Want to pilot a new grading tool?

When a representative from Innovation Teaching approached me at last week’s Education Expo, offering to demonstrate their new tech tool for teachers, I wanted to run away from the sales pitch. But after a demonstration, I have to admit I wished I’d had one as a teacher.

Imagine that your students are giving an oral presentation, or presenting at a science fair, or have turned in reading logs, and you’re using a rubric to grade their work. Many teachers today print out multiple copies of the rubric, mark the grade in each category by hand, and then transfer the marks to a spreadsheet or gradebook (or both). Projects can quickly become a very time-consuming grading task.

Jeven allows you to use a small barcode scanner to quickly record rubric grades, which you then synch to an online account. To grade students, you print out a sheet with each student’s name and associated barcode, another sheet with a barcode for each possible rubric mark, and scan away.

This technology won’t revolutionize instruction or singlehandedly raise student achievement,but it seems like a real timesaver for teachers, and a good tool for gathering and analyzing data without relying exclusively on multiple choice tests. I wonder if there’s a way to enter comments and print them out along with grades to give personal feedback to students?

If you’re interested, Jeven’s looking for schools in New York City that want to pilot their technology for 10-30 teachers at a discounted price.

About our First Person series:

First Person is where Chalkbeat features personal essays by educators, students, parents, and others trying to improve public education. Read our submission guidelines here.