Wouldn’t it be great if educators could use their iPhones or iPod touches with grading programs like Easy Grade Pro? EGP’s Clipboard for Palm OS devices and Pocket EGP for Windows Mobile devices have been around for a while, letting educators use their PDAs and smart phones in class to enter grades and track attendance. By syncing their handhelds, teachers can import grades and attendance data into the full version of EGP on their computers. Since many schools use Easy Grade Pro, wouldn’t it be great if we could use our iPhones and iPod touches with it?

Now we can. Nearly, that is. At least we should be able to in a perfect world…

Right now, it’s nearly possible to record daily grades on an iPhone or iPod touch that can be imported into EGP — only one piece is missing, as I shall explain. Google, if you’re here, keep reading…The recipe needs the following ingredients: a full version of EGP running on a computer; an iPhone or iPod touch; a Google account for managing Google docs. The basic procedure involves

1. uploading a simple grading document to Google docs,
2. accessing and editing that document during class (or whenever) using your iPhone or iPod touch, and
3. downloading that document to your computer later and importing its data into a class in EGP.

Here are the details. And this will get the EGP solution working from any networked computer from which you can access Google docs. Unfortunately, it won’t go from the iPhone or iPod touch — at least not until Google decides to let these devices enter information (rather than presenting them with a read-only version of the docs; more on this later). The following example is for an Elementary Greek Readings class, for which I need to track daily participation grades as students translate assigned texts in class.

First, I generate an export template in EGP, a simple text (.txt) file with all the students’ names. To do this, pull down the EGP’s File menu and select Export. Choose “Other Formats” from the tab options. Click “New.” Give the format a creative title — something like “Student Names,” for instance. I chose “Last Name, First” as a name display format, which will generate a list of all the names of students in the selected class, by last name, with a comma separating last from first names. Click “Done” to return to the Export window. Be sure you have highlighted the correct class in the “Select One or More Class” column. Click “Export.” This launches an export preview; if everything looks good, click Export. You will have a chance to name the document (a .txt file) and select a destination for it. I call mine “Reading Scores.”

Next, open the document in a basic text editor (like BBEdit or TextWrangler). EGP imports only basic text (txt) files, so it is important that your document remains as such. After opening it, you should see the list of names, by last name, with commas separating last and first names. The order will be the same as that in EGP, but the order does not really matter. After each name, insert a comma. This will enable EGP to distinguish scores from names later. Save the document again as a txt file.Now upload the document to your Google docs (click here for basic instructions on using Google docs). The idea is that the teacher will use her iPhone or iPod touch in class to access and edit the document online, simply inputting scores or letter grades for each student and saving the results (more on this in a moment…).

When class is over and it’s time to import the class grades into EGP, download the .txt file from Google docs onto your computer. Then, in EGP pull down the File menu and select “Import.” Choose “Easy Import: Scores” in the Import dialogue. You will then navigate to and select your scores document. Click “Open,” which should bring up a dialogue that lets you choose which assignment the scores will go to and identify the category for each piece of data being imported — last name, first name, and score. Click “Next.” You will see an Import Preview and be given the chance finally to import the records into your gradebook. You have just “synced” your online grade document with EGP for this assignment!

In order to use the grade document again, the scores will need to be “erased” from the online .txt file so that it will be ready for the next class period or new assignment — or conceivably, one could use the Google docs spreadsheet to create a document that would allow labeling and importing of each separate column (I’ll leave it to someone else to work out the specifics of that strategy).

Of course, as I noted above, one piece is missing… At present, Google docs allows the iPhone and iPod touch to have “read-only” access to documents on the site, so a user cannot edit documents yet. Perhaps this has something to do with Java incompatibilities (and allegedly, it’s being addressed). However, until this piece is fixed, the above process — though fully tested — will only work on desktops or laptops. So if you’re teaching in a room with a networked computer, no problem! But — at least for now — iPhone and touch owners are simply locked out…

Are you listening, Google? For this and so many other reasons, we need Google docs to allow document editing on the iPhone and iPod touch!

On the other hand, it would be even better if Easy Grade Pro developed a 3rd party app along the lines of Clipboard for the iPhone and iPod touch — one that allows the full range of portable grading possibilities: attendance, multiple assignment tracking, basic gradebook editing, and so forth. Now that would be handy!