Description:
Participate(tm) makes the painstaking--yet vital--work of scoring student participation a little easier--many say a lot easier.
Rather than going to the board, fumbling with a gradebook, or sorting notecards, you can quickly look at your entire class on one small screen, tap on any student, and a point is automatically given (or taken away).
You can keep track of:
- Oral and nonverbal participation
- Groupwork points
- Students who are on task
- And behavior (positive and negative).
Teacher Features include:
- Elementary and secondary modes for class enrollment
- Adding students from a memo pad list that you made on your computer (That is, you don't have to enter them all by hand on the handheld)
- Exporting data to the memo pad
- Multiple ways of displaying names in the grid.
- Automatic start date
Try it for real-time authentic assessment and much more!
P.S. This beta version expires on August 1st, at which time an updated version will take its place. And please send suggestions!
Reviews:
*** [Jun 8, 2004] by Anne Zahra
I was not aware of David's complaints until I saw this software update. I want to say that I do not agree with his characterization of my remarks or of me, and it does not seem that the webmasters do either. I meant no offense to anybody at all, and anyone who reads my reviews here knows that I often promote programs here that I find useful in the classroom. Also, I care very much about helping people improve their programs, or I would not bother to write reviews. So I stand by my original comments-- may the user beware. The product I wrote about is a beta "test version" created by a commercial company. I think people should know that. "Beta" software is risky to use for student grades. Also, I think people should know if a program is crippleware-- i.e. that it will quit working after a certain number of days, and it may not be worth the considerable effort it may take to copy student names in here only to lose functionality in a few weeks. Mr. Fish may know a lot about computers, etc. but that does not mean everyone does, and I would hate to see a teacher lose information because this software locks up after a few weeks.
**** [Jun 3, 2004] by Coach Culbertson
This a great little program. I teach Cisco networking in a high school and really use this to keep track of participation points. I highly recommend it!
**** [Apr 2, 2004] by David Fish
The Jan 16, 2004 comment by Anne Zahra is completely out of order and I appeal to FreewarePalm to remove it. While she is entitled to express an opinion, her message & tone is disturbingly disrespectful of someone who has created an application for himself and then offered it to others for free. I am not acquainted in any way whatsoever with the offerer of this app - I guess I was just taken aback by such an offensive message. I like this app, and I have found other uses for it even beyond that for which it was created. Thanks.
*** [Jan 16, 2004] by Anne Zahra
Yes, there is a definite need for this kind of software in the classroom. I have used a Palm to grade participation for 3 years. This program simply does not have the flexibility needed to accomplish this task very well. In the classroom you have to document what kids do-- simply tapping a plus or minus does not give you enough of a record to justify a grade in most cases. Also, I can't understand why this crippleware is even on this site. Think about it-- are you going to enter all your class information into this software only to be locked out of it before you have even tried the software for a full grading term? That doesn't seem very logical to me.
