Dittos Are Out, Class Key Is In

The word ditto conjures up memories of grade school. Back in the day our teachers would give us "dittos," or photocopies with the night's homework assignment. On a good day we would get word games or riddles; less fun were the handwriting practice sheets printed in runny blue ink. Use of the ditto continued right through high school, when we would often claim to have "lost" paper copies of assignments in order to avoid, or at least postpone, doing the work. In a world with Class Key, losing assignments is no longer grounds for late or missing assignments. Sorry slackers. Driving the Class Key team is the notion that software can help improve the teaching and learning process and the best way is to make it simple and easy to use. Class Key features a suite of software tools that centralizes all aspects of the classroom experience, enhancing teaching through use of the web. Teachers can use Zeal to communicate with students and their parents, post a syllabus, update the class schedule or assign readings. Students can use Zeal to submit assignments online or contact their instructors via email. Class Key offers several other products whose scope range from teacher/parent/student interaction to their Annex Suite, which has the ability to manage web-enhanced classrooms for an entire school district. Class Key software also enables teachers to gauge a student's progress through standards-based assessment, but its strength is also it's main pitfall. Using the web to enrich the classroom experience seems like a no-brainer these days, but despite the near-ubiquity of the Internet, many Americans still lack access to web. While 71 percent of Americans have some form of online access, there are only around 65 million broadband users, according to internetworldstats. The days of lost ditto sheets may be over, but a slow internet connection, service disruption or low bandwidth are plausible excuses for cyber-slackers. At Columbia University we use a system similar to Zeal called "Courseworks" for posting assignments, schedules and enabling web-based collaboration. Reading assignments are uploaded directly, which conserves paper and a "dropbox" feature enables students to read and comment on one another's work. It's hard to imagine life without it. While most college students have their own computer, or access to 24-hour computer labs, how many students in high school or middle school can say the same? Surely the number is growing and within a few years' time, nearly every American home will have reliable, high-speed access to the Internet. In the meantime, Class Key provides a tremendous tool for bringing classroom learning into the information age by connecting teachers, parents and students through technology. Now if they can just do something about procrastinators.