While we’re very proud of the work and success of our most recent desktop and iPad SmartMusic releases, we’ve also heard about the difficulties some teachers have had with a few particular issues. We are patching and releasing updates as frequently as we can, so I encourage you to keep checking if you are running into problems. Today, I wanted to address a particular issue with the way Gradebook shows assessment scores that was an unintended change from the previous design.

(This issue was resolved with the update on 10/18/2013)

We recently talked with several teachers who had been using assessment and recording assignments in a way that we had not anticipated. By setting the recording score to 0, these teachers were spot-checking recordings of completed assignments based on the SmartMusic assessment score. They kept this assessment score, as well as the recording, as a record. This allowed quick access to both the assessment score and the recording in Gradebook. With the new release, you don’t have the same speedy access to that data, because the Gradebook will think that you still need to grade a recording and hide the overall score until you do.

Improvements to resolve this issue are on the way as we continue to examine and simplify the SmartMusic experience. We reached out to several teachers who were concerned with the current design and showed them some possible solutions. We are confident that the update we’re working on will not only resolve the problem immediately, but speed up the grading process overall. This update will be available as soon as we can ensure that it is ready for everyone to use, so stay tuned on that front!

Until that work is finished, I wanted to offer a temporary workaround that several customers and our training staff have suggested. While not an ideal solution, this will be the fastest way to review student assessment scores without having to load each student assignment.

When you review a class in your Gradebook grid view, and need fast access to assessment scores only, click the PRINT & EXPORT button in the upper-right.

You can quickly create a printable report by choosing Gradebook and limiting your results by dates or selected assignments. When you finish choosing the options to display and print, you’ll have a PDF created that you can review on your screen, or print out for reference.

You can also create a spreadsheet instead. After clicking PRINT & EXPORT, choose Gradebook under “Data Exports” and “.XLS – Microsoft Excel” from the drop-down menu. Click EXPORT and you will generate a spreadsheet with the students’ names, instrument, and their SmartMusic-assigned scores ready for review. You can still spot-check inside SmartMusic because all of the recordings are there.

Questions? Let us know in the comments below.