B.+Collecting+Student+Work

Paperless grading requires a smooth way to collect and return student work without complicating your work load. How that looks depends somewhat on the resources of your classroom and district, but there are several things to consider that make a collection protocol less time consuming.

Students Prepare the Document

 * 1) SAVE AS : Decide on a naming protocol. My students title their work thus: lastnameassignment.doc (Smithmemoir.doc) so that later when I drop papers into a folder, they are alphabetized and easy to identify.
 * 2) SELECT FONT AND FORMAT: Ask students to turn in the document in the font and format that will be easiest on your eyes.
 * 3) ATTACH RUBRIC : Ask students to paste the rubric or product descriptor into the body of their document. They'll have access to that document because during the writing process they will have downloaded it from your course wiki. ;)



Notes on Turning in Documents

 * 1) The LEAST efficient system for managing collection is an individual e-mail with attachment from each student. You'll lose precious time opening each e-mail and saving each document to its appropriate folder.
 * 2) Instead, you need a way to collect a whole set of papers at once, so that you can simply drop them into an appropriately titled folder -- for example, "Period 4 Memoirs." I keep active folders on my desk top, and then file them away after returning work.
 * 3) There are several ways to get an online dropbox; your building or district integrator is probably your best resource for figuring out what will work for your system. For example, if your district uses Firstclass, you can set up a workspace on your Firstclass desktop that each student can access. If your district uses moodle, you can collect and return work there.
 * 4) In the absence of a decent online dropbox, try old fashioned flash drives. I'd suggest sending 2-4 around the room at one time. Collection will be faster than if you use just one, and loading into your computer will be MUCH faster than if all 20+ kiddoes use their own.
 * 5) Later, after you've graded work, you can pass it back the way you got it. Or, if you have privacy concerns with a particular group or assignment, you can send inidividually. Some systems, like Firstclass, will also enable you to set up a space with restricted permissions for student collection.