On the first line type a carat symbol, like the one here it s located right over the number 6 on your keyboard.

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1 Quick Attendance Version 1.0 Windows PC (Also available for Mac OS X) 2009 Baggetta_Ware I hate taking attendance! There, now that that is said we can get down to business. Unfortunately as a teacher it is your responsibility to know where your kids are at all times they are under your care. And you should also be aware of when they are not there. In our litigious society today you are required to keep track of your students whereabouts, and if they are not present when they are supposed to be you should be aware of this and be ready to report it. To make my job a bit easier I came up with Quick Attendance. It is a simple program and it allows me to quickly tick off the names of student in each of my classes, mark them as either Absent, Tardy, or Removed the last being in case of disciplinary problems. With Quick Attendance I can then save the lists for the day and print them out giving me a neat listing of all the students who were (for whatever reason) not fully in my classes. Creating Your Class Lists Before you can use Quick Attendance, you will have to create your class lists, using any simple editor or word processor. The format for each class is as follows: ^ English 101 Mr. Baggetta Period A Smith, Jane On the first line type a carat symbol, like the one here it s located right over the number 6 on your keyboard. On the second line type the name of your class. On the third line type teacher s name. On the fourth line type the name of the period or section. Starting on the fifth line start typing the names of your students, in reverse order (Last name, First Name) You can open one of the sample class lists I included with the download to see exactly how it should be set up. When you open the sample class list saved as Period A.txt you will see the following.

2 ^ English 101 Mr. Baggetta Period A Smith, John Jones, Mary Pillipson, Caren Oliver, Bernice Landslide, Trevor As you can see this is a very small class you should be so lucky. Notice that after the last name is typed DON T tap the Enter key again. You don t want a blank line after the last entry. You can have up to 50 names in each class list you prepare heaven help you if you have that many kids in each class. Save the class files you create in a folder that is convenient for your use, or save them to your Windows Desktop. Each file MUST have a.txt extender on it. Quick Attendance Tutorial Okay. Once you have your lists created and stored away somewhere on your computer, you are ready to use Quick Attendance. I ve prepared this little tutorial using the sample classes I ve included with the download. So follow the steps I give you here, and you will quickly learn how to use the program. It s easy! There is no need to install the program on your computer. You can save the Quick Attendance.exe file on your desktop or in the same folder as your class files. Use the mouse to double click the file to get the program up and running. The opening screen will look like the image here. Let s pretend we have only three classes: Period A, Period B, and Period C and we are going to check our attendance for today. You can eventually build your own routine, but I ll use mine for now. You can see that I have three buttons in the middle of the screen to mark issues

3 for each student. The Cancel button will be used in case I make a mistake. Click the Open Class File button to navigate to the folder where we keep our class lists and Open the Period A class file. Your screen should now look like the image here. Under the program banner you will notice that the Title of the Class, Teacher Name, and Period are all displayed, just as they were typed in the file We have a pretty small A Period class. After checking attendance I see that Trevor Landslide and Caren Pillipson seems to be absent today. To record these absences, we ll use the mouse to Left click on Trevor first. This will highlight his name. To click on Caren s name hold down the Control key on the keyboard and Left click on her name and then release the Control key. To record both absences simultaneously, Left click the Absent>> button. This will place the names (along with additional data) in the attendance window on the right side of the screen Now what you will want to do is leave this program running just as it is (or you can minimize it with the minimize button) UNTIL THE CLASS IS OVER. The reason we do this is that we don t know if something is going to change the students status between the time you entered the information and the end of the class. Oh, here it is. The class is about half over and Trevor

4 drags himself into the room. Technically he is no longer absent, he is just tardy, so we ll want to make this change. Here s how you do it. 1. Click on Trevor s name in the attendance window on the right side of the screen, to highlight his name. 2. Click the Cancel button at the bottom of the action buttons. This will transfer Trevor s name back to the class list. 3. Again, Left click on Trevor s name to highlight it. 4. This time, click the Tardy>> button to record his issue properly. Okay. The class has finally ended. Trevor was late, Caren never showed up. It is now time to store the information, so you will be ready for the next class. Here s how you do it. 1. Click the Store Data for xx/xx/xxxx button in the lower right side of the screen. 2. You ll get a warning asking if you are sure the class is over, so that you can safely record the information. Click Yes, to move on. A screen similar to the one you see here will open. You can see that the information for the first class is now locked in, along with some additional information for each students. The Period name follows the student s name. In brackets a key indicates the issue: A = Absent, T = Tardy, R = Removed (could be disciplinary or had to leave the class). The date and time of the issue is also recorded. We want to get ready for the next class, so click the Return to Quick Attendance button in the lower left of the screen.

5 When you return to the main screen you will see that all evidence of the first period is gone. You cannot change it now. That is why it was important that you don t store the information until you have completed the class. Okay. Let s open Period B since this class has started filing into the classroom. On careful observation we notice that Bill Clinton (no relation), Corn Flake, and Andrew Johnson are all absent. Record that information as we did above in Period A so that all three names appear in the right window. Removed button to add him to the list. Part way through the class, Bill Coty gives you some trouble and you ask him to go to the office. He has been removed, so take a moment to click his name and then click the This harrowing period ends, so now you can click the Store Data button, confirm you move and add Period B s issues to those of Period A. Notice how the list has grown. You ll notice that there are a couple of other buttons on the screen, but we ll wait until the end of the last class before we make any use of these. Well, the day is almost over. We have only one more class to get through, so click the Return button to bring us back to Quick Attendance, Open the Period C file

6 Well, it looks like we are going to have a very small class today. Johnny, Bette, Charlton, David, and Edgar Allan have all gone on a Social Studies field trip. Yes! Well, rather than click each name individually to highlight them, simply hold down the Left mouse button and drag down over the names, starting with Johnny Carson and ending with Edgar Allan Poe. Click Absent and all of the names will be deposited in the attendance window on the right. Keep in mind that anytime during or after the class you can reverse the information by clicking Cancel, and then make changes you need to make. Okay. The class has ended so let s store these five names and add them to the final list by clicking the Store Data button. Our daily attendance final sheet looks like the image we see here. Notice that each of the classes has been added in succession. You are now ready to print your end of the day attendance sheet. You can print it as you see it, or if you like you can click the Sort button in the upper right of the screen to sort the list based on the last names. If you later change your mind, you can click the Reload button to restore

7 the original list. Actually you might want to print out both copies for your records or for office submission. When you print you will get exactly the order you are looking at on the screen. To print you will have to be connected to a printer, either one attached to your machine or one on a network. Click the Print Attendance for Today button and select the printer you want to use. That s all there is to it. I might mention too, that there is a menu bar at the top of the main screen. From the Files menu you can check out Baggetta_Ware and Exit the program. The Edit menu will allow you the standard Copy and Paste options which might come in handy if you want to harvest information from your lists to plant in other documentation you might be working with. You can close the program windows by clicking on the X buttons at the top of the screen. Quick Attendance is a handy program you can keep running on your computer screen all day for use whenever you want. It is not a detailed tracking program, but it does help you organize your attendance for each day and presents you with a workable list at the end of the day. We hope you enjoy using the program. Come to Baggetta_Ware at on the web and check out the myriad of programs we have available for teachers. PROGRAM UPDATES and SUPPORT As with all Baggetta_Ware products we have tried to keep this software simple to use and yet functional enough to make it useful. We hope to improve the program yet and welcome any suggestions you might have. You can forward them to us through our web page or directly via at the following address: abaggetta@comcast.net If you encounter any problems with the program, we will try to help you resolve them as quickly as possible. Please send us at the above address detailing the problem. Be sure to include information about your computer system makeup and any error messages you might encounter. Baggetta_Ware and affiliates are not responsible for any damage caused by unforeseen bugs or issues to other software and hardware you may be using. Do not use this software if you cannot agree to these terms. A. Baggetta Baggetta_Ware