Markers for Making Test Keys from Overheads

Problem: Teachers spend a lot of time grading papers, often papers of the “circle the correct answer” variety. One simplistic speed-up is to make a “mask” that shows the correct answers. A mask can be made with a long-arm hole punch, but this takes to much time.

Solution: Make, or find, a pen that eats a small hole through the material used in overhead transparencies. Transparencies come in various chemistries, and pens come in sometimes incompatible chemistries. There should be a really bad match so that a pen could be sold as “hole punch pen for acetate” or the like.

Our charity, TrueGift Donations, packed about 80 cubic feet of school supplies recently leaving the volunteers sitting down and chatting afterwards. The subject came up.