Gaining experience

Since two years ago, my school has adapted the new SBA-SBE-SPA system by the MoE. Two years ago, we also just started teaching as substitute teachers at first. So it's been two years (coming three) since we've familiarised ourselves with this new system of recording marks and whatnot.

The first two years were kind of hectic, especially for class teachers. In '10, subject teachers gave marks (which include classwork, homework, projects, practicals, class tests and any other activities) to class teachers, and then class teachers had to key in all the marks again to prepare a report card for students. Double the work!

In '11, things became easier for class teachers because subject teachers only had to give them soft copy of their marks. So all class teachers had to do was CTRL-C, CTRL-V.

There were a lot of glitches though. The conflicts in marks. Don't ask me how that happened, just did. And I made a huge mistake myself. The downside of CTRL-C, V. And using old excel files. Aiyayayai. I had to send out memos to parents.

Now in our third year...things have become waaayy easier because two of the best ICT teachers at school have put their heads together to create the SBA world - that's what I'd like to call it, because it's really a huge, huge world in there. The SBA world is basically 24 excel files (one for each class), built with complete navigations to direct you to the places you're looking for. They've set the files on protected mode, to get rid of the risks of other teachers accidentally deleting fields, formulas and whatnot.

All teachers have to do now is key in marks any time of the year before the end of every term, that is, and that's that. Everything else will be added, accumulated and processed automatically by the system. Subject teachers don't need to give marks to class teachers anymore.

It's the era of the automatic.

But that's where we come in.

A group of teachers have been appointed as 'exam checkers' to check all the marks and comments keyed in. I am one of them. Each of us has been given four classes to check for any fault, mistake or any weird activities.

And wow, people can make all sorts of mistakes! I'm learning new things everyday. Just from checking these files, you can tell who's on time, who's neat, who's so ignorant, who's so freaking late, and who clearly didn't listen to what head of exam checkers had to say at the meeting.

Seriously?