Reply to Edline, Wiki, Powerschool, Blackboard, and the like create infinite mischief

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[quote=Anonymous]I'm really curious as to whether teachers and parents find these electronic homework/grade links useful.  In my experience they have only led to teacher overwork, parent frustration, and loss of child ownership of their 'job'.
 
Here's a post from the Deal thread that I'm following up on:
[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
This is why I don't like edline...at some point your child needs to learn to collect handouts, rubrics etc.  I think edline is awesome for test dates, major assignments and agree that teachers should be consistent IF they decide to use it as a tool.  However, schools existed long before edline.  It does not need the level of detail required above (all handouts???).[/quote]

I'm OP and sorry but I disagree. Paper is inefficient. Today information is transmitted electronically. With so many students and so many rubrics and the personal quirks and details that some teachers want for assignment completion, why hide the ball? I just feel that the point is for them to learn the info--if it is there on Edline it is accessible to everyone--even the kid who was wildly distracted that day by middle school hormones.[/quote]

This is a huge issue that nobody is really talking about.  The idea of using electronically-accessed assignments is efficiency for teachers, students and parents.  It is NOT working out that way.  Since schools can't assume students have access to electronics, everything has to be belt-and-suspendered: kids expected to write assignments in their journals, often issued verbally by teachers, then there's the worksheet(s) itself, along with explanatory material which needs to be separated out and placed in a binder?), there's Edline which the teachers are expected to have scanned the worksheet(s) along with other material that may not have been handed out, and is it cleared after a week? left up indefinitely?  Then the teachers are expected to post grades for these assignments, which is a separate unlinked database, yet does the assignment have a name and is that name consistent between databases and on the child's journal?  Any kid with the least bit of Tom Sawyer work-avoiding, envelope-pushing mentality, for example my kid, will not write in the journal knowing that Edline is available.  And then they check Edline and, well, it's a short hop to just quickly check Facebook or email, and they're off and  surfing.  But they can say they're checking homework and with a quick flick of the wrist, they are.  But of course, Edline says one thing, the kid claims the teacher verbally said something slightly different, like, "If you're not getting it, do what you can and we'll finish in class tomorrow." or, "we didn't get to that material in class yet so even tho it's on Edline she said we don't have to do it"  etc. etc.  Then I email the teacher for clarification or make him check with other kids, who say they were able to do it, etc and a loud "debate" between parent and student ensues.  OMG it was a bloody nightmare last year.  This year it's paper and nothing else, and everybody (teachers, students, parents) are on the same page, parents stay out of it unless asked to help in a specific way, and there is no emailing the teachers about an assignment.  Now if there could be a guarantee that all kids can access the internet, print out worksheets, etc, so that EVERYTHING is on Edline, that might work.  But in the absence of that guarantee, Edline and its ilk are anathema to a reasonable teacher workload, demands on parents, and kid empowerment for all concerned.  kid ownership of the problem and teacher workload.[/quote]

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