Purpose
The Homework Board is a repository for MCPS homework assignments. Participation is voluntary, and not all schools or teachers are using it to post assignments. Between September 2001 and September 2003, 559 teachers from 41 different schools posted 33,723 assignments. There are three components to the Homework Board which correspond to the user groups.

1. Students. This site is unrestricted. Students and other interested parties can view current assignments.
2. Teachers. This site requires a password. Here is where teachers enter and maintain assignments.
3. Administrators for the local school. This site requires a password also. This is where the school's administrator can add and maintain teacher accounts.

• How can a teacher get an account to use the Homework Board for assignments?
• Student — How can I find my assignments?
• Why doesn't my teacher have assignments on the Homework Board?
• Teacher — How do I enter assignments?
• Adminstrator — How do I set up accounts for our school's teachers?
• I'm not getting e-mail from my students, although I allowed e-mail for my assignment. What's the problem?
• My students aren't receiving the answers to their e-mails, although I reply quickly. What's the problem?
• What about other problems or questions?

How do I get an account?
One administrator account is required to begin a Homework Board at a school. The administrator uses that account to set up individual teacher assignment areas in the Homework Board. Your principal or assistant principal may request an account for your school from webmaster@mcpsmd.org Once the administrator has been established, he/she will maintain teacher accounts for the school.

• Basic Search ( basic search page )
  1. Choose your school from the four drop-down lists.
  2. Enter all or part of your teacher's last name. Do the same for first name if there are several teachers at your school who share the same last name. Leave both fields blank to see all teachers at your school.
  3. Enter a time period in days, or accept the default (30). Homework assigned during the last number of days entered will be found.
  4. Click on the "Find My Homework" button.
  
  
• Multiple Option Search ( advanced search page )
  This is one of two advanced searches. Links to the advanced search page are on the Student Site home page and on other relevant pages throughout the student site. Select your school from a list and click on the "Submit" button to see all options.
  1. Select a teacher at your school, or make no selection to see homework for all teachers.
  2. Select a subject from subjects defined for your school, or make no selection to see all subjects for the teacher or teachers you have selected.
  3. Select a specific assignment title from all available assignments defined for your school, or make no selection to see all assignment titles by the same teacher or teachers.
  4. Enter a time period in days, or accept the default (30). Homework assigned during the last number of days entered will be found.
  5. Click on the Running Guy at the left to start your search.
     
  
  
• Multiple Teacher Search ( advanced search page )
  This is the second of two advanced searches. Links to the advanced search page are on the Student Site home page and on other relevant pages throughout the student site. Select your school from a list and click on the "Submit" button to see all options.
  1. Click on link to "Jump DOWN to the Multiple Teacher Search"
  2. Enter a time period in days, or accept the default (30). Homework assigned during the last number of days entered will be found.
  3. Choose up to seven teachers from your school and the corresponding period for each teacher. If you make no teacher selection, nothing will be returned.
  4. Click on the Running Guy at the left to start your search.

• see the details for each assignment by clicking on the assignment title, or
• see details for several assignments by checking the boxes beside the assignments you want to see, then clicking on the 'Get All Checked Assignments' Running Guy at the top or bottom of the list.

• Log In ( example )
  All three elements are required for a successful login: school name, your last name, and your password.
  1. Select your school type (High, Middle, Special or Elementary) from the drop-down list.
  2. A list of school names will appear in the second drop-down list. Select the appropriate school.
  3. Enter your last name only. This field is not case-sensitive.
  4. Enter the password assigned by the Homework Board administrator at your school. This field is not case-sensitive.
  5. Click on the "Authenticate" button.
  6. After you have successfully logged in, you will see a screen with choices to "Add an Assignment" or "Modify or Delete an Assignment" ( example )
  
  
  
• Add an Assignment ( example )
  There are nine fields for each assignment, but only four of them are required. As you add or update an assignment you will notice that required fields are indicated by a red asterisk.
  1. Assignment Title (REQUIRED): Enter an assignment title of up to 255 characters and spaces. Remember that students can search for assignments by title, and that the title is
  2. Subject: The subject field may contain up to 255 characters and spaces, but is not required.
  3. Date Assigned (REQUIRED): This field will default to the current date. You may change it, but remember to use the m/d/yyyy format for your entry.
  4. Date Due (REQUIRED): This field will default to the current date plus one day. You may change it, but remember to use the m/d/yyyy format for your entry.
  5. Period: You may check one or more class periods for this assignment, or use the "Other" category if class period does not apply. This is not a required field, but if you do not check anything the assignment will be saved as class period "Other."
  6. Assignment (REQUIRED): You describe your assignment with up to 8000 characters and spaces in this field. If you are so inclined you may include HTML tags here.
  7. Additional HTML: This is additional space of up to 8000 characters and spaces for you to use in describing your assignment. The data you enter here should be HTML-formatted to display correctly in a browser.
  8. Related Link: Use this field to direct your students to some other web site related to the assignment by entering the site's full URL. Your field should contain http:// plus the site URL. It will look something like this: http://www.mcps.k12.md.us/
  9. Allow Student E-mail: If checked, this will insert a short form into the assignment which the student can use to ask questions about or comment on the assignment. You must have an e-mail address defined in the teacher accounts database to use this feature. Your e-mail address is not visible on the assignment page, but it can be seen if the person viewing the assignment knows HTML and knows how to open the browser page and view the HTML.
     
     Note 1: The Homework Board administrator for your school maintains the teacher accounts and must enter an e-mail address in the accounts database if you want to receive e-mail. If you do not have an e-mail address defined and you check this box, anything sent to you by a student will end up in the dead letter box.
     
     Note 2: When your account is established by the Homework Board administrator, there is an option to allow or not allow student e-mail. This option determines whether the box is checked or unchecked when you add a new assignment. You have the ability to override either option for any individual assignment, keeping in mind that the administrator must enter an e-mail address for you to receive form mail from the Homework Board.
  
  
  
  10. When you have completed the required fields and any additional information you want to include, click on either of the "Add this Assignment" buttons at the top and bottom of the assignment information form.
  
  
  
• Modify or Delete an Assignment ( example )
  1. Enter a time period in days, or accept the default (30), then click on the "Show Assignments" button.
  2. The assignment titles and assigned class periods will be listed in date order, most recent first, for the time span specified. You have two choices here:
     • Edit an assignment by clicking on the assignment title. The editing process will look and work exactly as though you were adding a new assignment ( see above ), except that the details for the existing assignment will be filled in for you.
     • Select one or more assignments to delete by checking the appropriate box(es) to the right of the assignment title, then clicking on the red "DELETE ALL CHECKED ASSIGNMENTS" lettering above and below the check boxes.

• Log In ( example )
  Select the school from the drop-down list and enter the school password. This password is not the same as your teacher account password.



• Add teacher accounts ( example )
  There are eight fields for each teacher, but only four of them are required. As you add or update an assignment you will notice that required fields are indicated by a red asterisk.
  1. Last Name (REQUIRED): This is the name the teacher will use to log in and the students will use to search for assignments. Keep it simple — don't use special characters and spaces. You may enter up to 50 characters.
  2. First Name (REQUIRED): This, like the last name, is a searchable field for the students, and therefore required. You may enter up to 50 characters.
  3. Password (REQUIRED): Eight characters is good, a mix of alphanumeric and special is best. Don't use spaces, apostrophes, hypens, underscores. You may enter up to 20 characters.
  4. Grade Level: This is an unused field at present. This field and the "Team" field may be used in the future for elementary-level assignments.
  5. Team: Also an unused field, reserved for future use.
  6. Subject (REQUIRED): This is a searchable field for the students. It may be overridden on any individual assignment. You may enter up to 50 characters.
  7. Allow e-mail from students: If this field is checked, all new assignments for this teacher will include a short standard form for comments and questions. The student may complete the form and submit it. The form will be routed to the teacher's supplied e-mail address. The form will not display the teacher's e-mail address openly on the page, but if a visitor to the site knows how to look at the underlying HTML code in a Web page, the e-mail address will be present.
     
     E-mail note: The teacher may override this setting on any assignment. If this is set to "Yes" and no e-mail address is supplied, any forms submitted by students will end up in a dead letter box. If this is set to "No," no e-mail address is supplied and the teacher decides to allow e-mail for one assignment, any forms submitted by students will end up in a dead letter box.
     
     Most common e-mail problems: The two most common problems with teacher e-mail are: no e-mail address supplied and a full dead letter box on the server; and, replying to "Sender" on an e-mail sent from the Homework Board. An e-mail sent via the Homework Board is actually sent by the Homework Board program, so a reply to sender directs the e-mail back to the Homework Board and Web Services. Please remember to type in the name of the intended recipient in the "TO" field of your message before sending.
  
  
  
  8. E-mail address: Enter the teacher's e-mail address here if the teacher wants to allow student e-mail regularly or on an assignment-by-assignment basis. Although this is not a required field, if the teacher decides to use e-mail on only one assignment and this field is blank, any e-mail sent from students will end up in the server undeliverable box. It is not possible to retrieve and redirect these e-mails. We recommend that you enter a teacher e-mail address here, even if you are uncertain that the teacher wants to use the e-mail feature. The best course is to select the "No e-mail from students" option above but still enter an e-mail address. You may enter up to 255 characters in this field.
  
  
• Maintain or delete teacher accounts ( example )
  From the home page of the administrator site, seen after you log in, select a teacher's name from the drop-down menu and click on the "Get this Teacher's Account Information" button.
  1. The editing process will look and work exactly as though you were adding a new teacher ( see above ), except that the details for the existing teacher will be filled in for you. After you have completed your changes, click on the "MAKE THE CHANGES INDICATED" wording below the teacher information.
  2. You may also choose to "DELETE THIS ACCOUNT" by clicking on the wording in red below the teacher information. As it says on the page, this action cannot be undone and will delete all this teacher's assignments as well.

  Where can I get help if I have a problem or question?
  See Most common e-mail problems on this page.
  Contact Web Services Team at webmaster@mcpsmd.org

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