Hi @ibrown3,
The attendance tool really is made only for tracking attendance, and not so much participation (but I can totally see where tracking participation would be useful too). I think the best you'd be able to do currently for participation is to have a "no submission" assignment (or multiple of these) created to award participation points. It may not be the prettiest thing in the gradebook if you want a separate assignment each day though. I know some people create one assignment, and then use the rubrics feature to track participation through multiple weeks (a "week 1" criterion, then a "week 2" one, etc). Do you think that may work for you? If so, I can provide some guides if you need them. Just let us know!
-Chris