Using GAS to create web applications (Part 1)

I have been using GAS (google apps script) for several years to automate tasks. In fact, those of you who follow the blog will know different plugins I have published for spreadsheets: CoRubrics, CLASS-MON and ImExClass. But, until now, I had rarely used the GAS option to create web applications. Some limitations that they have, had made me not dive much into it.

In this first article, I will only present what these web apps are and what they can be useful for. In a second part, we will see how to create one.

Continue reading “Using GAS to create web applications (Part 1)”

Conditional formatting in spreadsheets with cells from different sheets

It has been some time since I last wrote an article that was a bit technical and not at all pedagogical. Today I want to talk about the conditional formatting of Google spreadsheets. Recovering a functionality of my gradebook I have found this casuistry and, if you don’t know it, maybe it can be useful for you.

As most of you know, conditional formatting in spreadsheets, as the name suggests, allows the formatting of a cell to change if certain conditions occur. For example, we can make a cell with a number appear red if it is negative or black if it is positive. What I want to show in this article is how to change the format of a cell based on the values we enter in another cell that is also in another tab of the same spreadsheet (or better said, in another sheet of the same spreadsheet).

Continue reading “Conditional formatting in spreadsheets with cells from different sheets”

Reducing grades is the consequence

For some time now, when I do trainings, I have been meeting teachers who want to reduce the grades in their subjects, but don’t really know how to do it. Since we opened the No Grades group on Facebook (not yet part of the group? There are already over 400 of us!), I get even more enquiries from teachers who are concerned about the over-reliance of students on grades.

Continue reading “Reducing grades is the consequence”

There is life beyond the analytical rubric

Analytical rubrics have been in vogue for a few years now. You talk to teachers at all levels and many of them use analytical rubrics. And it seems that by using these rubrics they are already doing formative and formative evaluation.

My experience, however, tells me quite the opposite. I am not as radical as a good friend of mine who says that the rubrics are obsolete, but she has a point. Continue reading “There is life beyond the analytical rubric”