Kurt Kiefer & Lisa Wachtel [1.4MB PDF]:

This report summarizes data on the use of Infinite Campus teacher tools and the Parent and Student Portal. Data come from a survey conducted among all teachers responsible for students within the Infinite Campus system and an analysis of the Infinite Campus data base. Below are highlights from the report.

  • About half of all middle and high school teachers responsible for providing grades to students are using the grade book tool.
  • Grade book use has declined over the past year at the middle school level due to the introduction of standards- based grading. In addition to the change in grading approach, the grade book tool in Infinite Campus does not handle standards-based grading as efficiently as traditional grading.
  • Lesson Planner and Grade book use is most common among World Languages, Physical Education, and Science teachers and less common among fine arts and language arts/reading teachers.
  • Grade book and other tool use is most common among teachers with less than three years of teaching experience.
  • Seventy percent of teachers responding to the survey within these years of experience category report using the tools compared with about half of all other experience categories.
  • Most of the other teacher tools within Infinite Campus, e.g., Messenger, Newsletters, reports, etc., are not being used due to a lack o!familiarity with them.
  • Many teachers expressed interest in learning about how they can use other digital tools such as the Moodie leaming management system, blogs, wikis, and Drupal web pages.
  • About one third of parents with high school stUdents use the Infinite Campus Parent Portal. Slightly less than 30 percent of parents of middle school students use the Portal. Having just been introduced to elementary schools this fall, slightly more that ten percent of parents of students at this level use the Portal.
  • Parents of white students are more likely to use the Portal than are parents of students within other racial/ethnic subgroups.
  • About half of all high school students have used the Portal at one time this school year. About one in five middle school students have used the Portal this year.
  • Variation in student portal use is wide across the middle and high schools.

Follow up is planned during January 2010 with staff on how we can address some of the issues related to enhancing the use olthese tools among staff, parents, and stUdents. This report is scheduled to be provided to the Board of Education in February 2010.

Much more on Infinite Campus and the Madison School District here.