Category : Lotus and other Spreadsheets
Archive   : 123GRADE.ZIP
Filename : 123GRADE.DOC

123GRADE.WKS
A grade keeping Worksheet
For use with Lotus 1-2-3, ver. 1A
or newer

(c) Copyright Chandler, Arizona - 1987
David L. Phares



D O C U M E N T A T I O N


OVERVIEW:

123GRADE.WKS is a template designed for use by classroom teachers
to keep their student's grades for a perscribed grading period. The
worksheet will, with the pressing of one key (F9) compute the totals
for each student, their percentage of the total possible, the total
points possible to date, the class average for each assignment, and
the total class average.

123GRADE.ARC file contains six files. They are:

123GRADE.WKS - The actual template for use with Lotus 1-2-3
SAMGRADE.WKS - A sample grade sheet for demonstration purposes
123GRADE.DOC - This documentation file
PRINTDOC.BAT - A batch file to printout the documentation file
PR.COM - A public Domain printer utility used to print
the documentation file
README.BAT - Instructional file on how to print out
documentation

It is suggested, that once you have extracted the ARC file into
the files listed above, you immediately make backup copies to be kept
in a safe place.

FILLING THE STANDARD DATA CELLS

Once you have entered Lotus 1-2-3 and have loaded the worksheet
into the program you will be looking at the top left hand corner of
the gradesheet.

Do not be alarmed at the ERR messages in a number of the cells as
they will correct once you have pressed the calc key (F9).

For your protection all of the cells containing either labels or
formulae have been protected so as to prevent you from accidently
entering data in these cells.

The top two lines of data cells containt information about the
the teacher, year, subject, semester, period and term. By use of the
cursor control keys you can fill in the blanks to the right of the
labels.

The next two cells you will want to take notice of are UP DATE:
and CL SIZE:. The UP DATE: cell you will want to type in the date of
any additions to the grade sheet. This will allow you to know at a
glance when the grade is current to. The CL SIZE: cell can be ignored
for the moment.

When entering a date in cell B6 (just to the right of UP DATE:)
it is necessary to first type an ' before the date. This lets Lotus
know that this is a text number and a number to calculate.


ENTERING STUDENT NAMES IN THE GRADESHEET

Move the cursor to Cell A13 on the left side of the worksheet.
You are now ready to begin to write the names of the students into the
worksheet. It is suggested that you type the names Last Name first
and First Name second, alphabetically. You can use two cell widths to
write the name (18 total characters per name).

Once we have entered all the names of the students in this class
you can move the cursor back up to cell B7. This is the cell into
which we enter the total number of the students in the class. For
calculation purposes the accuracy of the number is vital. If at any
time during the grading period you either add or drop a student it is
necessary to adjust this number to accurately reflect the class size.

Depending on how many assignments you have in the grade period,
it may require you to copy the names, using the Range/Copy command in
Lotus, to the place provided in the worksheet for the second page to
begin.


WARNING: DO NOT EVER ENTER DATA IN ANY CELL IN COLUMNS C AND D. THESE
CONTAIN FORMULA NECESSARY TO COMPUTE THE STUDENT'S GRADES AND
THE CORRECT DATA WILL APPEAR AS A RESULT OF PRESSING THE F9
KEY TO COMPUTE.


ENTERING ASSIGNMENTS, DATES AND VALUES

Move the cursor to cell E5. You are now ready to enter name of
the first assignment of the grading period. Assuming that you are not
going to utilize the EXTRA CREDIT OPTION (see below) for this column,
you can now enter the name of the first assignment. You have two
cells to use for the name alone, however these cells, unlike the
student name cells, are one on top of the other, not next to each
other.

So long as the titles of the assignments begin with an
alphabetical letter you can go ahead and type in the names. Remember
that you have 9 characters per cell for the names. Thus, you may want
to add a space or two at the beginning to center the name in the cell.
The second cell for names of assignment is E6.

Now move the cursor to cell E7. On this row (7) we will enter
the dates of the assignments we are going to record and compute. It
is suggested that you use the format of MM/DD/YY to record the date in
the cell for assignment date.

Since you are going to be entering data beginning with a number
that you do not want Lotus to see as a number, but rather as text, it
is necessary to tell Lotus it is text. We do this by starting by
entering an ' in the cell before the date. Thus if the date of the
assignment is 9/23/87 then we would enter '9/23/87 followed by the
ENTER key.

Once you have entered the date of the assignment we can move the
cursor to the next necessary cell, in this case E9. In this cell we
will enter the numeric value of this assignment. Since we want Lotus
to know this is a number to calculate we do not use the ' in front of
the number. Enter the numeric value of the first assignment in cell
E9. We are now ready to move on to the entering of the grades of the
students for the first assignment.


ENTERING GRADES IN THE GRADESHEET

We begin by moving the cursor to cell E13. We can no enter the
score for the first student followed by the down cursor control key.
This will do two things: first, it will enter the score in cell E13,
and second, it will move the cursor to the next cell, E14, where we
can type the score for the next student.

If you make an error you can just return the cursor to cell where
the error was made and type over the wrong score.

Continue this until all the scores are entered for all the members
of the class.


USING THE "WINDOWS" FUNCTION WHEN ADDING GRADES

Because there is a very good chance you will be adding enough grades
in the gradesheet to make the names of the students go off the left side
of your monitor as you add columns on the right, we now cover the use of
the Lotus function called "WINDOWS."

WINDOWS will allow you to create a Window on the left side of your
monitor screen that will contain the student's names. From then on when
ever you move around the gradesheet the students names will always be
in the window for you to see. When you move up and down from Row to Row
the names will move vertically with you, but they will not move
horizontally.

To actuate the WINDOWS function:

1) First move the cursor to colunm C ( Any row will do ).

2) Press the / key to bring up the Lotus Main Menu.

3) Now press the W key twice in a row.

4) Now Lotus will ask you if you want a Vertical or horizontal window.
We want a Vertical Window so make that selection.

5) You will now see the window appear. However the cursor is on the left
side of the divider and we want it on the right. To move the cursor from
one side of the window bar to the other press the F6 key. Now you will
se the cursor is in the "work area" where we want to be. If you should
want to move it back to the left of the divider bar the same F6 key will
the job for you.

6) You may now move the cursor over to the right to bring the empty
Column that is currenly off the screen onto the screen. Note that even
though the "Work Area" of the gradesheet moves the names of the students
in your class does not. A very handy function, indeed.

7) To get out of WINDOWS prior to printing and saving the gradesheet
(Something you will want to do) type the following series of commands
WITHOUT the ENTER key being involved: / W W C Those four strokes
will take you back to the regular gradesheet. As you type them you may
want to watch the Lotus Menus to see exactly what they do.


CALCULATING THE GRADESHEET

Now comes the hard part. Press the F9 key. That does it. You
will see the red WAIT sign in the top right corner of the Lotus menu
and when it goes off, all the scores will be calculated. Shazam!

Once you have entered the scores you can either save the
123GRADE.WKS under a new name, or you can first print it out to hard
copy for insertion into your grade and attendance book. Be sure to not
save the grade sheet under the same name you loaded ( 123GRADE.WKS ) or
you will overwrite the blank worksheet. If you go ahead and print out
the new grade sheet you will notice it prints in condensed print. This
is to allow you to get more assignments on each page. There is more on
printing below.


DROPPING STUDENTS AND ADDING NEW STUDENTS

OVERVIEW:

Anyone who has ever taught school knows that there is no way
you can make it through the school year without a drop or an add.
The following will walk you through each process to allow you to
keep your student names in the order you want them.


DROPPING STUDENT NAMES FROM YOUR GRADESHEET

1) Move the cursor to the cell which contains the name of the
student you wish to drop.

2) Now press the / key to bring up the menu for Lotus.

3) Select the WORKSHEET option by either typing W or moving the
cursor block to WORKSHEET and hitting the ENTER key.

4) Now choose the DELETE option by pressing the D key or moving
the cursor block to DELETE and hitting the ENTER key.

5) Lotus will now ask if you want to delete a Column or a Row.
You want to delete a Row, so press R.

6) Lotus will now ask you what Row you want to delete. There
will be a default Row where the cursor was located on the
gradesheet (the student you wanted to delete). Make sure that
the Row shown on the default is the same as the Row containing
the name of the student you want to delete. If it is just press
the ENTER key, and that student and his/her grades will be
deleted.

7) Now move the cursor back up to cell B7 and amend the number
in the class size to reflect the change.

8) Be sure and save the new gradesheet before exiting Lotus or
loading a new gradesheet or all your changes will be lost.


ADDING NEW STUDENT NAMES TO YOUR GRADESHEET

1) Move the cursor to the space where you want the new student to
appear in your gradesheet. You should be in Column A, but that is
not absolutely necessary at this point, so long as your are on the
correct Row.

2) Press the / key to bring up the Lotus Menu.

3) From the Main Menu select the Worksheet option.

4) Once into the Worksheet menu select the INSERT option.

5) Lotus will now ask if you want to insert a Column or a Row. You
want to insert a Row. Select that option.

6) Lotus will now ask you to Enter Row Insert Range, and will show you
the default (where you have located your cursor). Check to see that the
the default range is the same as the row where you want the new student's
name to appear. Once you are sure it is, then press the ENTER key.

7) You will see that the names have moved down one row to make room for
the new name. However, before we type in the new name we first have to
copy the formulae to compute his grades. To do this we move the cursor
to the cell of the row of the new name that intersect with Column C.

8) Now press the / key to bring up the Lotus Main Menu.

9) From this menu select the Copy option.

10) Lotus will now ask you from where to you want to copy. The default
will be where your cursor is. This cell, and the next one to the right
are where you will want to copy to, NOT FROM. We are going to copy from
the cells just below where your cursor is. We are also going to copy 2
cells at the same time. Look at the name of the cell just below the
cursor location and type that cell address followed by two periods and
then the cell address of the cell to the right. Example: If you want to
copy into cells C13 and D13, then the range you want to copy from would
be C14..D14, followed by the ENTER key.

11) Now lotus will ask Enter Range to Copy To: Again the default will be
where your cursor is. Here you type in the address where your cursor is
followed by two periods ( .. ) followed by the address of the cell to the
right of the first address, followed by the ENTER key.

12) You can now move the cursor back to Column A and type in the name of
the new student.

13) Be sure to go back to Cell B7 and amend the Class Size number to
reflect the correct number of students in your class. You are now ready
to add scores for the new student.

14) Remember that if this student has missed assignments already entered
in the gradesheet his percentage is going to off in comparison to the
other students. You have to make allowances for this in your grading.
(Hey, you can't have everything!)
Actually you can! You can rewrite the formula for computing his
percentage based on the total possible for just the assignments he is
responsible for. It is really not that hard to do. You may know someone
in your school who knows the basics of writing Lotus formulae and they can
help you. If not you can drop me a line and I'll see what I can do for
you...dlp)


YOU CAN PRACTICE WITH SAMGRADE.WKS

For those of you who would like to practice a little without the
risk of ruining a gradesheet I have prepared a sample grade sheet titled
SAMGRADE.WKS. This can be loaded into Lotus and played with until you
are sure of yourself on how the gradesheet works. I would recommend that
you take some time and use the sample for a little practice. Especially
in adding and deleting students from your role. We both know you are
going to have to do this some time this term so you may as well get it
down now.


PRINTING YOUR GRADESHEET

OVERVIEW:

If you are using either Lotus 1-2-3, Twin, or one of the other
Lotus 1-2-3 clones you will find all the necessary documentation
for the printing of your gradesheet in the manual that comes with
your spreadsheet program. There are a few items that may be of
interest to you while printing.

1) The spreadsheet is defaulted to condensed print (17 cpi)
However, this can be changed if you want larger type. It is
set at the 17 cpi to allow you enter more grades per page.
One thing about condensed print is that you must keep your
printer ribbon new and dark or it will become difficult to
read the printout. The HEX code for condensed for mose
dot matrix printers is 015.

2) The gradesheet is set up with the presumption that you are
printing on 8 and 1/2 inch wide paper. Thus, there is a
place for the student names on the second page of the print
out if you need two pages. You can copy the names from
column A to the second page by the use of the Copy command
in Lotus.

3) If you are using a wide carriage printer (15" or larger) you
may want to leave the additional name column where it is to
make it easier to check scores. In the alternative you can
delete the columns where the names would go on the short paper
by using the Range/Delete function of Lotus.

4) If you are using a tractor drive on your printer, you may be in
for a special suprise. Many of the gradebooks in use today have
many spiral rings that just match up perfectly with the holes in
bi-fold continuous paper used in a tractor drives. Thus when you
take you printed gradesheet out of the printer DO NOT tear off the
left perforated edge. Those holes may just serve to keep your
gradesheet in your record book.




* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

USE AGREEMENT

1) You are allowed to use and distribute this software freely.

2) The software is offered AS IS, with no guarantees of any sort.

3) If you find it useful to you in your teaching, and if you feel
disposed to do so, you can send the author $5.00 along with any
comments you might have as to how to improve it.

4) If you have special recording problems feel free to drop me note
and I will help you if I can.

David L. Phares
P. O. Box 167
Chandler, Arizona 85244