Monday, July 20, 2009

ExamView Test Manager and Player

ExamView also has two programs that integrate really well. These are the Test Manager and Test Player.

Test Manager

The Test Manager of ExamView allows you to manage tests for your classes. When you first go into it you create a new class. You can then import (or hand enter) your students and quite a bit of information about them including their birthdates, gender, grade level, ethnicity, and social/economic status (this is helpful later in reports).

You then can add assignments. These are usually one of the following: Paper Test (either scanned in on the bubble forms or through the CPS Clickers) Online test delivered over your Local Area Network (LAN)

I have mentioned the bubble sheets before in a previous post, but I don’t think I explained it in detail. The software (either Test Builder or Test Manager) allows you to print a bubble sheet for students to answer multiple-choice questions. It is pretty easy and very inexpensive to print these out. We have found out, however, that it is not a good idea just to print one out and make photocopies of it (there tends to be some shifting in the copying process which can impede the reading of the sheet by a scanner).

You can print several different bubble sheets. These would include: 100 questions (this usually fills the whole paper with questions) which has the following printing options:

  • 1-5 (instead of A, B, C, D, E this has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
  • A-D, F-J (every other question has A, B, C, D and the others have F, G, H, I, J)
  • A-E
  • A-E, F-K
  • TF (True or False)
  • 50 questions (this usually will have half of the paper with questions and the other half has lines where it allows students to write notes or other items that will not be scanned in) which has the following printing options:
    • 1-5
    • A-D, F-J
    • A-E
  • There are also two other options
    • 60 question A-H
    • 30 question TF

Test Player

To take advantage of the LAN feature you need to have an area on your network to publish the test (one that the students can see and use) and also the free Test Player. This test player will come with the purchase of ExamView, however it is available as a free download from eInstruction’s website.

This player allows students to answer any possible type if question available from the Test Generator. I personally love using this feature. I can immediately see how my students are doing on a subject (both individually and as a whole group). I can even set it up so that I can compare each class with my other classes.

Students log into the program and can then start answering questions. You can set up the test with a lot of different settings. For example, you can allow students to return to previous questions or force them to not be able to go back to them. You can also scramble the questions and possible answers (on multiple-choice-type questions) so that students can’t just look at their neighbor’s screen for the answers.

The reports that are available in the Test Manager are phenomenal. You can produce reports for yourself or reports to hand back to your students. It is one if the best features of the software.

IC3 Integration

Using the ExamView Player is a great way of helping students with the IC3 exams. I create exams with questions about each IC3 subject. When students need to remediate on questions they can come into my lab and go through them. I set up the player so they can see what the real answer is during this time. It doesn’t matter since during the final test the questions are random (not all of them show up) and the answers may be in a different order. This helps the students to take over their own learning. I only need to be around to help clarify answers they don’t understand.

OK, so I’ve taken forever to write this post and I want to get onto other subjects. If you want to try ExamView, you can download a free 30-day trial at the eInstruction website.

Sent from my iPod

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