From grainy Polaroid pictures to crystal-clear, huge megapixel digital images, cameras have evolved quite a bit in the last few decades. Your MP3 player has a camera. Your phone has a camera. Your laptop has a camera. So it’s no surprise that cameras are finding their way into our classrooms - and not just to monitor security.
GradeCam technology uses software to read bubble forms directly from a small desktop camera - allowing teachers to grade a multiple-choice test or formative assessment for an entire classroom in just seconds. Educators can produce and reproduce their own bubble forms and students simply complete tests and assignments using these forms. Place a completed test under the desktop camera and results are instantly entered into the educator’s grade book — it really is that easy.
As the School Technology Coordinator at Ockerman Middle School in Florence, Kentucky, Tracy Bazsika has been so impressed by what GradeCam has to offer that she led the implementation at her school.
“After learning about GradeCam, I hosted professional development sessions for other educators and we ended up purchasing four licenses during the 2008-09 school year,” said Bazsika. “And as we began using them across various subjects and teaching teams, more teachers got on board and we purchased 18 additional licenses in the fall of 2009. By the end of the 2009-10 year, we’ll have close to 75-80 percent of the school using GradeCam in some capacity.”
Because GradeCam uses software to replace the role of moving parts, it has never been easier or more affordable for teachers to see gaps in student understanding and provide just-in-time instruction.
“The new version of GradeCam actually prompts you if students left bubbles blank and gives you the option to count those as wrong or let the student go back and fill in the answer,” said Bazsika. “Also, the scanning seems to be much faster. We just take a stack of papers and lay them on the tray then pick them up one by one - it is so easy.”
GradeCam is not just a fast grading system; it allows teachers to get instant statistics for real-time, data-driven decision making.
“Our speech and drama teacher used GradeCam to determine her lesson planning for next year,” said Bazsika. “Usually, you don’t get results from the standardized tests until September or October, but with GradeCam she could immediately see how she wanted to adjust her lesson plan for the following year.”
Numerous studies have shown that formative assessments — frequently assessing students and using information from those assessments to shape instruction — has a dramatic affect on learning. GradeCam is the very best tool for doing just that — it gives both teachers and students the feedback needed to monitor the learning in progress.
“I like that GradeCam offers immediate feedback for my students as well,” said Bazsika. “Students can see their results right away when they turn in their tests. That’s really beneficial because when kids put in that much time and effort they are eager to see their results right away.”
After students have finished their test, teachers can choose GradeCam’s “Student View” option and have them scan their own and get their results instantly. Knowing how each student did and what percentage of your students understood each question gives you the tools you need to provide just-in-time instruction.
“With GradeCam, we can immediately see which specific items students get wrong,” said Bazsika. “If we give a test on Thursday, it lets us know what we need to be teaching on Friday. So instead of automatically moving on to next lesson plan, we evaluate whether to move on, to remediate or to review.”
Additionally, students seem to be more focused, ask more questions and work worker when they know that they’ll receive immediate performance feedback after scanning their tests.
“It also lets teachers know if there is a problem with the way they worded a question on the test,” said Bazsika. “If I see a particular issue with one specific question, I can look at the wording to see why so many students answered the way they did. Then I can decide to throw the question out if needed.”
With GradeCam, Bazsika and many other educators in Boone County School District have been able to gear questions to evaluate certain standards that will appear on state standardized testing. It gives them more data that they can submit to show at what level their students are performing - extremely important for teachers as they are being held more accountable than ever for meeting these standards.
“What really sold a lot of the teachers is that GradeCam is now integrated with Infinite Campus (the state of Kentucky’s student management system),” said Bazsika. “So they can just press a button and all their grades are automatically and immediately entered into their grade book.”
GradeCam eliminates the need to manually enter scores into a grade book for the hundreds of student assignments that educators must track every week - saving hours of tedious data entry. In addition, GradeCam can be used to quickly transfer scores from graded papers into a grade book and to scan to post scores for credit/no credit student work as well.
“GradeCam takes a lot of administrative burdens off teachers to let them actually teach more,” said Bazsika. “What’s also great is that the cameras are very plug and play - meaning you just plug it into any computer in the school, it finds GradeCam, recognizes it and is able to run the software.”
There is no easier, more convenient, less stressful, or less expensive way to collect information on student performance than GradeCam. Most educators intuitively know that this information needs to come from the classroom and flow up, not the other way around. They also know that gathering that data should be done regularly, and they want to do it in a way that does not add to teachers’ huge work load.
“I would absolutely recommend GradeCam to another school,” said Bazsika. “And I’ll tell you why - the ease of the rollout, the richness of the data, the little support you need. Usually when you roll out new technology, there is a big issue of how you will support it. GradeCam has been very easy to support!”
