Throughout the week I have been receiving emails and blog comments about problems with Engrade. Earlier this week there were times when Engrade was exceptionally slow and some users reported not being able to access their accounts at all. As of Thursday at 11am EST I was still able to access my account. This morning I awoke to blog comments and emails asking me if I knew what happened to Engrade. The entire Engrade website is down, there is not even a "fail" message or a status page from Engrade. As of 12:10pm EST I have not heard anything from Engrade regarding the problems they are experiencing.
For teachers who have their grades on Engrade and no where else the failure of Engrade is a huge problem. In many school districts around the country today is the end of the first marking period. I feel awful for those of you that use Engrade. If you started using Engrade after I wrote my review of it August I feel partly responsible for your situation. I do try to avoid reviewing services that I think are not going to be viable in the long-run. I never suspected Engrade of being a service that would disappear almost overnight.
This problem with Engrade is an example of why some school districts prefer to host their own student management systems rather than rely on others. That said, two years ago my school district's servers crashed and took grades with them. The grades were recovered eventually, but it was iffy for a few days. Since then I have printed my grade reports every time I update my grade book.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Engrade Disappears at a Crucial Time for Teachers
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5 comments:
We use Pinnacle from Excelsior in Virginia Beach--the whole huge schol system--and that has happened to us more than once when grades are due. We pay them a lot of money for failure.
Three weeks ago I looked into Engrade and signed up for an account. I emailed them three times. No response and worst yet none were read. I like Thinkwave Educator
I recently signed up for an Engrade account, after changing schools. At my old school, we used Edline, which I thought was GREAT! Though my new school doesnt, I found Engrade. I still have no problem logging in, but... My students can't see grades!!! Advice???
What a small world! I was looking for information on Engrade and came across this blog post. I have not had too many issues, but the other teachers at my school have had issues logging in. The students have not have access for 2 months now. We will be switching programs over Christmas break. Any suggestions for a descent replacement?
Engrade appears to have a lot of problems that are going unresolved. I have not heard anything from them regarding an email I sent them last month.
At this point I don't trust it nor do I recommend it to anyone. I personally am not using it, but I have not heard anything bad about Yacapaca. I also recently learned about Grade Connect which looks promising.
Richard
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