Chromebooks, Turnitin.com, electronic textbooks and Infinite Campus. In order for academics to continue improving, learning styles must evolve along with technology. However, this progress is problematic when programs are not updated consistently and effectively.

The point of Infinite Campus is to alert students, parents and teachers alike about every individual student’s academic status, but if it is not updated as grades change, the site becomes obsolete, despite the fact that it can be accessed by nearly every electronic device and shows all grades entered for each class.

Our school’s grading system is point-based, so the overall grade for each class is a cumulative percent of how many points were received out of the assigned amount. If only 10 points are in the gradebook, and a student got a 6 out of 10 on that assignment, he or she is technically failing that class.

In a competitive community with an emphasis on academic achievement, it can be disheartening for students to see bad grades, even if they don’t reflect their current standing.

I understand that teachers are busy and it is almost impossible to immediately enter assignments into Infinite Campus right after they are collected. With this in mind, I believe that grades should not be entered if they do not represent that student’s achievement or lack of it in a class. The gradebook should be regularly updated instead of all at once right when grades are due. It is only fair that if students are constantly assigned work, they should be promptly informed of how well they did.

A program that is specifically designed to alert counselors, parents, teachers, and students of updates in grades is pointless when it is not correct or misleads a student of their overall grade.  An accurate Infinite Campus account prevents overconfidence that leads to complacency as well as unnecessary anxiety that can lead to self-consciousness.