It’s the weekend and that means serious grading. Today’s task: the Matrix Theory midterm that I gave on Thursday. Twenty four students, six pages each. I vowed to grade each page in a different location.
Before I begin, a kudos to my technology. I downloaded the exams to a folder in my iCloud and can mark them up on my iPad with the apple pencil, swiping between students. It makes electronic grading page-by-page pretty effortless. The downside is that I try to grade blind to minimize the biases that I bring into the process. Canvas associates students’ names to the file, so I if I am not extra careful, I will know whose exam I am looking at.
Location 1 Page 1: My bedroom
I graded the first page in bed while awaiting a waffle, eggs, and bacon breakfast made by my sons. It is Mother’s Day after all. (I have no picture to share). But page 1 was completed before breakfast arrived.
Location 2 Page 2: The front porch
While the calendar says spring, the weather is screaming summer. With bright blue skies and 82 degrees (apologies to those of you experiencing snow this morning), I wanted to get outside. But the sun was so bright, I had to stay in the shade. I have taken a new pleasure in our front porch. It is always in shade and allows me to interact with friends and neighbors from a distance. The breeze was delightful. However, we are going to need more comfortable furniture than folding soccer-mom chairs if this is going to become a regular spot.
2. View from the front porch 
3. Side deck view of Sarracenia, 
4. Grading spot in family room.
Location 3 Pages 2-3: Side yard.
In search of more comfortable furniture, I found the table and chairs on the deck outside the kitchen were still in shade. I had the company of a pitcher plant, Sarracenia, that I purchased a few years ago at a farmers market in Oregon (and promptly ignored). In previous years it has put out a single flower in the spring as it returns to life. Look closely and you will see four flower spikes developing this year.
Location 4 Page 4: The family room
The sun became too bright so I retreated temporarily to the couch in the family room. It is my go-to grading place when I crave indoor variety. With a David C. Roy Wood That Works Radiance sculpture, it can be calming and zen.
5. Falling water and frolicking fish. 
6. Home Office Actual
Location 5 Page 5: By the pond
By afternoon, the garage provided shade to the table and chairs by our koi pond. I love the sound of falling water. I found myself getting distracted as the fish splashed about but I managed to finish page 5 before the battery icon on my iPad called for more power.
Location 6 Page 6: The home office.
I returned to the home office where I spend the majority of my days teaching, planning, writing, and zooming because I, well my iPad, needed to recharge. I have one page to go and I will accomplish this task today…after dinner maybe…or a walk..or after I finish this post. I can do it, I’m sure.
Math in the Time of Corona 
Hey Dr. Q! I’m really curious about your workflow. I’d love to find a way to digitally assign, collect, grade and return papers to my middle school math and science students.
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My institution uses the Canvas course management system that provides most of the needed resources. I create assignments and students upload solutions (one pdf often created from pictures with their phone —CamScanner, tinyscanner, notes, even Google Docs work). I download submissions as a single zip file to iCloud, unzip them into their own folder, and annotate with Markup. Then I zip the files back up and upload back to Canvas which thankfully takes care of attaching the annotated version to the comments of their assignment (unless its a “quiz” type in which case I have to do it hand but that is a small complaint.)
Over the years, I have used BlackBoard, Moodle, UW’s own Catalyst, and now Canvas. I was thinking about how Google Drive might work in this situation and came across Google Classroom. I am not familiar with it but it might serve the same role without investing in a fancy CMS. (See Alice Keeler’s post, https://alicekeeler.com/2018/09/20/google-classroom-find-drive-folder/).
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Great. Thanks
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