Learning to Use ThinkWave

1. Learning to Use ThinkWave Creating an Online Gradebook for Your Classroom EIPT 5513 Katherine Rainbolt

2. What is ThinkWave? Thinkwave is an online website that allows teachers to create, update, monitor and access student grades easily through a pre-made internet program. http://www.thinkwave.com/

3. Why Should You Use ThinkWave? • It provides an easy-to-use way to create new assignments, assign student grades, record comments, and calculate both semester and end of the year grades. • Students and parents alike can be given access codes to view students progress. • Additionally, printing grades and transcripts is now as easy as clicking a few buttons. • Overall, ThinkWave is designed to cut down on the amount of time teachers are required to spend calculating and tracking student grades throughout the year.

4. Assignment Purpose In order to learn to use this new ThinkWave technology, you will be required to do two things. First, you will need to follow along with this PowerPoint presentation while you interact with the ThinkWave website on your own computer. After you have learned some of the basics, I will guide you through the set up of an example case study. In this section of the PowerPoint, you will be given step-by-step instructions on how to insert information and grades into the system. At the end, you should not only be comfortable navigating the ThinkWave website, but you should be able to produce a completed example gradebook that looks almost identical to the provided sample finished product. To further help you in your tasks, there is a Resources slide located at the end of the PowerPoint. This slide contains links to various “How-To” ThinkWave videos, as well as other resources for additional information on the ThinkWave system.

5. Let’s Get Started To access ThinkWave all you need to do is click on the link provided below, and you should be redirected to the ThinkWave homepage. Click this link: http://www.thinkwave.com/

6. Step 1: Creating an Account Once you have accessed the ThinkWave homepage on your internet browser, locate the highlighted section below that reads “ Free Online Gradebook” and click on the button.

7. Creating an Account Next, you will be asked to enter an account username, password, and school information. For this assignment, you will be using the username YourLastNameExample, with whatever password you would like to remember. For example: My username would be RainboltExample. Enter the remaining “Owner” information as you would like, however stop when you get to the “School” Information section.

8. Creating an Account Under the “School” information section, enter the following information, with your School Name being the same as your chosen username.

9. Creating and Account Once you have entered all the required information, press the Continue Button at the bottom of the page.

10. Creating an Account Next, you will be required to select a term structure for you example school. For the purposes of this assignment, press the button and scroll down to select Four Quarters.

11. Creating an Account You will also need to select appropriate grade levels, and the appropriate structure of class periods. Though there are several options that you may choose to use later, we will select First Grade as our only grade, and Homeroom Period as our only period time. Again, press the continue button at the bottom of the page.

12. Creating an Account You will now be asked to enter some initial information about your classroom’s students and assignments. To get started, we will only enter our classroom name,1 student, and 1 assignment. Your classroom name will again be the same as your username (in my case Rainbolt Example), and you will have to select Homeroom Period from the drop down box to the right of the classroom name.

13. Creating an Account To add our first Student, type in the name John Smith in the respective First and Last Name boxes as shown below. To add our first Assignment, Type in Quiz 1 to the Assignment Name Box, select Quiz from the Assignment Type dropdown box and enter 10 into the Points (out of) box as shown below. Click Continue.

14. Step 2: Learning the Tabs Now that you have set up your Example Account, let’s learn what options teachers have when using the different tabs in ThinkWave. If you click on the DashboradTab, you will see a home screen for your account where you can view General information about the current school year gradebooks you have created.

15. Learning the Tabs The OnlineTab lets you manage student access to their ThinkWave account. I will show you later where you can find the access codes to grant both parents and students access to see their grades online.

16. Learning the Tabs The Students Tab is where you can update and track student contact information for your records. This tab shows you the Student’s ID #, where they are enrolled, and the Student and Parent Access Codes needed to login to the site. This is also where you will add new students to your class later on in the activity.

17. Learning the Tabs The Classes Tab shows you the different classes you might have created for your school. It shows the general information about the class, student enrollment, and also has a tab to allow you to create another class.

18. Learning the Tabs The Gradebook Tab is where you will enter your grades into the website. It allows you to enter point values for each student, add new assignments, change grading options, and view the overall grades for the term. There are several different ways to view and edit grades. We will explore these further when we enter example assignments later to create our final example gradebook. The options for these viewing tabs can be seen in the image below.

19. Learning the Tabs The Attendance Tab allows you to record and automatically calculate attendance and tardy records every day for each student. There is also a box where you can type short comments. To record attendance simply click on the correct day on the calendar, and use the scroll down bar to select from the attendance options for each student.

20. Learning the Tabs The Reports Tab is where you can manage the set up of records you wish to print. Here you can: • Create a header and logo for your print outs • Print student/parent Login sheets • Print Weekly and Student Attendance Reports • Print Student Report Cards and Transcripts • Print Class Schedules • Print Student Missing Assignment sheets • Print a Class Enrollment List • Print your Class Gradebook There are many options under each item that allow you to customize not only the way reports look, but what information is included on each printed report.

21. Learning the Tabs The Setup Tab allows for the changing of general options. Here, you can: • Edit scheduling information • Update general school information • Change grading scales • Edit attendance types and policies • Create new assignment types • Share or Import files from another location

22. Step 3: Making Your Example Class Now that you have created an account and familiarized yourself with the functions present in each of the tabs, it is time to begin making your Gradebook for the example class!

23. Adding Students Our first step in making the sample gradebook will be to input the other 4 students who are in the example class. • Click on the Students Tab you learned about earlier. • Click the button. • Type the name Jenny Pinkerton into the First Name and Last Name boxes. • Click the Grade Level scroll box and scroll down to select First Grade. • The Student ID # will automatically fill in. • Click the button.

24. Adding Students After you have saved your new student information, your screen should look like the image below. Notice that Jenny Pinkerton is not yet enrolled in any classes. To add her to your Example Class, Click the small button, select the name of your Example Class, and hit .

25. Adding Students Click back to the Students Tab at the top and repeat this process to add three more students to your class. Add the Names: Samuel Banks Nigel Peterson Allison Chiu When you have added all your students, you should see a list of all 5 students in your class on the left side of the screen. You will need to click on each student’s name to ensure that they are selected for the First Grade Level. If they are not, simply scroll down on the Grade Level scroll bar and select First Grade.

26. Adding Assignments Before we begin Adding Assignments to the gradebook, we first need to add a new Assignment Type. • Click on the Setup Tab. • Locate the Assignments heading and click on the Assignment Types link. • Click the button and type Discussion in the empty name box. • Click . • You should now see a menu of Assignment Types options that looks like the image to the right.

27. Adding Assignments To add assignments to the gradebook, click on Gradebook Tab. You should already have a Quiz 1 assignment visible in the overall view. If you remember back, Quiz 1 is the assignment you entered when you first created your account, and were required to create an assignment type. For this activity, you will be adding 4 more assignments to your gradebook. See the instructions on the next slide to learn how to add assignments!

28. Adding Assignments To add the required assignments: • Click on the button. • Enter the Assignment Name • Use the Assignment Type scroll bar to select the appropriate option for each assignment. • Select the correct Date using the provided calendar. • Enter the assignment Point Value. • Do not check the box to Allow a File Attachment. However note that this option lets you upload a copy of the assignment document. • Check the box to Allow Student Upload. This option allows students to turn in their work online to ThinkWave. • Click .

29. Adding Assignments Below you will find the information necessary to input the 4 example assignments. Simply follow the instructions on the previous slide to input these assignments one-by-one. Name Type Date Points Homework 1 Homework 4/12/11 15 Discussion 1 Discussion 4/13/11 5 Project A Project 4/15/11 30 Exam I Test 4/18/11 50

30. Adding Assignments After you enter your new assignments, you should see a screen like the image below. This is the Overall Tab view, and this is where we will be inputing grades later in the activity.

31. Adding Assignments *Notice that you have several different viewing options for you Assignments. You may click on the different tabs to have your assignments presented in various manners. In the By Assignment Tab you can select to view each assignment separately.

32. Adding Assignments In the By Student Tab you can view all the work for each student as a whole.

33. Adding Assignments In the Assignments Tab you can see a list of all the assignments, their descriptions, point values, and due dates for each quarter.

34. Adding Assignments In the Final Grades By Student Tab and the Final Grades By Class Tab you can view the grades listed for each student by quarter, to the grades for all students in a class. Under both of these tabs, there is an option which would allow you to change the computer calculated grade should you so desire.

35. Entering Grades Now that you have added your students and assignments to the gradebook, it is time to enter the point values for all of the grades. • You should already be in the Gradebook Tab, but if not, click on this tab. • Click on the Overall Tab view. • Click on the button in the assignment for which you wish to enter grades. • Place your cursor in the correct box for the student whose grade you are entering. • Type in the point value of the grade the student earned. • Click . • Repeat this procedure for all the student grades in the desired assignment, clicking Save after entering each piece of data.

36. Entering Grades Below you will find the point values needed to input the grades for each student and assignment. Please take some time to enter these grades now.

37. Entering Grades You are almost finished! After entering and saving all of the sample data, your gradebook should look like the example below. Take a few moments to check you gradebook against the provided example.

38. Printing Records In order to complete this assignment, all you have left to do is print a copy of your completed ThinkWave gradebook. To do this: • Click on the Reports Tab. • Locate the Summary Reports heading and click on Report Card. • Under the Grade Blocks heading, make sure the First Quarter option is selected in the scroll down box, and that all the boxes are checked. • Do not change the Attendance Settings, Custom Fields, Custom Texts or Other Options. • Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the button.

39. Printing Records Once you have clicked Generate, a pop-up window may appear with all of your student’s transcripts. However some computers do not have the required plugins so it is best to learn how to download the resulting files as PDFs. To download the files, simply look on the far right side of the browser window and locate the link labeled . Click this link!

40. Printing Records A window will pop up asking what you would like to do with the file. Select the Open With option and Click OK.

41. The Final Product You should now have a PDF file of your example gradebook that you can either save to your computer, or print for later review by the instructor.

42. Review: What Have You Learned? By now you should be able to: • Navigate the ThinkWave website • Create your own ThinkWave Account • Create classrooms and enroll students • Keep up to date student contact information • Add assignments and enter student grades on various tasks • Find where to edit preferences for grading, attendance, scheduling etc. • Create and Print finalized student report cards and transcripts Can you do all of these things?

43. If Not…Here Are Some Additional Resources For Video Tutorials on all things ThinkWave visit the ThinkWave Help page at the link below: http://www.thinkwave.com/help/add_student/ You may also enjoy watching a general introduction video to the ThinkWave Gradebook at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6_OxizAhCg You may read important information about the Privacy Policies of ThinkWave at: http://www.thinkwave.com/privacy.html