EdCircuit Staff 
Added features to digital portfolio and assessment platform
K-12 digital portfolio and assessment platform FreshGrade has integrated Google Translate to enhance parent and student engagement through the app’s comment and announcement features.
Kelowna, British Columbia (August 16, 2017) – FreshGrade, the learning portfolio platform that promotes student ownership and parent engagement, announced today that Google Translate is now integrated into the comment and announcement features within the FreshGrade tool for all new and existing school and district partners. The integration will be available on the FreshGrade web application, as well as the FreshGrade for Parents and FreshGrade for Students mobile apps, and will empower users to both read and write in the language of their choosing. This upgrade will enable more effective communication and collaboration between educators and their students and parents who are bilingual, multilingual, or English language learners (ELLs).
“Communication is extremely important to our users and the integration of Google Translate will provide a better way for teachers, parents, and students to connect and communicate,” explains FreshGrade developer Bryan Graham.
“We anticipate that the biggest payoff will be for teachers working to engage parents whose primary language isn’t English,” said Terri-Lynn Brown, Director of Product for FreshGrade. “Bringing these parents closer to the classroom will pay huge dividends in supporting the learning plan and improving student outcomes.”
Google Translate supports 104 languages, including English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Turkish, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. This integration will benefit a large population of FreshGrade users. In the United States, more than 4.6 million public school students are English language learners, making up 9.4 percent of the public school population, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. In seven states and the District of Columbia, ELLs make up more than 10 percent of the student population.
The translation feature will also be particularly valuable in helping Canadian educators engage parents and students. According to the 2011 census, 65 percent of Canadians list English as the language spoken most often in their home; French, Canada’s other official language, places second at 21 percent, and more than 14 percent of households list a non-official language or multiple languages as the ones they speak at home most often.
The option to use Google Translate is available to users who have implemented FreshGrade at the schoolwide or districtwide level, and is configurable by administrators. In the FreshGrade platform, teachers provide personalized feedback in student portfolios, which students and parents can read and reply to. The Google Translate integration will support this feedback feature by enabling comments to be translated into each teacher, parent, or student’s preferred language. Push notifications inform parents and students when students’ digital portfolios are updated or when information is shared. The dedicated FreshGrade for Parents app allows parents not only to track their child’s progress over time but also to view and comment on portfolio items, another feature that will be enhanced by the Google Translate integration.
For more information about FreshGrade for Schools and Districts, visit www.freshgrade.com or contact inquiries@freshgrade.com.
About FreshGrade
FreshGrade is a K-12 education portfolio and assessment platform that makes learning visible and increases engagement between teachers, students and parents. Using the FreshGrade suite of apps, stakeholders have secure access to view, comment and upload specific artifacts representative of a student’s learning to the student’s portfolio. In providing teachers with a deeper understanding of where a student’s learning is, they are better informed to make the appropriate strategic choices on learning instruction as it relates to that child. For a student, they become empowered owners of their learning. For parents, they are provided with an informative and unique window into their child’s learning journey.
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Further Reading
- Getting Smart – Engaging Parents to Engage Learners: Digital Portfolios Can Make it Happen
- Education Week – What Is the Future of Individualized Education Programs?
- Education Talk Radio – Enhancing Parent Engagement with Digital Portfolios
