Read this Carefully !

This is a "Web Application", a web page that performs interactive functions. The purpose of this application is to help you calculate your GPA, both weighted and unweighted by the methods used in the Broward County, Florida Public Schools. It also helps you to preserve some limited information about the courses you have taken.

Web applications have certain limitations: mostly to prevent web pages from stealing your data or having access to your computer files.

I do not store any of your information on my web site. If you use a secure connection (https://) to access the page, only the session cookie is saved by your browser. The session cookie is deleted when you close the browser window / tab containing the page. If you are worried about the session cookie, simply access the site using ordinary http: (http://) rather than secure http: (https://).

You can save the web application to your computer's hard drive and use it off-line. Be sure to save the page as "html source" in the ".htm" or ".html" format. Doing this will NOT save any of your information. You must export it and save it elsewhere. You can then open the application in your browser any time you want without connecting to my site.

Important Issues:

1. This application has been tested on a reasonably up-to-date iMac (10.6.8) using Chrome, FireFox, and Safari browsers. Due to standards issues, Internet Explorer may not work. If you are using a PC try to use one of the three browsers mentioned.
   
   
2. During a session DO NOT PRESS YOUR BROWSER'S "FORWARD", "BACK", OR "REFRESH" BUTTONS, OR CLOSE THE WINDOW OR TAB. If you do this, all of the data you have entered will be lost. That's not my doing, its the way browsers work. You must export your information first, save it in a safe place, and import it at the beginning of your next session
   
   
3. The data in the application cannot be directly stored to your computer's file system. Again, not my doing, its a JavaScript security measure. To preserve the data you have entered or to resume a previous session, choose "Input / Output" from the dropdown menu at the top left of the page. From the "Input / Output" page you can do several things:
   1. To import the data for an imaginary student named "Anakin Skywalker" (not a real student), press the "Import" button.
   2. To start a fresh session with nothing entered, just refresh the page (you may have to hold down the "Shift" key while you do this). Alternatively, press "Clear" then press "Import".
   3. To export your information after you have entered data do the following:
      1. Press the "Export" button.
      2. The data to export will already be highlighted. Do a "Copy".
      3. Go to wherever you want to store your data (An email to yourself is good because you can retrieve it from nearly anywhere, or you could paste it into a "Word" or "Notepad" document) and do a "Paste".
      4. Make sure to save the document with the exported data in it. If you pasted the exported data into an email to yourself, remember to send it.
      5. You can continue working on your document, just don't forget to export it again when you are finally finished.
   4. To continue with data you had previously exported, do the following:
      1. first retrieve the data you expored previously from wherever you have stored it.
      2. Select ALL of the exported data then do a "copy".
      3. Use the dropdown menu to go to the "Input / Output" page.
      4. Press the "Clear" button to remove Anakin Skywalker's data.
      5. Paste your data into the box at the bottom.
      6. Press the "Import" button.
   
   
4. At the top of each page are four items that are important:
   1. The selector which allows you to navigate to various pages.
   2. A blue box showing the Attempts, Credits, unweighted GPA, and weighted GPA for the full year when you are on a page for a particular semester of that year. If you are on a page not associated with a particular year, the box contains data for the last year you viewed.
   3. A salmon colored box showing the Attempts, Credits, unweighted GPA and weighted GPA for all of the semesters for which you have entered data.
   4. A name box. You can just leave it as "Type Your Name Here", or erase the contents, if you are paranoid. Like I said, I don't collect your information, so I don't care.
   
   
5. There are 19 pages accessible through the left-top dropdown selector. They are:
   1. 15 Semester pages, one for each semester of each year. Note that there is one year of 3 semesters for "PRE-HS". This is for courses with High School credit that you may have taken in Middle School. There is a separate year for each semester of each of the four years of High School. The third semester is in case you took any Summer courses. Since some students take On-Line courses there is room for 12 Courses per semester. It doesn't matter in what order you enter the courses. One way might be first period, second period, etc.
      1. A course number. From 1 to 12. You might assume that your first period class is #1, etc. but it doesn't matter.
      2. For each course there is a "Description" box on the left. I STRONGLY suggest you fill in the title of each course in this box. Otherwise its going to be tough to identify which is which later.
      3. A pulldown for the number of attempts. Unless you are taking an online course, this will nearly always be 0.5. Attempts with any value other than "." (0) count as a failure if that is all that is entered, and this negatively affects your GPA.
      4. A pulldown for the type of course:
         1. Reg: A normal course.
         2. Hon: An Honors course.
         3. AP: An Advanced Placement course.
         4. DE: A Dual Enrollment course. Counts the same as AP.
         5. OL: An on-line regular course.
         6. OLH: An on-line honors course.
         7. OLA: An on-line Advanced Placement course.
      5. A pulldown for the semester grade received: A, B+, B, C+, C, D+, D, F.
      6. A Notes field at the right of each course. This can possibly be useful for preserving the answer to questions like "What was I thinking when I signed up for this course?"
   2. Directions: The page you are reading now.
   3. Summary: The number of Attempts, Credits, Unweighted and Weighted Grade Points, and the Unweighted and Weighted GPAs for each semester. At the bottom in the salmon colored line is the overall summary for your entire High School career.
   4. Input / Output. As described above, a way of saving the data you have entered and retrieving it later.
   5. Important Notice. Just a reminder that YOU are totally responsible for anything, good or bad, that results from your use of this page.
   
   
6. I suggest you go to the "Input / Output" page, import Anakin Skywalker's info, and try playing around with it, just to get a feel for how things work. Its a lot easier to use than it sounds like from the description.
   
   
7. Feel free to make constructive comments or bug reports. I may not answer, but I will note all of them.
   Send them to gradeCalculator@bee-man.us