Year 9 Information and Software Technology Test Generator January 1, 2008
Posted by Steve in Elearning, Information, Web2.0.Tags: Elearning, onlinelearning, testgen, testgenerator
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I will be teaching the Year 9 Information & Software Technology course for the first time in 2008 and I am looking forward to it. I hope to use some strategies that have been written in Web2.0 discussions. The first topic that I will do will be Digital Media but the focus will be on printed media. We will leave multi-media for a later time.
During my initial preparation and research, I discovered my textbook by David Grover was included in Course Compass and that an online presence is a definite possibility. Unfortunately, students need access codes to gain access to the course which will cost $7.60 each. I can afford that to come out of my budget.
Among several facilities, is an application entitled “TestGen” for test generator and the version is 7.4.1. The idea is to create a test on your computer and upload it to the IST course in Course Compass. I did some initial experimentation starting off with 5 multiple choice questions and uploaded them to the site. It worked quite well. I came unstuck trying to create True / False questions. I have not been able to indicate which alternative is the correct response. After several hours of trying different things and combinations, I gave up and sent a question to the Support Team. I did have to wait longer than 24 hours for a reply since it was the weekend. A correct solution was offered but it was NOT straight forward NOR were there a special set of instructions for the True / False type. It was not intuitive.
Technical glitches such as this hurts the online, elearning concept. It has to work if teachers are going to take it up across the curriculum. Course Compass is based on Blackboard but I did not find this out immediately. I assumed a commercial product should be operational and intuitive. Perhaps I will be proven incorrect and should have gone the Moodle route for a learning management system?
Conceptually, I am excited by the possibilities and can see some innovative experimentation happening. Technical glitches, please stay away! Sigh.
Postscript:
- I finally located a PDF file on TestGen where it indeed explained how to indicate which True or False option was correct. It still is not intuitive.
- I spent a long time experimenting with the Matching type question but I could not get it to operate on a web page. It did seem to work when printed out as a page, however.
- Upon checking the Users Manual (PDF file), I found a little phrase that indicates the Matching type question CANNOT be carried out currently on a web page. Now that was a waste of time.
- I think I am safe if I just stick to multiple choice questions and True / False questions for use in a web page such as Course Compass.
- Creating a large bank of questions, that can be dragged and dropped onto a new test is worthwhile pursuing, however, I won’t see the benefits until I teach this unit twice.
