Elementary Report Card Updates
4J Elementary Report Cards in eSIS - Updates
Elementary Report Card Update #9 - Jun. 4, 2007
FYI, one teacher today had a problem saving and moving to the next student. eSIS kept sending her back to the previous student. On the off chance that that should happen to you, you might want to save this list of some things to try:
1. When eSIS keeps sending you back to something, there is usually something that needs to be done and the message bar on the bottom of the window usually tells you what that is. If the message is in computereze, copy it down and send it to us and we'll see if we can help.
2. Save before you click Term Comments and then, when you've got the comments in, save before you click the Exit button.
3. Log out and log back in. If that doesn't get you unstuck, restart your computer.
4. Make sure that all of your Software Updates are installed. The cursor bouncing around is one of the things Peggy Hinsman fixed last term by having folks update software.
5. Try a different browser (Firefox if you're usind Safari or vice versa).
6. Try a different computer - one from the COW should work for this.
7. Give Peggy Hinsman (7787), Mary Guldager (7775), Gunawan Darmadi (7781) or Garry McCready (7778) a call when you are stuck and let us help you problem solve.
Elementary Report Card Update #8 - Feb. 6, 2007
As folks work on their report cards a strangeness has popped up for a couple of teachers. Though it has only happened to a few, the mysterious problem appears as a misbehaving cursor. It doesn't go where you click; it flies up a bunch of lines when doing marks; it gets stuck in a subject line (the ones you don't mark); or, in the extreme case, it sends you to the first student's report card and won't let you go anywhere else.
Here's some of the thinking about this:
It seems to happen mainly (or only) on Macs with System X.2.8 or earlier.
Since it did not happen last year, it is probably a conflict between older systems and recent upgrades to eSIS.
Data that has been saved is not affected.
Opening affected report cards on an updated computer, appears to allow work without problems.
Prevention:
Upgrade to at least System X.3.9
Try to avoid typing marks into the subject lines.
If you enter an incorrect mark, instead of using delete, highlight it and use the spacebar to erase it.
If it should happen to you:
Upgrade or use a different computer that is upgraded.
To delete a mark that has you stuck, highlight it and use the space bar instead of the delete key. (The sooner you do this, the better.)
If you continue to have problems, log off eSIS and log back in; quit and restart your browser; switch browsers; restart your computer; or even shut down your computer and restart it after an hour or so.
Find an updated computer or PC on which to finish your work.
Comments don't seem to be affected - and if they do go weird on you, a restart should fix it. So if you are stuck on marks, you can still do your comments while trying to get a solution.
Elementary Report Card Update #7 - Jan. 30, 2007
Two cautionary notes, a reminder and a troubleshooting tip:
Cautionary Notes:
1. On Friday two Buena Vista teachers who share students conducted an experiment. They both logged on to the same class and chose the same student in Mark Entry. I was under the impression the second one to try would be locked out. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Two (or presumably, more than two) people can be grading the same student at the same time. When they saved their work, the last one to save over-wrote the one that saved earlier.
The lesson: when sharing students (however you do it!), be careful to take turns grading a class. For example you could agree that when a teacher is done grading and commenting on her homeroom, she will release the cards to the next person in line.
2. If you are entering comments on a card that already has comments on it, each time you go back into the comments window, all of the text becomes highlighted in blue. Here there be dragons!! DANGER - If you start typing without de-selecting the text, the already entered comments will be deleted. De-select by clicking at the end of the comment.
If you do inadvertently delete text, there is no UNDO command. So what you should do is EXIT WITHOUT SAVING!
Reminder: You must use the eSIS Edit menu to Cut, Copy, and Paste eSIS comments. If they are grayed out, you may be using the browser Edit menu which is above the eSIS one.
Troubleshooting Tip: If you are having trouble connecting to eSIS from home, Peggy Hinsman (hinsman_p) for Macs and Garry McCready (mccready) for PCs offer the following suggestions:
Macs: 1. If you are using Safari or FireFox, quit from the browser, go into the Applications folder, click once on the browser you are using, press Cmd-I and under General you will see a check box next to Open using Rosetta. Uncheck this box. Try to connect to eSIS now and see if it will work. 2. Carol Greig has tried Camino with eSIS and said it works better for her than FireFox or Safari. If you want to give it a try, download it from http://www.caminobrowser.org/, double click the .dmg file when it's done downloading, move Camino into your Applications folder and see if you can connect to eSIS using Camino.
PCs: If this is the first time you've tried getting into eSIS since last year, you'll need a new version of what's called the "JInitiator" that you'll be prompted to download to your PC. Depending on how fast a connection you have at home this could take anywhere from a couple minutes up to an hour or so. Please try it again and give it an hour or so to download. It only takes this long the first time you download the JInitiator. After it's been loaded starting up eSIS thereafter should be pretty quick.
Elementary Report Card Update #6 - Q&A 1/25/07
Q: Is there any way we can have earlier access than Jan. 29? Many of us like to get started over this coming weekend?
A: Your secretaries got a message Jan. 23 that, if forwarded on may have given you a scare. Gunawan Darmadi was having me test a new feature he's added to the card and he wanted to give me ample time so he told secretaries the report cards would be disabled until Monday. He was very surprised when I told him that many, many teachers will be needing them between now and Monday - after all, he reasoned, report cards are still a week and a half away. So the testing was fast-tracked and is done and your access to the report cards has been restored. Plus now you have at least one more person (Gunawan) who knows how much extra time you have to put in on things like report cards.
The new feature Gunawan has added is Days Present in the attendance section. Several schools told us this was important to include for students who are not enrolled for the entire year. (For example, grades for a student who was absent 5 days but enrolled for just 10 would be interpreted differently than ones for a student who was absent 5 out of 90.) Days Present will automatically print on your report cards. If you see any problems with it (particularly with odd cases of students who enroll, withdraw, enroll in another 4J school, then re-enroll in yours, that kind of thing) please let me know.
Q: I don't remember my eSIS username and password. Help!
A: Your username in eSIS is usually your name in the format: first_last (joan_wilson for example). If, using that username, you cannot get in, the person to contact is Gunawan Darmadi (darmadi@4j.lane.edu or x7781). He'll give you a new password that you will change the first time you log in.
Q: Can you bold or underline words in the term comments?
A: Unfortunately you can't do any formatting (no italics or font changes either). ALL-CAPS is the best you can do. We do have a request in to the makers of eSIS on this.
Q: Is there a way to format the report card so that we can include comments on the first page rather than using a 2nd page?
A: Sorry, no. When we added health there wasn't room for comments on page 1.
Q: I tried to use the spell check on the 'term comments' section of the report card. It does not allow you to 'add' a spelling (one that occurs lots like a kid's name, etc.). It means that one is constantly hitting ignore when a name/word comes up in writing text. In word processors, you can 'add' a word/name you use a lot. Will this system allow that, and if so, how does one do it?
A: As you found out, it is a very clunky spell checker. So, no, it won't "learn" new words as in Word or Appleworks. We have made a request to AAL that they improve the spell check system.
Q: Can we use the Data Warehouse as we do our report cards?
A: The Data Warehouse has a new feature: the Individual Student Report that may be helpful to you. If you are a current user of the warehouse, click the blue link under the attendance metric to get it. If you've never been into the warehouse, you may want to wait until Spring term when we will have further refined it and will have made training available to a team from your building.
Elementary Report Card Update # 5 - 1/22/07
Here are four clarification/corrections:
1. In addition to the E, M, N and *, the Y is a valid mark and is in the key. It should only be used in term one for items that have not yet been taught.
2. To paste from a word processor into eSIS comments, you must use the eSIS Edit menu (not the browser and not the keyboard command.)
3. When you copy and paste from a word processor, the returns are stripped out when pasting into eSIS. If you want to do your comments in a word processor, the best approach might be to type comments that will be used by all students in Word or Appleworks. Correct spelling and grammar. Then paste it into the first student's card and use returns and spaces to get it looking right. Print a copy to be sure it works on the printer. Select and copy it and paste into each student's term comments.
As for individual comments, you could either type them directly into eSIS or, if you want spell check, etc, type them in paragraph form in a word processing document and copy/paste them in on the next pass through the report cards.
4. Tabs don't work. Even though they do paste from word processors and you can make columns and tables look great in your Term Comments screen, they don't line up at all when you print.
Click here for an example of how you might put information into comments without using columns (with thanks to Janet Watson, Judy Garwood and their team at Edgewood.) They typed it in one student's term comments in eSIS and copied and pasted into each student's card in several classes from that.
Elementary Report Card Update #4 - Jan. 15, 2007
New Report Card Website URL - As you approach report card time, and are looking for the instructions that are available on the 4J Elementary Report Card website. There is a new url for it:
http://www.4j.lane.edu/cis/is/esis/restricted_esis_docs/elemrptcard
Expired Certificates? - There have been a recent flurry of messages about Expired Certificates that pop up at various times when working on report cards. If you get one of these messages it is because the district's security certificate needs renewing. There is nothing wrong with your computer. To stop getting the annoying message here's what to do:
- Read the message to be sure it is about an expired certificate. (Other messages that raise concerns about the identity of your computer or server should NOT be trusted. With the message on the screen or copied down, call email Troy Knabe at knabe@4j.lane.edu to find out what to do.)
- For expired certificates, you should have three choices: "Trust", "Don't Trust", and "Show Certificate". Click "Show Certificate".
- On the screen that appears, click "Trust Always".
- You may have to log out of eSIS and log back in to be rid of the messages.
- If this is a new thing, please let CIS know about it so that they can deal with the expired certificate.
- For pictures of the screens you will get click here.
Q - Why does the first student on the class list always come up on the report cards rather than the one I highlighted? A - What you say is true and we don't know why. Sorry. Each time you go to Mark Entry, Your first student will be displayed and you'll have to scroll down to the student you want to grade*. As long as you don't exit out to the Teacher Assistant, it will stay in the part of the class list on which you are currently working, however. It is annoying, we know. Again sorry.
*Use the little arrow buttons to the right of the student's name to display other students.
Three thoughts that might help as you start your cards:
1. The grading scale (and therefore the only marks that will be accepted on the Mark Entry screen) has changed to E (exceeds), M (meets), N (does not meet), Y (yet to be taught) and * (shifted-8 - for see comments or insert).
2. If you are looking for a blank copy of the grade 1-5 report card to print, you can get it on the details page of the elementary report card site (or by clicking here).
3. To find these elementary report card pages from the new 4J home page, select "Main Page" on the "For Staff" menu in the black menubar. The link is the third one down on the main page.
Elementary Report Card Update #3 - Dec. 7, 2006
Dear Elementary Teachers,
Although grading day for the first term is Feb. 2, some of you are already working on comments and getting your data in order. The eSIS report cards are ready whenever you are if you do want to get an early start*. However, even if you are an old hand at doing the eSIS report cards, there are a few changes that we hope will make it a little easier this year. Please take a look at the website: http://www.4j.lane.edu/cis/is/esis/restricted_esis_docs/elemrptcard before you get too far into your report cards. Here are the links you'll find on the page.
•What is expected of teachers as they report student progress
•Basic instructions
•Details and Advanced Instructions
•2006-07 Updates
* One thing that is still being worked on is getting "Days Present" to go into the attendance part of the card. Hopefully that will be done by the time you print them.
Elementary Report Card Update #2 - Nov. 6, 2006
Here are a few new things that we hope you'll like:
- Comments updated - There were a few problems with the "canned" School Comments that were available to you last year that have been fixed. In addition, the Spanish translations of the comments are updated to include special characters that had been stripped out in last year's version. Your school's registrar can edit or add to the school comments. (And you can create your own in "My Comments".)
- Spanish report cards ready to go - We've updated the Spanish cards for grades 1-5 and created a translation of the Kindergarten card. And happily the accents and tildes in comments will now print.
- Instructions for accessing, using and printing report cards - The report card website is up-to-date on changes and samples of all current versions of the report cards as well as instructions for most anything you'll want to do with them. You'll find all of this at http://www.4j.lane.edu/cis/is/esis/restricted_esis_docs/elemrptcard
- Blended classes - Even if you teach more than one grade, all of your students will be on one class list and the card will reflect the grade the student is in automatically. This is even true of a K-1 class where the report cards for the two grades are completely different.
- Days Present - Gunawan is working on getting days present to automatically show in the attendance area. Last year days absent and days tardy were calculated but not days present. Hopefully you'll see it on the January report card.
- Setting Up Word Processors to Copy and Paste Comments into eSIS - Last year, those teachers who typed their comments in Word or Appleworks and copied into the report card comments, got the unpleasant surprise of seeing question marks show up in the place of apostrophes or quotes. This is a way to fix the problem. For text with apostrophes and quotes to paste from a word processor into the eSIS report card comments, "smart quotes" (also called "curly quotes" - the ones that curve to the right at the beginning of a quote and curve left at the end) must be turned off. Here's how in the two main word processors used in 4J:
Turning Off Smart Quotes in Microsoft Word
1. Open a new blank document or the document with your comments entered.
2. In the menubar click Tools>AutoCorrect>AutoFormat.
3. Uncheck "Replace 'straight quotes' with 'smart quotes'"
4. Click OK
Turning Off Smart Quotes in AppleWorks
1. Open a new blank word processing document or the document with your comments entered.
2. In the menubar click AppleWorks>Preferences>General.
3. Uncheck "Smart quotes" under Options
4. Click OK
With report cards almost three months away, these might not be pressing issues for you right now but we thought you'd like to know what's new.
Elementary Report Card Update #1 - Sept. 26, 2006
Although it is a long time before you'll be sending home first term report cards in January, you'll no doubt want to know of any changes from last year that might affect your record keeping. Many of you, as well, will want to share the 06-07 report card with parents at conference time. And there are a few changes in the card:
• The grading scale is a little different (mainly "N" has replaced "D").
• Health has been added.
• The subjects were rearranged (the addition of Health allowed us to move Math to the left hand column which forced the comments onto page 2).
• A new district message and rewording/reordering of some of the items.
• Good news! Spanish characters now work in comments.
• There is a new way to get apostrophes and quotation marks to copy and paste into comments.
• There is a new Kindergarten report card.
In addition, we are hoping to have "Days Present" added to the attendance section by the end of the term. Spanish translations are in the works and should be done in two weeks.
However, you will not see some of the changes that were requested. Notably: a "progressing toward standard" mark and rearrangement of the subjects to emphasize social skills and work habits. These and others were seriously considered but the reasons not to make the changes, in the end, outweighed the reasons to do so. And we still don't have a really easy way to grade students in someone else's homeroom - though we continue to try to find one.
The report card website has been updated. You'll find grading expectations, instructions, examples and tips at http://www.4j.lane.edu/cis/is/esis/restricted_esis_docs/elemrptcard. (The update is fresh and untested so please let me know of errors, broken links, etc. Thanks.) The Spanish translations will be last year's until the 06-07 translations are done.