Introducing Flubaroo 3.0!

Post date: Jun 19, 2013 10:15:27 PM

I'm excited to announce a brand new version of Flubaroo!

This version has been a year in the making. The code has been completely re-written from the ground-up to make it faster, more reliable, and easier to add features to. Flubaroo 3.0 will be available in the Script Gallery starting June 24. Just install it from the Gallery on a new spreadsheet, or follow these instructions to upgrade an existing installation of Flubaroo.

Want to contribute to Flubaroo? I'm holding a contest for a new logo and icon for Flubaroo, which will replace the current chalkboard logo in the next version. See here for details.

Now without further ado, let's see what's new! #flubaroo #flubaroo30

1. Flubaroo just got a whole lot smarter: Smarter Emailing

Does this scenario sound familiar: You email everyone their grades, but then another student takes the assignment late. In order to email her grade, you now have to email all the students again!

Well, fret no more! Flubaroo now only sends grades to students who have not yet

received an email!

You'll find an additional column in the Grades sheet called: Emailed Grade?

Flubaroo will place an "x" in this column when it emails a student their grade, and will then ignore these students if asked to Email Grades again. Want to send a student their email again? No problem: just remove the "x" by hand, and then select Email Grades.

2. Help Tips for Each Question

  1. When emailing grades, you can optionally send all students "Help Tips" for each question. These tips will be included with each question when you email students their grade. To insert Help Tips:Select "Edit Help Tips" from the Flubaroo menu (see picture on right).

  3. Flubaroo will switch to the Student Submissions sheet. In row #2, just under the questions asked, enter an optional Help Tip in the cell below any question. The picture below shows an example.

Note that in this example there is no Help Tip entered for the second question, so none will be emailed for that question.

If you'd like to remove a Help Tip, just delete the text, or delete the entire row to get rid of them all. Once you've entered all your Help Tips, you can select "Hide Help Tips" from the Flubaroo menu if you don't care to see them anymore.

Important Caveats:

  • Cell A2 (where the submission time would go) must be left blank, so don't write in there.

  • If you've made changes to Help Tips *after* grading the assignment, you will need to re-grade it before Flubaroo will recognize your changes!!

3. Individualized Student Feedback

When emailing grades, you can optionally send each

    1. student individualized feedback. The message will be delivered to the student in the email with their grades, along with any message you may have also supplied for the entire class. To create or edit individualized feedback: Select "Edit Student Feedback" from the Flubaroo menu.

    1. You'll see a column appear in the Grades sheet titled: Feedback for Student (Optional)

    1. Enter feedback for your students into this column, in the row belonging to that student (see picture for example). This feedback will be emailed to their student with the grade.

Tip: Once you're done adding and editing feedback, you can hide it by selecting "Hide Student Feedback" from the Flubaroo menu. This will keep your Grades sheet looking nice and tidy.

4. ¿Hablas Espanol? No hay problema, so does Flubaroo!

Flubaroo now supports users who don't speak English, with Spanish as the first language

  • supported (since Spain is the #3 user of Flubaroo by country). To switch to Spanish, just select "Set Language" from the Flubaroo menu, as shown in the picture to the right. Once you choose "Español", Flubaroo will switch the following to Spanish:Names of columns and fields in spreadsheets.

  • Names of sheets (see picture to right).

  • Emails sent to instructors and students.

  • All text in the Flubaroo user-interface. See picture below for an example.

Note that you only need to change the languages once, after which it will affect

all spreadsheets where you have Flubaroo (v3.0) installed. You can switch back to

English if you like, but take note that text already written to spreadsheets (such as column names and sheet names) will not be translated back to English when you do. So I suggest you only switch languages if you're serious and intend to stick with it.

Parlez-vous Français? Want to help add another language to Flubaroo? Contact [email protected] for information on how you can help! All of the translations in this version were supplied by Spanish speaking individuals in the Flubaroo community! Special thanks and praise goes out to these users for providing all of the Spanish translations!!!

** Felipe Calvo ** ** Gabriel Crivelli **

** Luis Escolar ** ** Iñaki Fernández **

** Manuel Fernández ** ** Gatech López **

5. Easier to Read Emails

Remember that big ugly table sent to your students when you emailed their grades? It's been replaced by this easier to read, cleaner format:

6. Other Fixes and Improvements

  • Frozen rows and columns have been added to the Grades sheet, making it easier to navigate

  • Some other minor bugs have been fixed, and some minor speed improvements have been made.

Please see these instructions to show you how to upgrade an existing installation of Flubaroo to the latest version.

Happy Grading!

-- Dave ([email protected])