X2 Mania

By J. Jones

It has been available to teachers for roughly five years, but in February of the 2010-2011 school year it was opened up to the public. This year, it has caught on fire and spread throughout the entire Hopkinton High School. It can be used for checking up on how the student is doing with classwork, homework, attendance and overall grades. It has been an extremely useful tool in keeping up to date. But what is it? It’s known as X2.

The name may sound intimidating and something from a futuristic, hi-tech, dorky science fiction movie, but really all it takes is a computer, the internet and this website: https://nh-hopkinton.myfollett.com/aspen/home.do. Every student who attends Hopkinton Middle/High School is issued a username and password to be entered into the homepage. And upon logging in there are a variety of options for any student/parent to explore.

Unlike many other educational learning tools, students tend to love having this site around. Even more astonishing—they use it. When asking passing students in the hallway, all admitted to either using X2 everyday or every once in a while, but no one said that s/he never used the site.

Teacher and parent, Mrs. Reinacher, loves the idea of having X2. “I think it’s really helpful,” she says, “It is so nice for students to look at assignments and realize how not doing homework can affect your grade”. When asked if she could see anything to improve about the site she replied with, “[For parents] it is hard to get used to at first." She explains how upon first usage it could confuse parents and people have to play with it for a little while before completely figuring it out and using it well. Another potential issue mentioned would be if teachers do not keep up with the website. Student, Matt Baronas, agrees with this concern: “Some teachers put the homework on the [separate] homework page; some put it on X2."

But maybe all those confused parents just need to go to their children for computer advise, because for seventh grader, Anthony Bonollo says X2 is “easy to use.” Other middle-schoolers commented with, “I like it” and “It’s really helpful.” According to Liam Flanagan, grade seven, there could be some helpful changes to the site: “I think when it tells you what assignments you have, it should be bigger, more descriptive. On the right side it should show overall grades.” And maybe in the near future it will. But until then, X2 remains as is and readily available to students, parents and teachers to benefit from.