MarkBook Selecting and Spell Checking Comments

    MarkBook^®     section 10-5

Comments - Scratch Pad and Copy To (Flood Fill)
MarkBook has advanced tools for creating an managing comments. this section examines the Scratch Pad tool, the Flood Fill tool, and the Copy To... function. See section 10-1 for comment banks, section 10-2 for a partial printout of a comment bank, and section 10-3 for general comment selection instructions.

THE SCRATCH PAD

Scratch Pad Use

MarkBook's Scratch Pad, located in the lower right corner of the Comment screen, is a tool to perform a variety of functions without leaving the screen. For instance, add a newly constructed remark to your bank without opening the comment bank editor. Copy a phrase into your clipboard. Or Paste a clipboard comment obtained elsewhere into the Scratch Pad. If you were transferring data into reports and ran across a particularly good comment created by another teacher, use your mouse to block and copy it (Ctrl-C), paste it into your Scratch Pad (Paste), classify it by Type and Level, and then Add it to your own bank. The Scratch Pad will prompt you to replace pronouns and gender terms before adding the comment into your bank.

COPY TO or FLOOD FILL

Also use the Scratch Pad to send a common/generic paragraph into other students' reports. Type a paragraph into the Scratch Pad as shown in the example above. Note that three merge characters, $, @, and # have been used. Click Copy To. Select the option for All Students as in the next image and MarkBook will drop this "generic" remark into the comment window(s) for the selected student(s) except those individuals with an existing assembled comment. Then, click Save and Return and MarkBook will store the new paragraphs for each student. Print multiple reports with these paragraphs merged, or transfer these into other electronic reports as per section 10-8.

Tip: before printing class sets of interim reports, as in section 9-6, use the Scratch Pad to make a generic comment. Copy it to all students. Then select the option to print comments, as described in section 9-5, before printing the entire all students' reports sequentially.

Copy a Scratch Pad comment or any student's existing comment of any size to selected students in specific grade ranges (e.g. 0% to 50%), to selected students with specific levels or modes (e.g. level 3+), or to any selection of individuals as per this image. Click Copy To. Note that two individuals already have a comment as indicated by the >> bracket symbols. MarkBook will not over-write an existing comment. However, if the Append to existing comments cell (between the two buttons at the lower left) is checked, MarkBook will add the new flood-fill comment at the end of the existing comment text for each student. Once the names are selected, click the Copy Comment button at the lower left and MarkBook will move the selected text into each individual's comment editor. Names and gender terms will re-merge. Click Cancel to leave this Copy To function. Click Save and Exit in the upper menu bar once finished and all assembled comments will save.

Copy Scratch Pad Comment to...

Manual: Go to section 10-6 to see how to work with multiple sequential sets of comments.