Class Mate Gradebook

Editors' ReviewDownload.com staffAugust 24, 2007The days of hand-calculating students' grades are long since past, and most teachers have surely been happy to see them go. This application is designed to help teachers keep track of student performance, with the ability to track attendance, create grading curves, and of course calculate intermediate and final grades. These are all useful tools, but we found the program's appeal to be muted somewhat by its complexity. The interface itself is fairly straightforward, with a sample class provided to help users get started. Different subjects can be kept on different tabs, making it easy to switch back and forth. Users can view pupils' ongoing grades, or calculate the average grade for the entire class. However, tasks quickly become more complicated. Columns cannot be resized, and the abundance of menu options quickly undermines the program's initial simplicity. Advanced features can be difficult to apply, to the point where we felt the 30-day trial limitation could be too strict to fully understand the program's power. Once mastered, Class Mate Grading may well be a useful tool for computer-savvy teachers, but users should be prepared to spend some time climbing their own learning curve.