"Hey, great work on the project, this team has done a fine job... Now, I'll just add the grade to my PDA... Tap-tap, click, click... OK, open up Teacher's PET, Go to Mark. There, that's it...100% score for the members of your team... Okay, next group!"

Finally, you can put away that bulky grade book. Teacher's PET (Portable Educator Toolkit) is an application that enables you to enter and track grades and scores right on your PDA.

You can do your grading, attendance, and even add student contact information. You can calculate individual or class averages and weight assignments. T-PET is easy to use and intuitive. It keeps track of up to 10 classes at a time and can even add the assignment's due date to your PDA date book.

T-PET was developed by a teacher for teachers which makes the application quite teacher friendly and usable. You can find a copy of the Teacher's PET on pdaED, just click here for details. It is a simple download, then a snap to install. When you open PET on your PDA you tap "About" to register your copy. Next, tap settings to create classes, and add or enter students, categories, or assignments. Finally, tap on a class name to begin working with that class. The "Settings" screen has Classes, Assignments, Categories, and Student options. These allow you to easily enter new classes or information and manage your grade book.

This application would be especially handy for PE or science teachers allowing them to enter grades in the lab, the gym, or on the field. Regular classroom teachers would surely find this application handy as well. They can whip out their PDA and do their grades on-the-fly.

It seems there is one limitation that would primarily effect elementary teachers since they tend to keep the same students for different subjects. T-PET does not allow you to copy your student list to the new class. It lets you remove a student from one class and put into another class, but not copy a student or the entire student list to the next class. Let's say you have math first thing in the morning. You enter all the students into the math class. Next, you have reading class with the same students. You must rewrite each student from your list once again, the same for social studies, science, art, etc. This makes setting up your classes much more work. I would like to see the next version include a "copy student or students" option that allows teachers to easily copy the student list to the next class.

Editor's Note: Coffee Pot Software, the developer of Teacher's PET software has announced that Teacher's AID (All In one Database) will be available soon. Teacher's AID is designed for teachers who have a single group of students. It offers a straightforward list view of students, easily customizable comment/mark entries, and time saving import/export features.

I received excellent support from Coffee Pot Software with my questions and request for the Teacher's manual, which by the way, is quite easy to follow. It certainly makes your PDA even more useful. The price is also reasonable - $20 for a single user.