Documentation for CanDo06 -- outdated.

CanDo is a web-based, freely distributed skills tracking program developed by Virginia students and teachers for use everywhere. It was written to help teachers track which skills their students are acquiring in their classes and at what level of competency. CanDo automatically reports skill-levels for students and the class, and issues an official Student Competency Record (SCR) for each student.

CanDo is built into SchoolTool, a powerful suite of free software being developed by the Shuttleworth Foundation to help schools manage their operations. CanDo and SchoolTool are available now, and forever, for free.  They can be downloaded and used right now.  Setting up SchoolTool with CanDo is probably easier than you think; it can be done either on a computer dedicated to the purpose, or on a server leased from a web hosting company for as little as $20 per month.

CanDo has two other powerful features: it allows linking to online curriculum so that students can easily work on the curriculum for skills they have not yet mastered; and, it allows students and teachers to communicate with each other directly on the server. Because CanDo is a web-based application, teachers and students may access the program from anywhere they have internet access by using secure logons.

The current CanDo version is CanDo06 (Released in September 2006). This version is being beta tested during the '06-'07 school year. This documentation covers CanDo06. For an older version of CanDo, follow this link.  This is not a fully integrated and working version, so is not recommended.

CanDo Philosophy

CanDo is a constructivist tool for educators who require students to demonstrate their mastery of skills and competencies, and who need a simple organizational tool to assist them in tracking student progress towards instructional objectives. CanDo uses authentic assessment (Student portfolios) and this enables students to take charge of their learning, and enables teachers to focus on effective facilitation, mentoring and scaffolding of student learning.

Contributors

Virginia Department of Career & Technical Education
($35,000 -- CanDo06; $35,000 -- CanDo07)
Elizabeth M. Russell, Virginia State CTE Director

Arlington County Public Schools, Office of Career & Technical Education
($4,500 -- CanDo05; $24,000 -- CanDo06)
Michael R. Morton - Director; Kris Martini - Supervisor, Trade & Industrial Education

Center for Innovative Communities ($15,000 -- CanDo04)