My Summer Project - Gateway to Gradebook

[teach1st]

I have a suite of related classroom management databases done in FileMaker Pro. They do everything from printing lesson plans, report cards, weekly grade and behavior reports, finding honor roll and perfect attendance, assigning students to field trip drivers, etc. The only thing I haven't been able to do with it is make it yell at the kids. I still have to do that by hand, as it were. Anyway, after six years of messing with these DB's, they've become pretty handy and I don't want to give up the suite....but, it isn't web friendly.[nbsp][nbsp]The only quick way I have to post grades to the web is by taking a screenshot of a grades grid that has random numbers in place of names (so the kids and parents don't know each other's grades.)
My summer project will be to somehow port all the grade info onto the web so that parents and kids can query any grade or combo of grades I've entered. The problem? I have no idea where to start. I use FileMaker 4, which has limited export and interactivity, but FM 5 is supposed to have ODBC and I don't mind upgrading. (Filemaker can publish live to the web, but in that mode it's considered a server by my cable ISP and is against the TOS.)
It is important that each student have a distinct password, so that each couldn't see the others' grades. I don't plan on giving up my current DBs - just somehow and as easily as possible getting the grades live on the web. I don't know much about DB's other than Filemaker and Paradox, but I'm a quick study.

Can anybody point me in to where I should go to start this? Any tips or warnings? Thanks!

[sheila]

Howdy derf,

I've been using a product called School Maestro and its companion product Internet Publisher available here:
http://www.rredware.com
I know you don't want to give up your databases, but this product is available free for a trial period. Perhaps you could check it out and it might give you some ideas.

I've been using it since mid-September for two of the four classes I teach, and now that the second semester has started, I'm planning on switching all four of my classes to this software. Students do get individual passwords and so forth.

[teach1st]

Thanks, Aliehs! I just checked out the site and am downloading as I write. If it can import data efficiently, it might be just the ticket. I used to use the developer Russell Steven's gradebook program in the early nineties (back when dinosaurs roamed the cyber world), and it was good stuff. I still have it on the this computer somewhere, for when I need to do some grade analysis that my DB can't handle. I'm glad to see he's still kicking.

[sheila]

I've been very pleased with its data import/export capabilities. I will say that the menu is not very intuitive, and you have to hunt to find some of the commands. That's why I haven't recommended it to teachers at my school whom I don't consider to be "computer adventurous". But the programm I was previously using (GradeQuick) was lacking many of the power features that School Maestro has. IMHO it's a keeper.