. If you have the rest of the information, that would be nice. As you see by the tabbed pages, you can enter birthdate, gender, address, then contacts names and phone numbers and a photo if you wish. Photos must be in ‘jpg’ format. Entering a student to a class also enters the student into the master list of students.

For more detail, see the section on Adding New Students

Add Old students

Next term, you will have many students in your master list of students.  You may simply select them to add them into a new class. Open the tabbed page marked Existing Students and select the students by double clicking or pressing the ENTER key.

For more detail, see the section on Adding Old Students

Add Students from Existing classes

Again - next term, once you have existing classes, you may press the ENTER key on one of them to add all the students from that old class to the new one.  Even if all the students did not move to the current class, you may use this to enter most of the students and delete the ones that did not move over to the new term for any reason.  You can delete students from a class only before you have entered scores for them.

For more detail, see the section on Adding Entire Classes

Everyday Usage

At this point, you are ready to use the program to record Attendance, Scores & Notes and view Grades.

Attendance

If the Year, Term & Class have already been selected, the program will open the students for that class. If you have not yet selected the Year, Term & Class, do so.

The attendance page for the current date will open.

Press ENTER or double-click left mouse button on the column for the date you wish to enter.

This will open the Attendance Data window.

By default, all students are marked present.

Press ENTER or double-click to mark the attendance status for those students that are not present.

Save the data.

For more detail, see the section on Attendance

Scores

If the Year, Term & Class have already been selected, the program will open the categories for that class.

If you have not yet selected the Year, Term & Class, do so.

The categories for the class will appear below the classes tree.

Select (Press ENTER or double-click) a category.

The Scores table will open displaying any existing scores for the selected class in the selected category in the current week.

Shift Left Arrow will move back one week, while Shift Right Arrow will move forward one week.

There are also Previous Week and Next Week screen buttons if you prefer using the mouse.

Place the highlight in a day column, then press ENTER or double-click and the Scores Data window will appear ready to accept your scores for that day in that category.

Type a name to identify these scores, for example the test on “Voltaire”.

Enter the number of score items, the n value - 20 questions.

Fill in each student’s raw score in the Raw Score column.

Record any extra credit to the ExtCr column.

Save the Scores.

For more detail, see the section on Scores

Grades

When you have scores ready, you can calculate and view the grades.

If the Year, Term & Class have already been selected, the program will open the students for that class. If you have not yet selected the Year, Term & Class, do so.

If there are grades, all the students will appear

If the grades have not yet been calculated since the last scores were entered, click the “Calculate” button to calculate the grades.

The names of those students who have category grades below the Grade Alert set point will appear bold and in the Grade Alert color.

At this point, you can press ENTER or double-click on a student’s name to view their grades.

If you wish to see which students owe work or if a student asks to see what work they owe, you can select the menu item “Owed/Late Work”.  This will search through the currently selected class for all scores marked with a 0. This indicates that the work has not been completed. (If you leave a score blank, the program will ignore it) In moments, you can show the student which assignments they need to complete.

For more detail, see the section on Grades

Students’ Anecdotes

Select the menu Notes/Display& Enter.

If you have not yet selected a class, do so.

The students names will appear.

Select a student.

To write a note:

Select a class and select the notebook tab marked “Write Note”.

It will show a date (which defaults to the current date), a header for the note, and a space for the note itself. You can also mark the note as a commendation, and observation or as an indicator that the student needs improvement in that area. If you use these indicators you will see a tally when you read the notes.  Save the note.

To read the notes:

Click on the notebook tab marked “Read Notes”.

By default, the dates reflect the current class start and end dates. You can change the dates if you wish a larger date range for viewing the notes.

If you cannot find a note, you might have dated it incorrectly. You can find it by clicking on the button Show All Notes. This will show all the notes for the student, regardless of date.

The headers will appear for all the notes.

Press ENTER or double-click on a header to view the details of the note.

You can modify the details of the note and save the changes.

You can delete a note by selecting the note header and pressing the DELETE key.

For more detail, see the section on Notes

Printing and exporting data

The first version of Altissima: Teachers Gradebook cannot directly print data or notes.

In this version we export data:

Scores for the Class,

Grades for both Class & Student,

Owed/ Late Makeup Work for both Class & Student,

Notes for both Class & Student.

These are sent to a separate window from which you can Copy and then Paste (see Basic Navigational Tips) into the wordprocessor or spreadsheet program of your choice.

That’s the outline of the program to get you started.

Work ought to have an element of fun. Explore and enjoy.

Visit our web site: www.habarbadi.com/gradebook/


 Altissima: Teachers Gradebook Help

Basic navigational tips

Throughout this program we have used a small & consistent set of keyboard keys.

In programs that deal with text and numbers, such as this teachers’ grade book, you can work much faster using the keyboard than using the mouse.  Accordingly, there is no action or feature that is exclusively performed by the mouse in this program.  The mouse can be used of course, but the program is designed for the keyboard.  Try using the following keys in any page and observe their actions:

You can work most of the program with your left hand over the TAB key and your right hand over the ARROW keys and the ENTER and DELETE keys and the Number keypad.

Use the TAB key to move from one screen object to another.  For example, from a button to the edit field next to it or from a data table to the tree outline.

Use the ARROW keys (up, down, left & right) to NAVIGATE in a tree outline or in a data table.  To go to the top of a data table, use the HOME key.  To go to the bottom of a data table, use the END key.

The ENTER (or RETURN) key is used in several places to activate something.

A double-click of the mouse usually does the same thing as this key.

For example, in the tree outlines, you can navigate to the class you wish to select by using the arrow keys, and then you may press ENTER.  Alternatively, you may simply select the tree item with the mouse and when you have highlighted the class, you can double-click the left mouse button.

To Delete something, simply select it and press the DELETE (sometimes marked Del) key.  You only have the ability to delete a record without dependent records. For example, you may not delete a student from a class if you have already entered scores for that student in that class.  In order to delete the student, you must first delete all the scores for the student in the class.

In Attendance and Scores, you can move to a previous week by using Shift key and Left Arrow key combination.

Likewise, you can move to the next week by using the Shift key and Right Arrow key combination.

(In Windows, key combinations are activated by holding down the first key and  momentarily depressing the second key. Both keys are then released)

Date selection fields

You can click on the date selectors downward triangle with the left mouse button. This will open the selector to display a calendar.

You can also TAB to the date selector and press the ALT-Down Arrow key combination.

This will also open the date selector. You can then move through the dates with the Arrow keys.

You can also simply place the cursor on the date without opening up the selector. You can place the cursor highlighting the month or day or year, then press the Up or Down Arrow. This will change that element of the date.

In Attendance & Scores, after you change the date, press ENTER key to register the change and display the new scores.

How to Copy & Paste

(This is basic for all MS-Windows users: Read this if you don’t know how to do it!)

The keyboard commands for Copy and Paste are standard throughout all MS-Windows programs.

Position the cursor at the top of the window, hold down the Shift key and press the Down arrow until you reach the end of the data.  At this point, press the Ctrl key and just tap the ‘C’ key.  This is the command to “copy” the highlighted text to the MS-Windows clipboard.  Move to the other program with the Alt -Tab combination and once there, press the Ctrl-V combination. This is the standard MS-Windows keyboard  command for pasting data.

If you would like to see this in action, follow the steps here:

Click on the MS-Windows Start button at the bottom left of the screen.

Click on Programs.

Click on Accessories.

Click on Notepad.  This is a very simple word processing program useful for notes that comes with MS-Windows.

Start another Notepad by doing the same thing again.

Type something into one of them. Copy it using the sequence above.

Go to the other one with the Alt-Tab combination or by using the mouse to click on the other window.

Press Ctrl and the ‘V’ key.

The sentence will appear in the second Notepad.

That’s how copy & paste is done in MS-Windows.


 Altissima: Teachers Gradebook Help

Prepare Options

Active table color

Choose your favorite active table background color.  This makes it easier for you to find the cursor or table highlight.  Open the pull down box by pressing the Alt key and the down-arrow key combination while in the color box. Select a color and each table or field will be displayed in that color when it is active.

Grade alert color

Grade alerts provide an obvious indication of those students who have grades below a certain point. The default color is Crimson Red and a grade of 75 is the default alarm point.  This means that when you calculate grades for a class, the names of those students who have grades below 75 in any category will appear in red.

Press ENTER or click in the field to open a color box to set the text color in this field to your favorite alarm color. Select a color and close the box.

If you normally show the screens to your students and wish to prevent a student from seeing the red names of their classmates, shrink the students table by clicking on and moving the splitter bar down so that only their name is visible.

The splitter bar in question is the narrow horizontal colored bar just above the students table. (See panel splitter below)

Passwords

If you wish to password protect your program from prying eyes, simply enter the same password into both fields.  The next time you start the program you will need to provide this password.  This password is truly private.  We cannot help you if you forget your password. Without the password the program will not allow a user to progress beyond the splash screen.

Panel splitter color

Panel splitters allow you to squeeze a portion of the screen.

For example once you have chosen a class, you can squeeze the classes tree by putting the mouse over the splitter clicking the left button down and moving the mouse. The panel will follow the mouse. Let the mouse button go and the panel will remain at the new size.

You can set the color for the splitter here.

Student anecdote tone counter

We have a feature by which you can quantify your notes.

You can mark the tone of your notes as Commendation, Observation or Needs Improvement.

When you view the notes for a student the anecdote tone counter will display the number of notes marked in each category, if you have marked them as other than Observation, which is the default. At a glance, you can see how many positive and how many negative remarks you recorded.

By default the program is shipped with the Note Tone Counter visible. If you do not wish to use or see this feature, click on the check box to clear it. An empty check box means that the feature is not visible.

Regarding blanks & zeros

While this is not an option, we would like to explain about blanks and zeros.

This program uses both blanks and zeros in scoring and grading.

If you leave a score blank, it will not be counted when calculating grades.

If you mark it as a zero, it will be counted in the scoring and grading process.

A Score of Zero also allows an assignment to be displayed in the Owed/Makeup Work.

So, if you wish to allow a student to skip an assignment, leave their score blank.

Otherwise, place a zero. The student’s average will be drawn down by the zero and the assignment will appear in the Owed/Makeup Work listing for that student.

If you are waiting for a student to give an assignment, mark it as zero. You can easily change it when the assignment is delivered.


 Altissima: Teachers Gradebook Help

Prepare Master Lists

These are the lists that you will use to prepare your years, terms and classes tree outline. You can modify these lists. The program is shipped with useful term names and category names, but of course the class names that you use will differ. Explore the demo class to see how the lists show up in the years, terms and classes tree outline.

Master list of Terms

Enter here the names of your regular terms. The program ships with Quarters, Trimesters and Semesters. You don’t need to delete the ones you don’t use, but you can.

Master List of Classes

Enter here the names of your regular classes.

The regular classes are those that you teach every year. For example, 4th Grade French, or 7th Grade Art. These are the names that you will insert into a grading term.

If you are teaching a class this year that you will not teach again, then do not add it to the master class list. Wait until you go to the Classes page to assign the classes to year and grading division.

There add it as a class unique to this year and division.  See the Classes page for details.

Master List of Weighted Categories

Enter here the names of your regular categories, such as Homework, Participation and Quizzes/Tests.

These are the categories that you will add to each class.

Enter weights as whole integers that will sum to a complete 100% when you add them to a class.

Important consideration! The weights for the categories of each class must sum to 100%.

Note: Here in the Master Category List, you can keep many categories for your different classes.

However, when you wish to add categories to a class, you must be careful to add only those categories that have weights summing to 100%.

Adding categories that sum to more than 100% that will give you meaningless results when grading.

Regarding Thirds

If you use equal thirds for the weight of the standard categories, give two of them the value of 33 and give one of them the value of 34.

Weightless Categories

If you enter a category without a weight, you will be able to record scores and a class grade will be calculated for that category. However, that category will not be averaged into the term or yearly grades. This way you can keep unofficial grades in categories that are meaningful for you and your students while not disturbing your class grades for the official school grading system.  You might wish to keep scores on Field Trips without incorporating them into the yearly grades.


 Altissima: Teachers Gradebook Help

Prepare Years, Terms, Classes & Categories

Preparing your tree outline

To record your scores, you need a tree outline structure to hold the years, terms, classes and categories.

Follow these steps carefully and we will create a structure in the database for the program to find your scores and calculate them for the correct grade terms and years.

Important!

For best results, plan your structure before entering the years, terms, classes & categories.

Write out the years that you wish to record, the grading terms in each year and the classes and their categories in each grade term.

Click here to see a sample outline of a plan

Click here to see an actual example of a plan

Order them correctly on paper and put them into the program in the planned order.

They will show in the tree in alphabetical order.

You can work on one year and on one grade term at a time.

The good part is that it’s actually simple and you won’t need to do this often.

Add Years

We ship the Teachers Gradebook with the year marked 1998-1999 for the demo class.

A past year gives us a convenient place to include a demo class for you to study. You can add years. We suggest that you follow the same format for the year name, unless you record your years differently, such as in the southern hemisphere 2000, 2001, 2002, etc.

Choose the menu Prepare/Classes.

Highlight the word “Start” at the top left of the tree outline.

Press the Right Arrow on the keyboard.

This will open the Add Year Page.

Dates are essential here.

Now Tab over to the Start Date or select it with the mouse.

Play with the date field until you see how it works. You can open it and view a calendar, or you can move between the Month, Day and Year with the left/right arrow keys and change them with the up/down arrow keys.  You can also type in a number.  Don’t worry about making a mistake. You won’t enter any data until you click on the screen button “Add Year”

Select the first date of the school year.

TAB to the End Date.

Select the last date of the year as you did the first date.

TAB to the Year name field.

Enter a name for the year.  Use clear names such as 2000-2001 or 2000.

Accuracy is important here.

Be careful not to use the same name for two years.  This will confuse you when using the program.

Don’t let the dates overlap with the start or end dates for another year. That will make the program unable to display the classes correctly.

When you see that the dates and name are correct, click on the screen button “Add Year”.

This will enter the year into the tree and database.  If you notice a mistake, highlight the year, and press the DELETE key.

Add Terms

This is done the same way you add a year.  It doesn’t matter whether you work with semesters, trimesters or quarters or even an undivided school year.

Select a year by TAB key or ARROW key or Mouse to highlight the correct year.

This will open the Add Term Page.

Press the ENTER key or double click with the mouse to activate the page.

When this page is activated, you will see the start date and end date of the year.

There is a button marked “Modify” that lets you adjust the dates of the year if necessary.  If you use this, ensure that the dates are correct and do not overlap with other years.

Now Tab over to the Start Date of Term or select it with the mouse.

Play with the date field until you see how it works. You can open it and view a calendar, or you can move between the Month, Day and Year with the left/right arrow keys and change them with the up/down arrow keys.  You can also type in a number.  Don’t worry about making a mistake. You won’t enter any data until you click on the screen button “Add Term”.

Select the first date of the term you wish to add.  If it is the first term of the year, it ought to be the same as the start date of the year.

TAB to the End Date.

Select the last date of the term as you did the first date.

TAB to the Term name field.

Enter a name for the tem.

We ship the program will some examples of some good simple names for grade terms:

Semester 1, Semester 2, Summer.

Trimester 1, Trimester 2, Trimester 3.

Quarter 1, Quarter 2, Quarter 3, Quarter 4.

Now either TAB to the screen button “Add Term” below the text field and press ENTER or left mouse click on the screen button.

That will enter the new term into the tree outline and into the database.

You can now enter the next term.  Add all the terms if you know the dates.  If you don’t know the dates for the future terms, leave them till later, and start to enter the classes for the term you have entered.

In the event you work with an undivided school year, then the start date and end date will be the same as the year and you might as well name the grade term something like “year term”.  The program will provide a term grade, but it will be the same as the year grade.

Again, Accuracy is important here.  Don’t enter overlapping dates.

Add Class

Press the right arrow key to highlight the Term.

You will notice that the Add Class page opens.

You will see the start date and end dates of the current year and current term.

For each of these there is a button marked “Modify” that lets you adjust the dates of the year and term if necessary.  If you use these buttons to change the year dates or the term dates, ensure that the dates are correct and do not overlap with other years or terms.

Here you will see a data table with the regular classes that you entered in the Preferences page, as well as an Add All button and an Add New button.

Select one of the regular classes or click the button “Add All” or enter a new class and click the button “Add New”.

This will enter the selected class(es) into the highlighted grade term.  This means that any scores entered into these classes will be averaged into the grades for the selected term and also into the year that holds the term.

If you will be giving only some of your regular classes this term, click on those classes from the data table. They will be added to the term.

If you will be delivering all your regular classes this term, click on the button “Add All”.

If you enter a new class here, it will not be added to your list of regular classes.

It will only be added to this term.

If you have a new regular class, go to Preferences/Lists and add it to the list of your regular classes.

If you make an error, TAB over to the tree outline and highlight the erroneous class or select it with the mouse.  Press the DELETE key. The class will be removed immediately since you have not yet entered student records for it.

Add Categories

TAB or mouse to the tree outline and press the right ARROW to open the tree to the current class.  When you have a class highlighted, you will see the Add Category page.

This page displays the name, start dates and end dates for the current year.

It also displays the name start and end dates for the current term.

You can see the name of the current class.

Below there will be a list of regular categories from the master list of categories.

You can select several of the regular categories, you can add all of them and you can enter a new category that will apply only to the current class.

If you enter a new category, enter the default weight as well.  This is important for the grade calculation process.  Remember to make the weights sum to 100%. The program is flexible for your convenience, but consistency is necessary.


Sample outline of a plan

Year 1

Term 1

Class A

Category A

Category B

Class B

Category A

Category B

Class C

Category A

Category B

Term 2

Class C

Category A

Category B

Year 2

Term 1

Class C

Category A

Category B


Actual example of a plan

2000-2001

Semester 1

5 th Grade A

Tests & quizzes

Participation

Field trips

6 th Grade B

Homework

Tests & quizzes

Participation

7 th Grade C

Homework

Tests & quizzes

Participation

Semester 2

7 th Grade C

Homework

Tests & quizzes

Participation

2001-2002

Semester 1

7 th Grade C

Homework

Tests & quizzes

Participation


 Altissima: Teachers Gradebook Help

Prepare Students

Select Prepare/Student List.

You will see again a list of Years, Terms and Classes.

Select a Year, Term & Class.

TAB to the Tree if it is not already selected.

Highlight the “Start” point.

Press the right arrow to open the years.

Use the down arrow to select a year, then right arrow to open the year, and down arrow to select a term then right arrow again to select a class.

When you have the correct class selected, press ENTER.

The first time you look at a class in this page, you will see that “There are no students”.

You may start adding students in the panels on the right side of the page.

To add students, TAB to the middle data table, then TAB again to the notebook folder style tabbed pages.

You can also use the mouse.

Play around with the TAB key to see how it moves over the tabbed notebook folder pages.

If the tabbed page Add/Modify Student Info is not foremost, then select it.

It has notebook folder tab pages inside it called Student Record, Contacts & Photo.

You need to add a Student Record before you add contacts or a photo.

Important: Avoid duplication of data.

You only need to add a student’s information once.

Do not add a student twice. This will only confuse your data.

If you have the student entered twice in the database, the program will not link the two. It will treat them as separate students who happen to have the same name.

When adding a student to a class, first check the Old Students table to see if you entered the student already for a previous class, and select the student from that table if they are already in the database.  The Old Students list is sorted alphabetically by last name.

If by mistake you do enter a student twice, delete the name and add the old existing one.

If you have already entered some scores, remove them, remove the student name from the class and select the old name to that class. The program will then be able to link all scores and notes for that student.

Add New Students

Add Old Students

Add Entire Class

When you have the classes, grading factors and students added and assigned, you may start

to use the program to record students’ scores and view grades.


 Altissima: Teachers Gradebook Help

Prepare Students - Add New Students

When you enter a student’s information the first time to any class you also enter it into the main list.

TAB to the first name field, type the student’s first name then TAB to the last name field and enter the student’s last name.

You may also record student ID, gender and birthdate, address, etc.  Only the first and last names are required, but it may be useful to you to have all the other information.

Click the Save button.

Important! Do not add a student to the database twice!

If the a student subsequently appears in another of your classes, you must select the student name from the list of Old Students.  Simply press ENTER on their name in the old student list. See Add Old Students for details.


 Altissima: Teachers Gradebook Help

Prepare Students - Add Old Students

Do not add a student to the database twice!

Some of your old students may be in your current class.

To add a student name who has been in a previous class, use the Old Students list.

TAB to the Old Students list.

Find the student’s name in the list.

Press the ENTER key or double-click the left mouse button on a student name and it will be added to the student list for the current class.

This will assign that student to that class.

Continue clicking on the names of all the students who belong to that class.

This will considerably speed the process of entering student names to your classes.


 Altissima: Teachers Gradebook Help

Prepare Students - Add Entire Class

If many of the students in your new class were in one of your previous classes, use this feature to add all the students that were in the class in the previous term to the same class in the current term.  All students from the previous class will be added.

To do this, select the new unpopulated class in the tree outline.

Press ENTER or double-click left mouse button on the class to activate it.

TAB to the page Add Entire Class. TAB into it or select it with the mouse.

This will open the tree of previous and existing classes.

Open the tree with the arrow keys or using the mouse.

Select the old class with the students.

Press ENTER or double-click the left mouse button.

The program will ask for confirmation before adding all students.

If you confirm, all the students from the old class will be added to the new class.

If most of the class has come into your new class, but not all, you could add the entire class using this feature and delete the few students who are not in the class. Again, this is simply to save you time.

If you need to delete a student from a class, click on the name of a student and press the DELETE key.


 Altissima: Teachers Gradebook Help

Display & Enter Attendance

Select the year, term & class.

The attendance table and the class attendance summary will be prepared.

You will see any existing attendance records for the week.

Move the cursor to any row in the day you wish to enter and press ENTER or double-click.

This will open the Attendance Data window.

The program assumes the optimum situation - all students are present.

You may mark any student as Late, Absent, Unexcused Late or Unexcused Absent.

To mark a student as other than present, use the arrow keys to move the cursor to the appropriate column in the student’s row and press the ENTER key or double-click.

This will place the attendance mark for that student for that day in that column.

To change it, simply perform the same operation in another column.

Save the attendance records by clicking or pressing ENTER on the screen button marked “Save”.

The day’s attendance will be added to the summary for the class.

If you marked attendance on a certain day by mistake, you can delete the entire day by placing the cursor in that day column (any row) and pressing the DELETE key.

This will delete all records for that day. You can then enter the attendance to the correct day.

To conserve space on the hard drive

At the end of term, you may delete the attendance records to conserve space on your hard drive.

If you do this the attendance marks will be gone, leaving only the summary for the term.

To do this, click the menu Attendance/Delete Records.

When you do this, you will see only the Summary for this class.

The menu item will change to Re-enter Records.

This menu item will show the Attendance Records table again and allow you to re-enter the records. This is in case you deleted the records in error and need to re-enter them. If you do not use this, the Attendance Records table remains invisible when viewing the attendance for this class and only the summary is visible.


 Altissima: Teachers Gradebook Help

Display & Enter Scores

To enter Scores, follow these steps:

Select Scores/Display & Enter from the menu.

The Scores page will open with a tree outline of Years, Terms & Classes.

Select the year, term, class and category in the tree outline.

Use the TAB key and the Arrow keys to highlight Start, then the Year, then the Term, then the Class. Press ENTER to activate your selection.

The categories for the class will be displayed below the tree outline.

The list of Categories for the selected class will open below the tree.

TAB to the categories table and select a category by pressing ENTER or double-clicking on the category you wish to score.

If the class is currently active the default date will be today’s date. If you are viewing a previous class or the demo class which is no longer active, the table of scores will open for the first date of class.

The scores table will open displaying any existing scores for the week.  The program assumes that there will not be more than one scored item in each category on each date.  It collects scores for each student in a certain class and category on a certain date.

For example, to prepare to enter all the scores for the test that you named Test3 on March 23 for all students, you select the class, and select Tests.

The Scores page will fill with the days of the week and with the students names.

Any previously recorded scores will be displayed.

To enter or modify scores in the data window, TAB to the scores table and select a date column by clicking or moving the highlight with the arrow keys.  Press ENTER or double-click on the highlight in the data area of the column.

The scores data window will appear, ready to accept students scores & extra credit in the selected category and class on the selected date.

Enter a name for the score.

In this Scores data window, type in a short name of the score item, in our Homework example “pages 40-50", or for another example, you might name a test “Voltaire” or “Chapter 4”. This is for your convenience when looking at the scores later.

Enter the number of possible scores or use the number spinner by holding down the up or down arrow.

This is the divisor by which the program divides the raw scores to derive percent.

For example:  20 questions or 100 questions.  You can enter 100 if you wish to mark your own percentages or if you mark participation by 100.

The extra credit is added as an integer to the percentage after the calculation.

Then enter the raw score achieved by each student.  Record any extra credit in the ExtCr column.

Extra credit is added as an integer to the percentage score.

For example, in a test on Voltaire, there were 20 questions.

Judy scored 20 correct test questions, and completed 1 extra credit question.

Thus Judy will receive a percentage of 101.

Tommy scored 18 and 1 extra credit question, giving him a percentage of 91.

TAB to the button marked Save Scores and click it or press ENTER.

This will add all the scores to the students records.


 Altissima: Teachers Gradebook Help

Display Grades

On this screen you can view the calculated grades for each category, the final grade for the

term or division and the final grade for the entire year, as it stands so far.

These are for viewing when you evaluate the student and when preparing the report card.

At any time during the school year, you can calculate grades and show students how well or badly they are doing at the moment. This way you can, if necessary, warn them of impending doom far in advance. They will have no more excuses!

No modifications can be made to grades on this screen.  They are calculated from scores recorded in the weighted categories on the Scores screen.

Select a class and press ENTER or double-click.

This will display all students for the selected class.

Use the TAB key to move to the weights button.

Set Weights

If you wish to modify the weights or if you have not set default weights for each category, then you can set the weights here.

Click on the screen button labeled “Weights”.

A box will open showing the weights that belong to the currently selected class.  You can set or modify those weights.  The modifications will be recorded for the current class only.  If you wish to modify the default weights, you must do this at the Prepare/Lists page.

Press the TAB key to move to the Calculate button.

To calculate grades, click the button marked “Calculate Grades”.

Press the TAB key to move to the students data table.

To view grades, select a student’s name and press ENTER or double click.

The student’s grades will appear in the tree outline on the right.

The names of those students who have recorded category grades less than the Grade Alert Level determined in the Options page will be displayed in the selected Grade Alert Color.

The default Grade Alert color is crimson.  You can change this in Prepare/Options.

Henceforth, use the Up or Down Arrow keys to select the student, and press ENTER.

This will request all grades for that student and display them in the tree outline to the right.  You can TAB to move to the tree outline.  You can navigate within the tree by using the Arrow keys. Up and Down move up and down the tree, while Right and Left open and close the tree branches.


 Altissima: Teachers Gradebook Help

Display & Enter Notes

To record your notes and anecdotes, select a class.

The students names will appear.

Select a student.

To write new notes:

Click on the notebook tab marked “Write Note” with the left mouse button or TAB to the notebook and move to the “Write Note” tab using the left or right Arrow keys.

By default the date is for the current date. If you wish to record the note for a different date, then change the date for the note.

Enter the Header.

Enter the message itself.

Optionally select the tone of the note: Commendation, Observation or Needs improvement.

Save the note.

To read existing notes:

On the right side of the page, select the notebook tab marked “Read Notes”.

Click on it with the mouse or TAB to the notebook tabs and move to it using the left or right Arrow keys.

By default the dates will be the start and end dates of the class you selected.

If you wish, you can change the dates to find notes for the entire year or several years.

Select the dates and click the screen button marked “Show Notes”.

At this point, you will see the headers for the notes.

If you wish to read a note, highlight it and press ENTER or double-click on it.

This will bring the note into the read & edit fields.  You can edit all of these fields. You can change the date, the header or the note and tone marker entirely and save it back to the database.

If you entered a note and you cannot find it, the problem may be that you mistakenly selected a date that was before the first day of class or after the last day of class. In this case, click the screen button marked “Show All Notes”. This will show all notes for the student, regardless of date. You can now find the note and correct the date.

To delete a note, highlight the note you wish to delete and press the DELETE key.

To print the notes.

This version of Altissima cannot print directly.

Select the menu Notes/Export, then either Class or Student.

This will export the notes to a window.

When the notes appear in the window, highlight the notes and copy and paste them to your favorite word processing program.

Shape the notes in any style you wish and print them.


Charts

View Charts & Statistical Reports

There are several useful and interesting charts available for you at our web site:  www.habarbadi.com/gradebook/

To purchase charts:

1) Select a class and click on the Prepare Chart Data button.

This will create a file with the scores and grades for the students in the selected class.

2) Visit our web site and select and purchase the charts with your credit card.

Please put your registration code somewhere in the order.

3) Follow the instructions at the web site regarding transmission of your data file that was created in step 1.

You can find the file in the directory that holds the Teachers Gradebook.

The default directory:

C:\Program Files\HaBarbadi\TeachersGradebook\Charts

If you changed the default directory name when you installed the program, you will find it the directory that you specified.

Within a short time, four-color fold-out charts printed on sturdy paper that is suitable for presentations to school administrators and parents will be on their way to you.

If you require a chart that is not available, please email us with a detailed and complete

description of the chart.  If we add it to our chart collection, we will construct it for you and send it to you free of charge.