Teachers who are coordinators or department chairs will appreciate this little program -- and there are two versions of it here offered absolutely free. Of course, there are no guarantees with these programs, although we have had no problems with them. Each year coordinators and department chairs are hit with the problem of dividing up classes in a department equally. This is a big task, and our program Coordinator's Scope can help with it. All you do is input the number of teachers teaching a particular subject, the number of students assigned to the subject and you options and you quickly get a broad picture of how many teachers you need, how many students in a class, and/or how many sections you can have of a particular course. Includes a Windows Desktop utility.
Coordinator’s Scope (Windows 95 and Up Machines)
Coordinator’s Scope PPC (Windows Pocket PC Machines)
Version 1.0.0
FreeWare – Offered with guarantees.
Coordinator’s Scope and Coordinator’s Scope PPC are two programs that address the needs of the department chairperson or department coordinator. They don’t do the complete job, but they make the task of figuring out how many classes are available for a given subject, so that classes can be evenly distributed amongst teachers. Both programs perform the same function, but the PPC program is for the Windows Pocket PC machines and the other is for the regular desktop computer running Windows 95 and up.
Installing the Program
Use the setup.exe programs that come with the download to install the programs on their respective machines. If you are installing the PPC program, make sure you have your device attached to your desktop computer and synchronized with ActiveSync.
Running the Windows Program
After the programs are installed, click the icons to run the programs. We’ll introduce the Coordinator’s Scope for Windows first. The first screen to appear is the main work screen and it looks like the illustration here.
Notice that the screen is divided in two parts. The right half of the screen has been disabled and will not become available until you have completed the left part of the screen. Start by entering all of the teachers’ names along with the number of sections they will be teaching. For example Mr. James Jones would be typed in the Teacher Name box. If he were going to be teaching 5 sections of Senior English, for example, you would put the number 5 in the Number of Sections box. Tap the Enter key (or click on the OK button) to register the information and repeat the process until all of the teachers and their sections have been entered.
When you have finished entering all of your information, your screen will look something like our sample screen here. If you find you have made a mistake, simply click the name you want to remove, and it will go away.
At the bottom of the screen, you are given a tally of how many teachers are available, when you have finished and the number of sections available for these teachers to teach in.
Now you are ready for the next phase of the program, deciding how many sections of the subject will be needed or how many sections will be allowed. Start by deciding how you want the calculation to be done. The default for the program assumes you will let the number of students dictate how many classes will be offered of a particular subject. If this option were not selected, click on the circle to select it. Now enter an ideal number of students you think should be in this kind of class. Perhaps you feel there should be no more than 25 students in a class. Enter that. If you prefer to make the decision using the Number of Class Sections Allowed, select that option, instead, and enter an arbitrary number of classes that you think will be allowed.
These figures might be unknown for sure, but that’s the fun part of the program, you quickly calculate the results and test it many different ways to come to a realistic solution, based on the number of teachers you have available and the number of students or classes you are given.
Two more step. Click on Class Title and enter the name of the class. Click on total students and type in the number of students that have signed up for the class or are listed to take that class. Again this will be quite speculative for the moment, but it can be changed later.
To see the final results, click on the OK button, and you will instantly get the fruits of your labor printed on the screen. Your screen will probably be very different from ours, but it should look similar in terms of setup. We calculated the first time on number of students. The image here represents a calculation based on number of classes allowed.
You can go back and use different figures to find out exactly how the numbers will crunch. When you have finished with a particular class, click the Reset button to go back and start all over again with another class and a different set of teachers.
That’s all there is to it. Experienced coordinators and department chairs will find this an interesting program to experiment with, and it might even save them some work in the process.
Coordinator’s Scope PPC
If you have a Windows Pocket PC machine, you can carry Coordinator’s Scope PPC around and do some frantic figuring on the fly, if you like. It works pretty much the same way the Windows desktop version works, but because of the lack of graphic real estate, we had to overlap the screen halves rather than divide them.
When you first boot up Coordinator’s Scope on your Pocket PC you will see the opening flash screen. Wait a few seconds, and the main work screen will appear.
You will notice that it is very similar to the left half of the Windows version of the program, and it works pretty much the same way, except that you will be clicking with the touch pointer and you will use the miniature keyboard at the bottom of the screen to enter your data. Start by entering all of the teachers’ names along with the number of sections they will be teaching. For example Mr. James Jones would be typed in the Teacher Name box. If he were going to be teaching 5 sections of Senior English, for example, you would put the number 5 in the Number of Sections box. Tap the Enter key on the mini keyboard (or click on the OK button) to register the information and repeat the process until all of the teachers and their sections have been entered. When you have finished your list it should look something like the illustration here.
Now that you are finished, click the Finished button with your pointer, and you will be shuffled over to the other screen (the one that you see on the right half of the Windows version). You could flip to that screen using the Sections/Students tab at the bottom of the screen, but you won’t be able to do any work on the screen until you select finished here.
This screen works pretty much like the Windows version also.
At the bottom of the screen, you are given a tally of how many teachers are available, when you have finished and the number of sections available for these teachers to teach in.
Now you are ready for the next phase of the program, deciding how many sections of the subject will be needed or how many sections will be allowed. Start by deciding how you want the calculation to be done. The default for the program assumes you will let the number of students dictate how many classes will be offered of a particular subject. If this option were not selected, click on the circle to select it. Now enter an ideal number of students you think should be in this kind of class. Perhaps you feel there should be no more than 25 students in a class. Enter that. If you prefer to make the decision using the Number of Class Sections Allowed, select that option, instead, and enter an arbitrary number of classes that you think will be allowed.
These figures might be unknown for sure, but that’s the fun part of the program, you quickly calculate the results and test it many different ways to come to a realistic solution, based on the number of teachers you have available and the number of students or classes you are given.
Two more step. Click on Class Title and enter the name of the class. Click on total students and type in the number of students that have signed up for the class or are listed to take that class. Again this will be quite speculative for the moment, but it can be changed later.
To see the final results, click on the OK button, and you will instantly get the fruits of your labor printed on the screen. Your screen will probably be very different from ours, but it should look similar in terms of setup. We calculated the first time on number of students. The image here represents a calculation based on number of classes allowed.
You can go back and use different figures to find out exactly how the numbers will crunch. When you have finished with a particular class, click the Reset button to go back and start all over again with another class and a different set of teachers.
That’s all there is to it. Experienced coordinators and department chairs will find this an interesting program to experiment with, and it might even save them some work in the process.
Both of these programs are a work in progress, so we offer them for free. Please let us know what you think and any suggestions you might have for improvements. You can reach us at www.baggetta.com any time and we are even live on line if you see the Human Click button available.
Baggetta_Ware
www.baggetta.com
Teacher Tech
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