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As a career teacher, Nashville native Rebecca Byler admits that while her passion for teaching hasn't changed, what's being asked of a teacher has. Piles of paperwork keep teachers like Rebecca from focusing on what's really important in the classroom - teaching! Rebecca quickly grew tired of the old slide rule that has been used to grade papers for decades, and also worried about the instrument's room for error. Rebecca came up with the idea for an electronic pen that would keep track of right and wrong answers and also calculate the grade at the press of a button. So, taking a generic pen, some masking tape and a Sharpie®, Rebecca took her rudimentary prototype to an Everyday Edisons casting call for invention ideas. PBS’ Everyday Edisons® is a nationally-televised reality series chronicling ordinary people and the transformation of their innovative concepts into retail products.
Selected from among thousands of innovative entries, Everyday Edisons took on Byler’s concept as one of the concepts to develop for the show’s first season run. With the design, branding and engineering teams working in unison, Rebecca's rudimentary prototype has since been transformed into a high-tech, sleek new tool perfect for time-crunched teachers. The revamped Edugrader now features an LCD screen that displays the number of correct answers, incorrect answers, total possible points and final percentage score. Teachers begin by inputting the total number of possible points for the given graded assignment. As they mark incorrect answers on the paper assignment, they also subtract points for each incorrect answer with the push of a button. By the time they reach the last question, the Edugrader has already calculated the final grade for the assignment. Rebecca hopes her grading pen will get high marks from tired teachers looking to lighten the grading load! |
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