Session 7-Nov 2: Technology Comparison #2
Dale Engman,ETEC 674, Dr. Newberry, November 2, 2006
Telecommunications Technology Comparison #2
Introduction
You have taught your most successful lessons ever and the students paid attention like never before, now you want to see if they really got it, so you whip up a little test or quiz to assess their learning, but you stop and say, “I bet I could do this electronically!” After ruling out the old fashioned paper test, you are now torn between using your districts web based testing system or an online test generator. Oh what will you do?
Media Choices and Task Differentiation
Desert Sands Unified School Districts (DSUSD) web based portal system is designed to only allow students with a login and password into a specific teacher’s classroom or portal where the teacher would have this assessment waiting for them to take. A little leg work is needed to scan, if you already made a paper test, or create the assessment and upload or post to the Desert Sands Assessment Tool or DSAT as we like to call DSUSD. Students would login to the Portal and then click into DSAT and complete their assessment, upon completion of the test the student receives their grade and the grade is whisked away to the eSchool grading program for the teacher.
Exam View Pro which comes with many textbooks allows a teacher to create a test from a test databank, or an assessment from scratch. Upon completion you can create an online version that students will be able to take with a simple login and password. After students are done they would receive their grade and the teacher would receive a report of the students’ scores.
Both of these systems would have a higher media richness compared to a paper test due to the online nature of the assessment and that the student would receive their grade upon completion of the assessment, whereas a paper based test would rank lower in media richness because there is no instant feedback of how you did. You could say that from Daft, Lengel, and Trevino’s (1987) Hierarchy of Media Richness, having a login and password raises the richness due to the personalization of the assessment. Even though I would argue that the richness is higher, an assessment cannot have too many variations of richness.
Social presence would be low on a paper test and would fall into the middle of the road for both of these online tests. Newberry (2001) stated in reference to Russo (2000), defines social presence as the degree which a person is perceived to be real in a mediated environment. I do not feel the online version of the test would raise their social presence, but the instant result at the end of the test and a possible ranking system would raise the social presence.
Media Comparison
First, posting the assessment to the DSAT takes a paper test, a scanner, a computer, and access to DSAT. Second, you can also create a test in any Software and upload the test. Lastly, you can use the DSAT assessment designer to create a test. All three yield an online assessment that you can allow students to take with ease. Exam View Pro software allows you to create your test and then post to your website, or the Exam View Pro’s website.
The strength of the DSAT system is that the test is instantly graded and scored into the teacher’s eSchool grade book, and classroom results can be quickly analyzed for mastery. This makes for ‘one stop shopping’ for the teacher which I feel results in more efficiency for them. A strength of Exam View Pro is that you can have every version of the test be different, thus reducing the possibility of cheating. Strengths for both is that each program grades the assessment, greatly increasing the time an instructor can use to reflect on the assessment instead of grading it.
Weaknesses of both programs include the time it takes to prep the assessments. An instructor may just go with the old fashioned paper version due to comfort level, thus increasing their post-assessment grading. With all assessments there is the possibility of cheating from students if you forget to have each system create different versions of the test. I could also see students copying and pasting the assessment and emailing it to another student in a later period, so the integrity of the test could be compromised. A weakness of the Exam View Pro could be the results might take time to enter into a grade book, whereas the DSAT’s strength includes the instant entry in to the teacher’s grade book. A final weakness of Exam View Pro is the online testing only allows for true/false, and multiple choice test questions. Many teachers would like to have short answer, or fill in the blank questions.
I would lean towards the DSAT online assessment over the Exam View Pro given the multi functionality of the ‘all in one’ nature of the system. I think there would be too many variables that could go wrong using Exam View Pro.
Conclusion
The complexity of creating an assessment can get easier using one of these two systems mentioned above which increases your front end prep time, but greatly reduces your post assessment prep time. Either medium would spike the interest of the students given the results of the assessment would be instant leading to more gratification, providing the student did well. The bottom line of this comparison is that you would be using the Internet to conduct assessments with instant feedback to all who participate and that is worth all the leg work needed to set everything up.
Bibliography
Daft, R.L., Lengel, R.H., and Trevino, L.K. (1987). Message equivocally, media selection, and manager performance. MIS Quarterly, 11 (3), 355-366.
Newberry, B. (2001). Media richness, social presence and technology supported communication activities in education. Retrieved November 1, 2006 from, http://learngen.org/resources/module/lgend101_norm1/3000/3100_3/3120.html
Russo, T. (2000). Social presence: Teaching and learning with invisible others. WSU Presentation.
Telecommunications Technology Comparison #2
Introduction
You have taught your most successful lessons ever and the students paid attention like never before, now you want to see if they really got it, so you whip up a little test or quiz to assess their learning, but you stop and say, “I bet I could do this electronically!” After ruling out the old fashioned paper test, you are now torn between using your districts web based testing system or an online test generator. Oh what will you do?
Media Choices and Task Differentiation
Desert Sands Unified School Districts (DSUSD) web based portal system is designed to only allow students with a login and password into a specific teacher’s classroom or portal where the teacher would have this assessment waiting for them to take. A little leg work is needed to scan, if you already made a paper test, or create the assessment and upload or post to the Desert Sands Assessment Tool or DSAT as we like to call DSUSD. Students would login to the Portal and then click into DSAT and complete their assessment, upon completion of the test the student receives their grade and the grade is whisked away to the eSchool grading program for the teacher.
Exam View Pro which comes with many textbooks allows a teacher to create a test from a test databank, or an assessment from scratch. Upon completion you can create an online version that students will be able to take with a simple login and password. After students are done they would receive their grade and the teacher would receive a report of the students’ scores.
Both of these systems would have a higher media richness compared to a paper test due to the online nature of the assessment and that the student would receive their grade upon completion of the assessment, whereas a paper based test would rank lower in media richness because there is no instant feedback of how you did. You could say that from Daft, Lengel, and Trevino’s (1987) Hierarchy of Media Richness, having a login and password raises the richness due to the personalization of the assessment. Even though I would argue that the richness is higher, an assessment cannot have too many variations of richness.
Social presence would be low on a paper test and would fall into the middle of the road for both of these online tests. Newberry (2001) stated in reference to Russo (2000), defines social presence as the degree which a person is perceived to be real in a mediated environment. I do not feel the online version of the test would raise their social presence, but the instant result at the end of the test and a possible ranking system would raise the social presence.
Media Comparison
First, posting the assessment to the DSAT takes a paper test, a scanner, a computer, and access to DSAT. Second, you can also create a test in any Software and upload the test. Lastly, you can use the DSAT assessment designer to create a test. All three yield an online assessment that you can allow students to take with ease. Exam View Pro software allows you to create your test and then post to your website, or the Exam View Pro’s website.
The strength of the DSAT system is that the test is instantly graded and scored into the teacher’s eSchool grade book, and classroom results can be quickly analyzed for mastery. This makes for ‘one stop shopping’ for the teacher which I feel results in more efficiency for them. A strength of Exam View Pro is that you can have every version of the test be different, thus reducing the possibility of cheating. Strengths for both is that each program grades the assessment, greatly increasing the time an instructor can use to reflect on the assessment instead of grading it.
Weaknesses of both programs include the time it takes to prep the assessments. An instructor may just go with the old fashioned paper version due to comfort level, thus increasing their post-assessment grading. With all assessments there is the possibility of cheating from students if you forget to have each system create different versions of the test. I could also see students copying and pasting the assessment and emailing it to another student in a later period, so the integrity of the test could be compromised. A weakness of the Exam View Pro could be the results might take time to enter into a grade book, whereas the DSAT’s strength includes the instant entry in to the teacher’s grade book. A final weakness of Exam View Pro is the online testing only allows for true/false, and multiple choice test questions. Many teachers would like to have short answer, or fill in the blank questions.
I would lean towards the DSAT online assessment over the Exam View Pro given the multi functionality of the ‘all in one’ nature of the system. I think there would be too many variables that could go wrong using Exam View Pro.
Conclusion
The complexity of creating an assessment can get easier using one of these two systems mentioned above which increases your front end prep time, but greatly reduces your post assessment prep time. Either medium would spike the interest of the students given the results of the assessment would be instant leading to more gratification, providing the student did well. The bottom line of this comparison is that you would be using the Internet to conduct assessments with instant feedback to all who participate and that is worth all the leg work needed to set everything up.
Bibliography
Daft, R.L., Lengel, R.H., and Trevino, L.K. (1987). Message equivocally, media selection, and manager performance. MIS Quarterly, 11 (3), 355-366.
Newberry, B. (2001). Media richness, social presence and technology supported communication activities in education. Retrieved November 1, 2006 from, http://learngen.org/resources/module/lgend101_norm1/3000/3100_3/3120.html
Russo, T. (2000). Social presence: Teaching and learning with invisible others. WSU Presentation.
posted by dengman | 10:29 PM
1 Comments:
Dale,
Once again I am impressed. I like that you school district has a portal so kids can actively participate in class outside of the classroom. That would be a neat thing for our school to incorporate. we have a website and all but the interaction with the students would raise our media richness and could be a great motivator for some kids. Thanks for sharing!
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