A free iPhone application is changing communication between teachers, parents and students at School District 53 schools.
The digital app, called FreshGrade, allows teachers to create digital portfolios for their students, full of samples of their work, pictures from the classroom and videos of them reading aloud or giving presentations in class.
Teachers and students can add to their portfolios on an ongoing basis, creating a regularly updating snapshot of the student’s work and progress in school, which parents can access free and instantly from a smartphone or tablet.
Shendah Benoit is the principal at Tuc-el-Nuit Elementary School. Tuc-el-Nuit is in its second year of a test of the technology, and Benoit says she is so far very excited about its potential.
Sitting in her office, she demonstrated the remarkably simple technology on a school iPad. A student’s portfolio looks similar to a blog or Facebook wall, with pictures, videos and comments appearing as you scroll up and down the page.
“It really is a new form of reporting to parents. But it’s a whole new philosophy of reporting to parents. It’s not the once-at-the-end-of-the-term snapshot, this is how your child is doing, it’s much different,” Benoit said.
Right now, the assessment within the portfolios is taking the place of mid-term report cards at the school.
The school will still provide an end-of-year official report card, but Benoit says the feedback in the portfolios has the potential to be so meaningful that most official reports probably won’t be necessary.
She said that with teachers, and the students themselves, updating with work samples and teacher feedback at least a couple of times a week, parents can feel more connected to what is happening in the classroom, and even see exactly what their child is doing.
To showcase how the program works, Benoit pulled up a student portfolio, showing a video of the student holding a poster and presenting to their class. She demonstrated how if a parent were to comment on the video it would appear on the student’s “Facebook wall.” The student or their teacher could then respond, creating a dialogue.
“It just creates a deeper conversation. It’s a conversation that schools have been having with families for at least the last 5-10 years, but this really is a platform that makes it … happen.”
Over the last few years Tuc-el-Nuit has invested $10,000 in iPads, and now has enough that students have relatively easy access to them.
Using those iPads, students can take pictures or videos of their work from directly inside the FreshGrade that are automatically added to their portfolio.
“It’s very easy technology. And for them we don’t even have to explain it, it’s like …” Benoit says, snapping her fingers in the air.
Superintendent of Schools Bev Young said she is excited about the technology, and interested to see how it catches on in the district’s schools.
Right now, she says, it’s being tested at Tuc-el-Nuit and Osoyoos Elementary School, and a few other teachers are “playing with the technology.”
“I see it growing, for sure. I [have seen] kids really jazzed up about sharing things with their parents. I [have] heard from parents how meaningful the information was,” she said.
TREVOR NICHOLS
Regional Reporter
