This document describes important information for people who have:
• purchased Grade Machine for Macintosh for the first time,
• upgraded from the Standard Edition to the Deluxe Edition of Grade Machine,
• purchased an upgrade from a version of Grade Machine for Macintosh prior to 6.5,
• obtained the free software to update from version 6.5 or newer, or
• obtained a free demo (Small Class Edition) to evaluate Grade Machine.
This document also includes installation instructions that go beyond those found in the manual, to address the needs of all of the customers described above.
If You Have the Free Small Class Edition of Grade Machine
The Small Class Edition of Grade Machine contains all the features of the full version, except it limits each class to 10 students. Please select Grade Machine Guide from the Help menu (which shows up as "?" in System 7, or "Help" in System 8). Then select the Quick Tour topic for a guided tour of Grade Machine. A full manual is also included on this disk (see below). If you have any questions about how to use Grade Machine, please call our tech support line, and we will be very happy to assist you. Support is also available through email and fax (see “How To Reach Misty City” below).
As you become familiar with Grade Machine's power, flexibility, and ease of use, you'll want to order the full version by calling our sales department (see “How To Reach Misty City” below). When you order, you will receive a special registration code that will personalize Grade Machine for you and remove the 10-student limit.
We look forward to helping you save time and improve communication with your students and their parents!
If You Have Purchased Grade Machine
(or if you are upgrading from a version older than 6.5)
If you purchased Grade Machine directly from Misty City: After you have followed the instructions below to install and run Grade Machine, be sure to enter your registration information (encoded name, serial number, and verification code) to remove the 10-student limit. This information is printed on the label of floppy disk #1 and on your packing slip. (In some cases, customers also receive the registration information via email or fax.) You can enter the registration information by clicking the "Register" button in the "Welcome" screen when Grade Machine starts up. Or enter it by selecting Register from the Edit menu.
Tip for Site Licenses: You can avoid having to enter the Grade Machine Registration information separately for every teacher's computer. After you enter the information on one computer, exit Grade Machine, and copy the GM License file from your Grade Machine folder onto Grade Machine Disk #1. This will personalize the Grade Machine installer, so additional installations will be pre-registered for your school.
If you purchased Grade Machine from a software dealer: Be sure to send your Grade Machine Registration Form to Misty City (preferably via email or fax), to receive your personalized registration information. Please do this without delay, because the unregistered software will expire one year from the date it was packaged for the dealer.
How To Reach Misty City (Area Code Alert!)
NOTE: Our (206) area code has changed to (425) (effective 4/27/97).
The free Misty City Online News, sent via email, contains important announcements that could save you hours of time! To receive the Online News, simply send us an email message containing this sentence:
“Please add me to your Online News list for the Macintosh version of Grade Machine.”
Send the message to:
macnews@mistycity.com
The Online News is sent out whenever there is news that needs announcing (about once or twice a month on the average). You may discontinue the Online News at any time by sending a request via email.
Installing Grade Machine for the First Time
Double-click on "Grade Machine Installer", located on floppy disk #1, or inside the Grade Machine Software folder on the CD. Then click the "Install" button in the "Grade Machine Installer" window.
(This window also contains other options if you need to change the location to install Grade Machine. You can also select "Custom Install" to install just certain components.)
Reinstalling Grade Machine, or Updating from Version 6.5 or Later
If you have any version of Grade Machine installed on your computer, make sure the folder containing the Grade Machine application is named "Grade Machine Folder". This will insure that the new Grade Machine updates your existing Grade Machine. Otherwise, the new copy of Grade Machine will be installed into its own folder, and you'll have to move your files from the old folder into the new one, and delete the old folder.
Double-click on "Grade Machine Installer". Note that the Install Location in the bottom left corner of the "Grade Machine Installer" window should show your existing "Grade Machine Folder". If it does not, then you have multiple copies of Grade Machine already installed on your computer, and you will need to manually select the folder of the copy of Grade Machine you wish to update. Do this by using "Select Folder" from the popup menu at the bottom of the installer window. Click the "Install" button in the "Grade Machine Installer" window.
Note: We recommend against installing multiple copies of Grade Machine on one computer, because you won't know which version will be started when you double-click a Class File to start Grade Machine.
If You Have Trouble Installing Grade Machine
The installer software we use to install Grade Machine may be incompatible with certain very rare combinations of Macintosh hardware and software. If the Installer does not work on your system, then you can try restarting your Mac, holding the Shift key down while you restart, then reinstalling.
If that does not work, then you try turning off your Mac and disconnecting all external SCSI devices (CD ROM drives, hard drives, Zip drives, etc., except for your startup hard drive) before installing Grade Machine.
As a last resort, you can install Grade Machine on a different Macintosh, then bring the files over to your Mac. This may require compressing some of the files using a compression utility (such as StuffIt) so they will fit on floppy disks.
Cross-Platform Compatibility
Class Files may be freely transferred between the Windows and Macintosh versions of Grade Machine, Version 6.7. This enables you to start working on a class using one platform, and continuing work on the other platform. Full details are described in Chapter 8 of the Grade Machine manual, and in the "Windows Class Files" topic of the Grade Machine Guide help system.
One correction to the help system: Grade Machine for Macintosh cannot read any Class Files created by the DOS version of Grade Machine, except for Version 6.5 Class Files. Here is the full story on which versions can read which files:
- Grade Machine 6.7 for Macintosh can read Class Files created by Grade Machine for Macintosh (version 4.0 or later), for Windows (version 6.5 or later), and for DOS (version 6.5 or later).
- Grade Machine 6.7 for Windows can read Class Files created by Grade Machine for Windows (version 6.0 or later), for Macintosh (version 6.5 or later), and for DOS (5.1 or later).
- Grade Machine 6.5 for DOS can read Class Files created by Grade Machine for DOS (5.0 or later), Windows (6.5 ONLY), or Macintosh (6.5 ONLY).
Backward Compatibility
IMPORTANT NOTE: As you begin working with Grade Machine Version 6.7, please keep in mind that although newer versions of Grade Machine can read files created by older versions, the reverse is not always true. For example, any Class Files you create using Version 6.7 will not be usable by Version 6.5.
Manual Now Included On Disk!
The Grade Machine manual has been completely rewritten for the release of Version 6.7 -- and it is now included on disk with Grade Machine. The manual includes a greatly expanded, step-by-step tutorial containing extensive references to the Grade Machine Guide help system. To view or print the manual, follow these steps:
• Run Grade Machine Installer, as described above. Click and hold on the "Easy Install" popup menu and select "Custom Install" from the menu. Check the "Manual" checkbox, and click "Install".
• The above step creates a document called "Grade Machine Manual", which you can open, view, and/or print using almost any word processor (the document was created using Word Version 5.1 for the Macintosh).
A printed copy of the manual is also included with new sales. Extra copies of the printed manual may be purchased through Misty City's sales department.
Grade Machine Guide Online Help System
The Grade Machine manual fully describes Grade Machine Guide, the new online help system. Here is a condensed description (be sure to check the manual if you need more details):
Note: The file called Help Topics Document, located inside your Grade Machine Folder, contains the text from all of the Grade Machine Guide help topics. You can open this document using any word processor that can read Microsoft Word 5.1 documents. Even if your Mac is capable of running Grade Machine Guide, you may still find Help Topics Document useful because it allows you to print any portion of the text, and to search for a phrase through the entire help text.
If your Macintosh is running System 7.5 or later, you probably have the Apple Guide system installed already. To see if this is true, first run Grade Machine, then click and hold the mouse on the "Help" (or "?") menu at the top of your Macintosh screen. If you don't see a menu choice called Grade Machine Guide, check to make sure your System Extensions folder contains a file called Apple Guide. If not, you can install Apple Guide from your Macintosh System installation disks. Also, make sure your Grade Machine Folder contains a file called Grade Machine Guide. If not, you'll need to re-install Grade Machine.
If your Macintosh is running System 7, but less than System 7.5, you can obtain a free copy of Apple Guide from Apple's Internet web site. Misty City Software's web site contains a link to the appropriate page on Apple's web site.
If your Macintosh is running a System version older than 7.0, it is not compatible with Grade Machine Guide. Instead, open Help Topics Document with your word processor, as described in the Note above.
Quick Tour gives you a brief introduction to Grade Machine's fundamental features, to help you get started quickly. If you are running Grade Machine Guide, click the Topics button, click on the QUICK TOUR topic, and double-click on the phrase "Double-click to Start the Tour...". Or, if you are using Help Topics Document, use your word processor's "find" command to search for the phrase "Quick Tour Topic".
Grade Machine Guide and Help Topics Document contain a wealth of other information, including
• Detailed summaries of features and menu choices
• Descriptions of how to create sample reports
• Tips & Techniques for making Grade Machine fit your own special teaching needs
• An extensive Troubleshooting section
• A Glossary
Balloon Help
If your Macintosh is running System 7.0 or later, you'll want to take advantage of Grade Machine's new Balloon Help. From the "Help" (or "?") menu at the top of your Mac's screen, select "Show Balloons". Then, whenever you are examining a dialog or menu within Grade Machine, simply point to almost any dialog choice, and a description of how to use that choice will appear. This will be particularly useful for explaining some of the more advanced features, in a level of detail that frequently goes beyond the manual.
To turn off Balloon Help, select "Hide Balloons" from the Help ("?") menu.
New Features in Version 6.7
• You can now create up to 10 Overall Grade Summaries, each based on any range of grading periods, even if those ranges overlap! For example, you can now produce a single report that shows students' performance in Quarter 1, Quarter 2, Semester 1, Quarter 3, Quarter 4, and Semester 2, as well as a Year-Long grade. These multiple Overall Grade Summaries can also be exported, which is particularly useful when sending grades to school administration software.
• A new option lets you automatically weigh grading periods equally for any overall summary, and/or weigh categories equally in any grading period. Teachers no longer have to re-calculate equal weights for categories or grading periods after adding them to an existing list.
• An automatic backup folder will save an extra copy of your Class file to any location that you specify, such as a floppy disk. This feature can also be used to send copies of all teachers' classes to a central network storage area. See "Backing Up" in Grade Machine Guide for details..
• Default folders for Class and Style files save you time and help you organize your work! You can specify a particular default folder for opening and saving Class files, and another folder for Style files. For details, see "Default Folder" in Grade Machine Guide.
• A Misc. 3 column in the Students window lets you store more information for each student. This information can be sorted, printed, searched, imported/exported, placed into comments, and manipulated like the other miscellaneous columns.
• Define up to 20 grading periods (increased from 10), and 30 grading scales (increased from 10).
• New Extra credit options add flexibility to categories and grading periods. Switch between extra credit and non-extra credit with the click of a button!
• An improved collapse assignments feature gives you complete control over which assignments will be collapsed, where the new collapsed assignment will be placed, and whether or not the original assignments will be deleted. One use for the new feature is to take periodic "snapshots" of students' current overall grades, and to save those snapshots as percentages.
• More powerful comment variables save you time! Comment variables that refer to a specific grading period may now refer instead to the "latest grading period", so you won't need to re-edit your comment variables when you add a new grading period to the class. Multiple Overall grade summaries can also be referenced by comment variables.
• The Fill Comment Column choice has been replaced by the more general Fill Column, which can be used for most columns in the Students window.
• Enhanced Attendance Totals reports! Any information from the Students window can now be printed with the totals.
• Support is now built in for 48-channel Scantron Optical Mark Readers (Models 2000 and higher). See "Scantron" in the Grade Machine Guide index for full details.
If you are already familiar with Grade Machine 6.5 or an older version, you will notice many changes to the menus and dialogs. In most cases, you can simply turn on Balloon Help or look for the dialog in Grade Machine Guide to see explanations on the recent changes.
However, here are two areas where extensive changes have been made that you should know about before you begin exploring:
1) Category, Grading Period, and Overall Summaries dialogs:
Because the number of grading periods has increased from 10 to 20, and because some new features have been added like the "Extra Credit" checkboxes, a simple dialog no longer can hold all the required information. Therefore, the Grading Periods dialog has been completely reworked, so that each grading period has its own section, and the list of grading periods scrolls downward, showing 2 grading periods at a time.
For consistency, the Categories dialog has been redesigned with a similar interface. However, be sure to notice one other important difference: In older versions of Grade Machine, the Categories dialog contained a set of radio buttons for "Use category weights" and "Total Points across categories". Since those radio buttons actually control the way that a grading period's grade is calculated, they have been moved to the Grading Periods dialog. And, the radio buttons have been replaced by a "popup" control that shows those two choices, along with a third "weigh equally" choice.
Similarly, the new Overall Summaries dialog contains a popup to control how the Overall grades are calculated: Use grading period weights, ignore grading period weights, or weigh grading periods equally.
The "extra credit" checkboxes in the Category dialog allows you to designate one or more categories to be calculated as extra credit. In older versions, you had to place extra credit categories at the end of the list, and make sure that non-extra-credit categories' weights added to exactly 100%. Now you can place extra credit categories anywhere you want in the list, and you can use any numbers for the weights. The Grading Periods dialog has changed in similar ways to allow more flexible extra credit.
2) Collapse Assignments:
In previous versions of Grade Machine, when you collapsed assignments (using the Utilities menu), all of the assignments had to be in the same category of the same grading period, and all of those assignments were always deleted when the new "collapsed" assignment was created.
In Version 6.7, the Collapse command is much more powerful. It can collapse any selected assignments, even if they cross category and/or grading period boundaries. And, please note that by default, the old assignments are not deleted unless you check the Delete Original Assignments checkbox. If you want Collapse Assignments to work the same way it did in previous versions, be sure to check this box!
When a new "collapsed" assignment is created, the points for each student are determined by calculating an overall grading percentage as if no other assignments existed, then taking that percentage of the points possible on the assignment. Thus, you can use this feature to take a "snapshot" of a student's grade, and to save that snapshot as a new assignment. To prevent the new assignment from affecting the grade, you can create a new grading period, with a weight of 0%, and place your "snapshot" assignments into that grading period. These snapshots are useful if you want to keep precise records of how well the student performed during the first two weeks, second two weeks, and so forth, for example.
For further details, see "Collapse Assignments" in Grade Machine Guide.
Smart Data Exchange for Computer Coordinators and Other Power Users
Smart Data Exchange revolutionizes the way Grade Machine exchanges data with other applications. This feature was introduced starting with Version 6.5, but because this topic is so important, here is some information for the benefit of people who are new to Grade Machine or are upgrading directly from a version older than 6.5:
Power users of Grade Machine, such as computer coordinators, can use Smart Data Exchange to design their own incredibly flexible "filters" for importing and exporting data. These filters can then be distributed to all teachers. This greatly reduces the chances of user errors corrupting student data as it is transferred to and from school administration software. And the new system is incredibly easy for the teacher to use, since the user-designed filter names will appear directly on Grade Machine's import/export filter lists.
Smart Data Exchange has already produced a huge increase in the number of school administration software packages supported by Grade Machine. Filters are included for dozens of packages! The filters are cross-platform compatible.
When you choose "Import" or "Export" from the File menu, you will see listings for many filters. If you don't see your school administration software listed there, chances are your school's computer coordinator can use Grade Machine to easily create a filter to add to the list!
Please note that since the filters included are new, we are looking for feedback on any improvements you suggest in the filters for specific administration software. And, if you create a new filter for another administration package, please let us know, so we can share it with other schools who use that package.
Complete documentation for Smart Data Exchange is available in Grade Machine Guide. A basic tutorial for designing filters shows you how to create simple filters to import data into Grade Machine from a text file, and to export data in a simple manner. These examples will be of general interest to many teachers (those with fairly good computer experience). Also, a more advanced tutorial for designing filters is intended only for the "power-user" (such as a computer coordinator) who will be interfacing Grade Machine to a particular school administration package.
We recommend that you carefully study all the relevant Help topics before designing your own filters.
Also Note: For a complete description of the latest filters included with the Deluxe Edition, look in the Filter Guides folder (inside your Grade Machine folder). A document called Smart Data Exchange Info gives general instructions, and numerous other text documents address specific school administration software packages. Also, check Misty City's web site for the latest filters.
