Product Review of ThinkWave Educator

ThinkWave Educator is a cloud-based educator grade book with features for computing grades, creating seating charts, printing reports, sending email progress reports, and more. The grade book provides instant access to current grade record data from any computer with an Internet connection; it allows you to set up enrollment, attendance, schedules, custom grades, and custom fields. Data is securely stored in encrypted form in multiple, geographically distributed data centers.
Website: https://www.thinkwave.com/
What Users Love About the App
“I love that the product is actually offered free for individual users. Why? Because so many teachers at my school jumped on board with the program that our school is going to utilize it across the board next year and actually pay for the product! THAT’s how useful and easy it is, even for stressed-out urban teachers.”
“I like the grading software on the Internet site. I like that you can grade by a point system or percentages. I like the flexibility of the program. It makes it easy to keep grades in order and my syllabus on track.”
“The platform allows for multiple classes with semesters, and the teacher can choose who can view grades, attendance, etc. You can also choose between using a point system or a percentage system for grading.”
“I am in my thirteenth year as an educator and ThinkWave is phenomenal; it is a transformative gradebook tool. I have never kept a more detailed gradebook report and I thank this company for creating such a useful tool.”
“ThinkWave Educator allows me to communicate with parents and students and maintain transparency around assessments and grading systems in my class. Both the student learner and parent are able to get real time reports or login to see student performance results with short anecdotal feedback.”
What Users Dislike About the App
“The only problem that I had is when you have a class with one or two co-teachers, you have to give them your username and password because I couldn’t find a way to link classes with co-administrators/co-owners of a class.”
“I cannot combine the two systems. Also, it would be great if I could create a midterm grade average without closing out the grade book for that quarter. My students also would prefer a system that is integrated with Google or their email. It is difficult for them to remember a new username and password.”
“It’s difficult to switch a student from one class to another; I’ve had problems just switching a student from one period to another. Kind of a headache.”
“The communication portal is not helpful because it is difficult to access, and often requires emailing more than one person. I’d like to be able to contact one parent. There is also an assignment submission feature, but it has not worked when I have tried to implement it.”
“It needs improvements in the grade systems ASAP. Unfortunately, technical support is too poor. No answers to emails at all.”