To think this is a waste of teacher time?

[flapjackattack]

My DD's school are rolling out an online system to show reward points/ disciplines etc. (Parents only see information for their child, teachers see their whole class, children can also look at their points).
I appreciate this is a new system (it's been running around 3 weeks now).
But ... this school are already very good at recording and acknowledging good work, communicate behaviour extremely well and we have plenty of other school communication.
The teacher has to log on to add points, read parent messages and respond. (Usually this would all be covered by homework diaries / reward chart which are still in use, can be covered with in class chats etc).
I know two PTA women rave about it (they seem to like the little pie charts).
Am I unreasonable to question the value of this online programme?
Do I start with the teacher? The PTA? Other parents?

Maybe they are going online so that they can phase out the paper trail? Rather than in addition to it.

YABU. It sounds like a good system, and everything goes electronic eventually (recalls being sent to school with my dinner ticket pinned to my jumper and knows the local high schools now use fingerprint technology like living in a bloody Bond movie )

Really? I don't see replacing homework diaries a good step (we're not being encouraged to record the daily reading, maths etc online).

If the plan is to 'phase out' the reward chart shouldn't ALL classes be starting this at the same time (they compete for points by house as well as collecting their personal marks)? (My other DD's class are not involved in this).
I can stifle my concerns (though I got a notification at 9.30 pm that DD's teacher had responded to my last message). But a large part of me can't see the benefit to the teacher and by association the students.

It's easier for them. They can add rewards quickly, other staff can check pupil logs. Sometimes you just want to give out a quick 'good effort' mark to say, 5 pupils in the class, all you have to do is click 5 boxes in the relevant column in the reward sheet and it goes on to each child's record.

They'll phase out aspects of the paper record as this system gets established. It will save on paper, books & photocopying.

Logging in takes seconds and quite likely the staff already log onto it in the morning to take the register.

I don't know why you want to question it. If it was increasing the workload of teachers, surely that would be a matter for them to take up with their line managers?

But if they are "rolling it out" then that means they are doing it a class at a time, presumably to identify any issues/bugs in the system - it is standard practice with any new system.

A local comp to me sets all homework etc on tablets. Students submit their homework digitally etc, and teacher marks and responds at a time convenient to them from their own tablet. It would make sense in this instance not to have a homework diary but to record it all digitally on the tablet.

Its a new system. Give it time.

Is it Dojo? Kids love it ime - even teens!

Because lack of teacher time impacts on the class experience? I'd rather teachers were not being pushed to jump through trendy tech hoops if it isn't replacing something or saving time. Which I don't see has happened to date.

But how do you know it wont save time? Another poster above has commented (by the sounds of it from personal experience) to say that it is easier.

Overall it will save time.

Thanks for suggesting how it might save time in the day.
But having late messages from the teacher makes me less likely to want to message the teacher again. (Which I've only done the once I am not the parent bombarding the teacher with questions).

I can't believe this is even a topic. It seems so completely trivial in the worst 'first world problems' kind of a way.

Clearly, the school feel that there may be benefits. I assume they are trying it out to see if those benefits materialize in practice. Storing data online means that anyone can access the diary from anywhere (good for separated parents who both want to remain in the loop), enables graphing of data in all kinds of different ways, and presumably might be more convenient for teachers too in the same way that a Facebook message can be easier to produce than an email. It also means a homework diary can't be lost.

It's up to you when you read messages. You don't have to read/respond as soon as they come in.

Having data online rather than on paper means you can use it for more. You can interrogate it en masse, identify needs and report on it far more easily than you can if you have to check lots of places and do everything manually. That's a generalisation of course, I can't say whether your school will do this, but educational analytics is booming in the HE sector so I guess schools are getting in on the act now too.

They started this at my dds' Secondary school last year.

Sadly, whereas we used to get things like postcards home when they had done something good, we now get nothing.

I can see it would be much easier / quicker / more efficient for the staff, however it doesn't motivate either of my 2 (were in Yr7 and 10, now obviously in Yrs 8 and 11) who are quite different characters.

What it means is I now have no idea if they've done something particularly good/kind/noticeable/impressive.
You need a password to log in, which is given to the pupils, not the parents in the first instance.

They still have physical planners / homework diaries. Their system is just about the reward points.