SeniorQuoter helps senior quote quality at Haverford High School

Based on using SeniorQuoter for the class of 2008, Haverford High School found that:

Quotes were more in depth than previous years. In previous years, Haverford asked seniors to submit their quotes in the computer lab during homeroom. Students had to put in their quotes at this time and only had about 10 minutes to write them. However with SeniorQuoter, seniors can put in their quotes when they are ready - and have as long as they want (before the deadline you set) to write them. This causes quotes to be of higher quality. Quotes were also longer than before as students had the time to make use of the available space.

Reduced profanity. Haverford recorded a reduction in profanity. The reasons for this are not clear, but perhaps seniors had more time to compose their quotes and did not have to put in what came to mind.

Reduced processing time Greystones, the yearbook at Haverford estimates that in their second year of using SeniorQuoter, there will be a 50% reduction in the time it took to collect senior quotes from the previous method. (Greystones was using an older version of SeniorQuoter for 2008 which was harder to use than version 2.) The main additional time was for tracking people who did not submit their quotes. Future versions of SeniorQuoter will include better methods for reminding students to submit their quotes.

No school time used. Haverford High School used to give students time during school to submit their quotes. SeniorQuoter lets seniors submit their senior quotes on their own at home or from any school computer. Also Greystones no longer has to coordinate computer lab time for students to submit their quotes.

More quotes were not submitted. Since students had to submit their senior quotes on their own - many waited for the last minute to submit their quotes. Perhaps this was the reason behind the reduction in profanity, since the seniors who would put profanity in the quote did not get around to submitting their senior quote.

Class of 2009
Haverford High School used the system again for the Class of 2009. (Note: I am in this class) We heavily marketed it and provided support. I was in the library each morning giving out codes to seniors who lost theirs. I estimate I gave out about 50 codes, not only in the library, but as people asked me in class and on Facebook. When the quotes were due, 307 out of 423 students submitted their quotes. Some students reported never getting codes from their homeroom teachers (a common problem at HHS). In the future I would change to using existing information for passwords, such as date of birth, or allow emails to be sent to students reminding them of their codes.