Welcome to A+ Gradebook.

To get started using this software, open the Gradebook program by double clicking the A+ Gradebook icon on the desktop.

Inside the greeting window, you have the options to create a new school file, or load a previously saved one.

To load a recently saved file you can double click the desired file in the recent School files pane on the left side of the window. Optionally you can load a file from a different location on your computer by clicking the “Open existing file” button.

In this tutorial we will create a new school file by clicking the “New School Year” button. Enter your custom school name and school year and click create.

We are now in the main window for the gradebook. Let’s examine the different sections of the layout and then move on to building our very own school gradebook.

The layout is divided into 4 easy to navigate sections:

The button bar at the top contains all the most common tasks and preferences a user is likely to use while running the software. We will be going over some of these features in detail later.

The left hand pane contains the School Name, School Year, and all the classes currently in the school.

The center of the window contains the area reserved for the grades we will be entering. Note that this area has tabs that are used to open the respective quarters for the year.

Finally, the pane on the far right contains all the details for the course that is currently being viewed. At the top of the pane, we see the grading scale key for the school, and below this we have the option to add a grading rubric to the course if desired. We will explore this option in a later tutorial in which we set up grading preferences.

Now that we are familiar with the layout, let’s begin building our school gradebook.

We will begin by going to “Step 1” in the button bar and selecting the “Set Grading Scale” button.

This allows us to select between three different grading scales that will be used by the software when recording and averaging your grades. The first grading scale is the “Default” Grading scale. As represented by the blue outline, the program is preset to this, as it is a common grading scale for elementary, middle, and high schools. The “Optional Grading Scale” is also a common grading scale and may be used instead of the main default. Simply click to change the selection from the default key to the secondary key. The Custom Grade Scale can be used if neither the first two scales are acceptable for your needs. Simple adjust the lower grade thresholds to your desired grade percentage numbers and click the “Apply” button at the bottom of the window.

Now we will move on to “Step 2” and create your students. Click on the step 2 button. We have the option of creating a single student or selecting the +another student button to create multiple students at a time. Simply add the student’s name and grade level.

Next click the step 3 button. We will now create our classes. Once again we can create a single class or multiple classes. We will need to enter the class name, credits, and quarters for which the class applies. If the class is to be a high school course we will add the appropriate credits designated for the course. For grade school classes simply type 1 for the credit. Notice all four quarters are preselected by default. If the class applies to only part of the year, you can select the appropriate quarters to represent this. This is particularly important for generating accurate report cards later on.

At this point we can see the classes we have created in the class pane, and if we select the school roster from the school menu, we will see the current students in the school.

The final step is to enroll the students in their respective courses. To do this we will navigate to “Step 4” and click “Enroll Students”. Select the desired student from the drop-down menu. The courses listed in the left-hand box are those that the student is NOT enrolled in. The courses listed on the right-hand side are those the student is ALREADY enrolled in. As we can see this side is currently empty, illustrating that our student is not enrolled in any courses. To add the student to a course, simple double click the desired course on the left and it will be transferred to the list of courses on the right. On the other hand, to remove a student from a course, simply double click the course name on the right to move it back to the course list on the left. A student will not be enrolled are removed from enrollment until you click the apply button at the bottom of the window. Keep in mind that if the student is removed from a course in which he has grades already recorded, these grades will be permanently lost.

Once completed, the students are now visible in their respective courses, as well as the grading block where new grades can be entered. We are no ready to record grades for our students. This will complete our getting started tutorial. To learn the different options for adding grades, and to navigate other features in A+ gradebook, please select and watch one of our other tutorials.