Monday, October 28, 2013

New App: Grade Viewer


Grade Viewer

I've just published yet another Windows Phone app (that's 16 now)!  This is a grade viewer for your elementary/middle/high school students.  It connects to your grading system if it uses Pinnacle by Global Scholar.  I really don't know how prevalent this system is, but my district uses it so I had the ability to write an interface to it.  I'd love to hear from parents or students who find it useful.

Link: Grade Viewer

Friday, October 18, 2013

Major software projects can be pretty fragile

I love reading about big software projects.  There are so many places for things to go wrong, and they provide a valuable opportunity for an insightful post-mortem.  Healthcare.gov is a recent project that came under enormous scrutiny due to the inability to deal with its users when it rolled out.  I found a great post with some good analysis of some of the problem areas.  Hopefully the government will be transparent and release information on their process and how it can be improved in the future.

Link: http://www.civicagency.org/2013/10/learning-from-the-healthcare-gov-infrastructure/