I was talking with my 14 year old sister the other day and I was telling her that she should check out my blog. She asked what it was for and I told her that we were learning about how to use technology in the classroom. This is how our conversation went:
Me: You should check out my blog!
Alix: Why? What’s it for?
Me: A class. We’re learning how to use technology in the classroom.
Alix: Oh! Like smartboards and D2L?
Me: Uhm… What’s D2L?
Alix: It’s the online thing that shows us our marks and stuff. We even get our reportcards on it!
Me: So you don’t get a hardcopy of your reportcards anymore?
Alix: Nope! It’s awesome ‘cuz sometimes mom and dad forget to ask to see it!
Me: What about the kids who don’t have internet?
Alix: Sara… I live in Alberta, not Saskatchewan…
As soon as we finished that conversation I thought “I need to put that on my blog!” Not because it is poking fun at Saskatchewan, but because my sister seems to know more about technology in the classroom than I do! I have never heard of D2L before and therefore had no idea that it was being used in classrooms! Alix told me that teachers put all of their assignment marks online so that they–the students–can keep track of their grades and know, at all times, where they sit. When I was in high school, we were given interm-report cards once between reporting periods. These either caused tremendous amounts of relief amongst my peers: whew! My average is the same! A sense of excitement: Right on! This is the best I’ve ever done in this class! Or a sense of despair: Oh no… I didn’t think I was doing this badly! What am I going to do? Point is, students rarely ever had any idea how they were doing in a class.
Although I had never thought about it before, I was glad to hear that students are now being given full access to their grades. Why hide them? Why shouldn’t students know where they sit? How can you expect a student to “pick up their socks” when they don’t know that they are behind in the first place? I think that this D2L sounds like a pretty handy tool, and I hope that the school division that I end up working in is either currently using it, or will consider using it in the near future.
Has anyone heard of a program like D2L? Did anyone use it in their internship? When they were in High School?
Sara Campbell 
My teacher education course has a rival system called blackboard. It’s been interesting the change in technology from when I first went to university 10+ years ago and now. I might write a post on my own blog about it soon.
D2L is a course management system like Moodle (which we use) or like Blackboard. Each system has different features. Moodle potentially gives access to grades, but not many instructors use it in that way (that I know of) at our U.
Do they use a similar program in Regina schools, do you know? I know they didn’t at the school I did my internship at, but it was an elementary school. I think a tool like this is more geared towards High School students…
I used an online grading system similar to this during my internship. In the Prairie South School Division, the program that is being used by all teachers (as far as I know) is called “Home-logic” for the students/parents, and “Teacher-Logic” for the teachers. We were expected to keep track of all summative and formative assignments online and update them regularly. Students were encouraged to check their Home-Logic as it kept track of their attendance, missing assignments, comments on assignments, and of course: their marks. This is a program that has only been implemented in the last year in the division as they are a trail division. Teachers were having some problems and were unclear on some of the aspects but their was a lot of guidance from the IT from the division to help teachers feel comfortable. I couldn’t help feeling jealous that I didn’t have something like this when I was in High School or even in University. I’m not sure what the elementary schools were using for online record keeping, however this was the common practice for High Schools in the Division.
That sounds like a great program! What did the kids think of it? Did they keep track of their assignments and grades on them? Were the parents active participants?