Tuesday, February 9, 2010

OK. I Really, Really Like It

Love may be too strong of a word. But now that the good folks in the IT department got me set up with ExamView player. Now I can administer tests via our local network. It's really a pretty simple process.


Publish existing test to LAN:


Decide who has access to the test:
Give it a name and password:


Scramble the questions. You can also set the algorithm values so each student actually gets a different test.



Decide if you want them to be able to check their answers as they go as well as the type of feedback they will receive once they have finished the test.



From there it is simply a matter of students going into a shared folder and opening up the ExamView player. They have to know where you have saved the test, but other than that, it's pretty smooth sailing.


Once students have finished the test, simply ask for the results and thar ya go!


So far, I am using only multiple choice tests. I have mixed feelings about this. However, now that I can write the questions myself and program the misconceptions into the distractors, I'm not mad at myself for doing it. I will start playing around with using numeric responses and see how it goes.

All in all, I really like the idea of being able to provide different versions of the same test depending on who is taking it and when. It also makes for a super easy re-assessment tool.

4 comments:

Jason Buell said...

I've actually found myself wishing I had MORE multiple choice questions. They're great for diagnostic purposes. As you said, you can set the distractors and just do a quick percentage tally. It's harder to do a quick lesson adjustment without the speed of multiple choie. This site:http://www.diagnoser.com/diagnoser/ is free and I've been wanting to use it with my students but we don't have computer access at my school. It's for science but it will also even point out specific lessons to help with misconceptions based on the results.

David Cox said...

No doubt that MC questions are great for instant feedback and changing direction during class. Now that I know how to create my own, there'll be no shortage.

majamin said...

Hey David,

I've just done a few internet-based tests but found that collecting the data was tedious (not as bad as marking paper tests, but still). Just wondering ... do you have the ExamView Player installed on each computer? Or accessible on a server somewhere?

Thanks,

Marian.

David Cox said...

Hi Marian
We have a "lab software" folder that our students can access which has shortcuts to the software we use in class. The EV player is in that folder. I guess the actual software is on a folder students can't see, but the shortcut allows them to use the player. Collecting data has been a snap--just a click of a button.

Hope that helps.