Synergy issues and ideas

Education - Other
#1

Is this the right forum to voice frustrations about Synergy?

#2

It’s a great place to bring forward issues and suggest solutions about anything, so sure!

The goal is to work towards solutions, though, so anything you could do to move things from the problem toward a solution would probably benefit the situation better. If there is frustration, what would help things get better?

Along those lines, I’d suggest changing the title from “frustration” to “issues and ideas” as a way to help guide the conversation to a productive conclusion. :slight_smile:

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#3

There is a lot of little things that just seem to make using it more difficult than it needs to be. For example, I cannot find a way to have it count a blank score in the gradebook as a missing assignment without inputing “mi” for multiple students. If a score is left blank why can’t I choose what the grade book interprets the blank as, either missing, zero, or something else?

#4

I thought I remember from the training that there was a global/class setting to be able to choose how you wanted the gradebook to interpret a blank box for each class. (I don’t have access to Synergy at the moment.) I’m hopeful that someone who knows more will be able to jump in and help you.

#5

I had a few minutes to poke about with a Synergy manual I found online.

It looks like by default blank scores are set to be not scored, and there isn’t a way to change that. However, I found this, which is a way to quickly enter zeros for blank cells in an column:

“Tip: To enter the same grade for all students for the assignment, enter the grade in the first student’s line and then click the green arrow ONCE to copy that score to all students below that line. If a majority of students received the same score except for a few, first enter the scores for the students with different scores, click Save, then from the top of the list enter the score all of the rest of the students earned and click the green arrow. Clicking the green arrow once fills in the rest of the blank cells without overriding the scores that had already been saved. Clicking the green arrow TWICE overrides all previously entered scores.”

Likewise, there might be a way to enter the same comment (missing) for all blank scores in an assignment? I haven’t found that yet, but if so, it’d be a lot less clicking.

#6

Maybe its just me but I find it frustrating when the powers that be have decided something like this and I can’t adjust the settings to be how I prefer and make sense for my class. I feel like they have essentially created a couple extra hoops to jump through every time I have some missing assignments.

Next issue, I have put missing in for some assignments and then when the assignment has been handed in and the score has been input in to the gradebook, the assignment is still listed as missing. Even if a student has earned all of the possible points on said assignment.

#7

I can handle this one! I had the same problem.

Go to" Gradebook Setup" --> find the tab at the top labled “Gradebook Comments” --> click the ‘edit’ button

This will allow you to edit the comment codes for each of the comments. In the row for ‘Missing’ you should see a slider button in the ‘remove when scored’ column. This defaults to off, just click it to turn it on.

There are definitely some hindrances to learning the new system but I have found it to be much easier to actually grade and input assignments. I like the fact that the assignment name is actually above the assignment you are grading.

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#8

Thanks. That helps a lot. I also changed the input from “mi” to just “m” on that screen. Hopefully it works as I imagine it should.

Ok, my next issue: Is there a way to have the default screen when I log in to not be the seating chart but be the screen where I can take attendance on the list?

#9

I also have the same desire (as do the other teachers in my program). I have reached out to our SIS person with this very same question. I will let you know what she says!

#10

Thanks for the help. Can you check something for me though? Take a student and label an assignment as missing. Then put in a score. Then check their student view to see if the assignment still shows a note that is it missing, but also has a grade.

I took your advice and setup the gradebook but I discovered that the missing comment will show up in the Student view for the assignment even though it no longer shows up in my gradebook. So when students look at their own grade, it will still show some assignments as missing but it has a score and no longer is listed as missing in my gradebook view.

#11

Hmm, yea my student view also shows a similar missing comment, even when I run a report.

I can’t say I have an answer to that one :confused:

Maybe someone else can help us out

#12

Quick update…

Troy Cherry, from TIES, is working to get access to this thread. I think he as some ideas and thoughts and answers he wants to add to the discussion. Troy is an Official Synergy Power Guru (OSPG)!

He should have access this week. We’re having some issues with email notifications on the new server that are keeping him out. Once we’ve got that fixed he’ll have access.

#13

Hi Everyone ~ I sure appreciate your willingness to “plug” through this new software with us and make it work as you need it to. I’ve requested assistance to get to you more training and available assistance. Hence Mike’s message about Troy Cherry - OSPG (love it!) joining this thread. I have also asked for specific time from Troy to be available for all of you. Know that we are working on it and will get it arranged as soon as we can. Your questions here though, will help us frame that training. Thanks again everyone!
Sandy Gaulke

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#14

I’m not sure if this is helpful of not, or even correct or not, but in the manual it mentions that you can access your Grade Book Comments from Grade Book Setup. Each comment has a number of options. One of them is a toggle to “Remove When Scored”. Is it possible that that is currently set to “no”, and setting it to “yes” will remove the comment when the item is scored?

#15

New issue:
I tried to setup an exempt status so that there is not a blank space when I am looking at the gradebook screen with all of the names and assignments. Is there a way to have an “x” or “ex” show up on the screen and the assignment does not count against the student?

#16

I have been putting ‘ex’ in the score field and it has been scoring it as if it is excused, but I never had to set anything up to do that. I also didn’t see it as one of the generic codes in the comment section. So I am not sure how/what it is doing exactly, but it seems to be working as an excused code. Have you just tried putting ‘ex’ in without doing any setup?

Update: ‘ex’ ticks the ‘Exclude’ box on the assignment, essentially removing it from the gradebook.

#17

Thanks. “ex” seems to do what I want it to.

#18

jmzimbricInnovation Coach7d
Matthew.Ahlberg:
Ok, my next issue: Is there a way to have the default screen when I log in to not be the seating chart but be the screen where I can take attendance on the list?
I also have the same desire (as do the other teachers in my program). I have reached out to our SIS person with this very same question. I will let you know what she says!

SG Reply: I have given your feedback about this to the software writers of Synergy. I’ve stated we have multiple teachers that would like to NOT default to Chart - but to be able to CHOOSE the default. - Either Chart Or List.

#19

One thing we got working:

As a coteacher on classes I did NOT have all those sections available to check off in my grade book assignment creation.

Functional work around: under grade book drop down, there is “copy assignments”. I can copy multiple at once to multiple sections including the ones I coteach. Yay!

#20

Help? Any info on when students can start using StudentVue? It’s week 5 and it’s really important in our ALC setting to have students more aware and owning their progress. In addition we’re having trouble implementing some incentives (besides goal setting).