In an attempt to create more effective and time efficient workflow processes for myself and my students, with assessment deadlines as a particular focus, I have been experimenting with Class Task Lists and Student Checklists, and the  Date and Grade Sheet functions within Workspaces.

As someone who is still relatively new to the use of Workspaces, I've been pleasantly surprised by one of the functions that it has, being the Grade Sheets.  They serve a similar purpose to the VTaL Class Task Lists in that you are able to see which tasks students have completed, and monitor their progress within projects.

I like the fact that the Grade Sheets are populated directly from the 'Evidence' column, and also from the grades that are manually entered.  I was able to make the Grade Sheet public to view, in order to make it VISIBLE, and will look at embedding these sheets into my site.  I'll need to adapt the names, and enter a separate column with ID numbers, in order to keep specific learner information private.  I'll also experiment with the sheet to reflect weekly updates, in the same way as I do for the Class Task Lists that I usually use.  This will include the colour codes systems.

So far though, I like the fact that grades are immediately populated into the Grade Sheets, which is a particularly useful and time-efficient method of collating formative data within a project or assessment.  The biggest recommendation that I would have for other Workspace Newbies, is that it helps if you have all of your instructions, and evidence requirements ready before developing the Workspace.  This means that when you create the Workspace, both yourself and students (once the grade sheet is made public and shared), can see all of the Tasks that need to be completed for the entire project, within the shared Grade Sheets.

Another little trick that I've played with, is embedding a Student Checklist into the 'Evidence Column', and assigning the last date of the assessment as the Student Checklist due date.  What this allows, is that when student work is assessed and available for students to view again, they are able to link the assessed (and completed tasks), into the Student Checklist.  The Student Checklist enables the students to track where they are with their work, which is what my Senior DigiTech students have already be doing and found to be particularly useful.  Then the completed Student Checklist can be used for moderation; either internal or external.