1998 - 2000, POLARIZED SOFTWARE, Written by Matt Westfall
Karen's Grade Master II Documentation
for version 1.7
GM2 is an easy to use grade tracking and printing system. The program has been tested in the "field" at an
elementary school in Texas. This software was designed for >Ease Of Use< for individuals with little computer
experience. GM2 can handle up to 40 students (at a time), up to 10 Subjects with up to 50 scores for each student
in each subject. Final totals can be displayed/printed as a percent or a letter grade or both.
The program is quite simple to figure out and most of the various functions are "intuitively obvious" as to their
purpose , but covered in more detail below.
MENU OPTIONS
FILE:
LOAD: used to load a previously saved file ("sample.gmd" is included with this program for example).
LOAD WITHOUT GRADES: used at the beginning of a marking period when the names will be the same
but you don't want to load the grades.
LOAD TOTALS: used for averaging previously saved files to get an end of the semester/year average. See Below.
LOAD FROM FLOPPY: to load a file that was saved to floppy
SAVE: to save your current grades (this will save all subjects - I.E. everything)
SAVE AS: same as above but used when you need to designate a name for the file.
SAVE TO FLOPPY: same as above, but will use the "A:" drive
CLEAR: clears ALL information to start something new.
PRINT:
There are four print options: Print info on one student, info on all students by subject, info on one subject, info on all subjects by student.
OPTIONS:
ADD SUBJECT: you can change or add subjects with this function. The button in lower left hand corner
of the main screen allows you to flip through your various subjects.
SET EQUIVALENTS: if you want to use letter grades instead of percentages (or some combination),
you can designate what a particular letter grade is worth under this function - up to 15 Letter Equivalents
may be entered and then used anywhere you would enter grades. Also, in the lower right hand corner of
the main screen is the "Toggle" button. This will allow you to display either a percentage, letter grade,
or both in the "Total" field. Another setting in the "Equivalents" window is the "Total Round Up %". This will
allow you to "fudge" the grades up by the percent you enter. (this way, if someone has an 89%, it would
get bumped up a percent or two into the next bracket - use this if you are a softy).
DELETE STUDENT: Delete a student from all subjects.
PREFERENCES: Lets you enter a customized phrase when printing documents (such as "First Six
Weeks"). The colors for Grademaster may also be customized here. Other options may be added later.
OTHER INFORMATION:
GM2 was designed for single class settings, but can easily be used for multiple class formats by saving
a separate file for each Class (or Period).
WEIGHTING GRADES: It is possible to make scores carry a "weight" of Double, Triple, or Quadruple. This is handy if you want a particular test to be worth 2-4 grades instead of 1. Simply hold the mouse over the title field for a particular column (at the top) and it will display either: "Weight: Normal" or "Weight: Double", etc. Also, if the weight is not "Normal" the text will be in red. To change the weight, simply double click the number below the field and it will toggle between the different options. You can watch the total grade value change when this is done to reflect the different weighting. When printing, an asterisk (*) is put in each title (top) field to show that it is weighted.
STUDENT PROFILES: You can keep notes and special information on each student simply by clicking on the number next to the student's name. Any notes for a particular student will be stored in the Grademaster directory under the students name with a ".txt" extension - which may be accessed by any text editor (like Word or Wordpad) as well as Grademaster.
NAVIGATION: The Tab key will move to the next field down. Using "Ctrl" + Arrow keys will move in each respective direction.
MORE on EQUIVALENTS: If you enter just percentages for grades but want the total to give you the equivalent letter grade for a range of grades, here's how: In the Equivalents window, set each letter to the lowest value in that range and then set the "Total Round Up Value" to "-4". This seems to work quite well. The only exception is for an "F" - you will have to experiment with different values to see what works best ("0" won't work though - try something in the 50's).
MORE on LOAD TOTALS: To combine totals for year end averages, start with everything blank (under "File" select clear if needed). Let's say you have 5 previously saved marking periods you want to total, saved as "grades1.gmd", "grades2.gmd", etc. The first thing to do is look back and see if anyone has been >deleted< from the middle of the list at any time. If this is true, go back to the earlier saved file and delete that same student until all the files have the same names in the same order. This is vital to matching up the totals. If students were >added< at the end in subsequent files and are still needed (their grades - not them!) then just add their names onto the previous saves - with no grades entered. Now that the names are consistent in each file - the rest is a snap. Select "Load Totals" and load the first file (like "grades1.gmd" from the previous example). You will see JUST the totals were loaded and are all in the first column under the heading of "1" (which you can change later if you want). Now continue loading files until all are listed with the grand total displayed in the "Total" column. At this point you could save the resulting database under something like "totals1.gmd" or whatever you want. Before printing you can go to "Preferences" and add a heading like "Year end averages" if you'd like.