Hey bloggers!

Through this inquiry we have learned a lot about FreshGrade and we look forward to the opportunity to use it in our future. When doing our research we relied heavily on the FreshGrade website and because of this we don’t have many resources to share with you. With that being said, we wanted to make sure all the information we provided was accurate which is why we chose to use FreshGrade’s website. 

To summarize this inquiry, we want to start off by saying GO FOR IT! We understand that tech can be very intimidating, however, we strongly believe that FreshGrade is worth it. FreshGrade has so much to offer for students and parents which is so important in building relationships with students and the families you teach. By using FreshGrade you provide transparency that parents will appreciate, it also allows parents to feel more trusting in your teaching when they are able to see what students are doing weekly. 

One way we have used other resources for our research was looking at parent/teacher reviews of FreshGrade. This was really interesting to see because there appeared to be mixed reviews. Some were slightly aggressive in stating that FreshGrade is a tool to force parents into teaching their students. However, most were very positive, noting small issues such as updates and bug fixes. 

A crucial aspect of technology is privacy. FreshGrades privacy policies appeared to be safe from our understanding. We are not lawyers or very familiar with the privacy policy world but from what we found we would say it is safe for families to use. One particular part of the privacy policy that stood out to us is that students under the age of 13 need parental consent to use the website. However, we wondered if students that are 13 and up no longer need parents to be on FreshGrade. For example, student A was 14 and decided they did not want their parents on FreshGrade seeing their homework and their grades would they be able to set that rule? With further research we may come to find the answer, however, we believe this is one that will come to light when actually using the software. 

We are very grateful to have had this opportunity to explore this unique, engaging, and free (!!!)  software. As we are eagerly thinking about our teaching practice that is quickly approaching, it is beneficial to know about softwares we will most likely be using in the near future. This EdTech project allowed us to dive deep into the FreshGrade world- a world we can not wait to enter in 2 years. 

Thank you so much for joining us on our learning journey!

Nat & Laurence