Winter 2005 Newsletter
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Winter 2005 Newsletter |
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Since we released the first edition of this newsletter three years ago, the ExamView Test Generator has grown to become the standard in classroom assessment software. More than 250,000 educators worldwide use the software to create millions of paper and online tests. And, over 30 publishers provide question banks for almost 3000 textbooks. Take a few moments to review the latest ExamView news, tips, and feature articles. You will find information about the upgrade to our Internet test-hosting servers, new products, and much more. Finally, look for changes in the next issue of our newsletter. Based on your feedback, we are making changes to bring you more timely information that will help you use our products even more effectively. Sincerely,
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| Is it time for your school to standardize on a test generator? Take a few minutes to learn how your school could benefit from making ExamView your standard test generator. |
In this issue, you can learn more about the Question Bank Exchange. Educators from Australia to the United States have contributed ExamView questions for you to use at no cost. | |
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| This issue addresses questions about how to integrate ExamView with Blackboard and customize your online HTML tests..
Want to become a power user? Check out the latest user tips to find out how to interject fun into the classroom and create more robust online tests. |
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Over the past few issues, the focus of this column has been to provide you with a hands-on approach for you to learn more about ExamView’s dynamic (algorithmic) features. Those of you who have followed along know the many uses and benefits of dynamic questions. For those who are reading this column for the first time, click this link to access the newsletter archives. Since the release of ExamView 4.0, educators worldwide have been inspired by the program’s dynamic capabilities. Many of you have shared your work with us by contributing some of those questions to the question bank exchange on our forum. There, you can find questions on fractions, chemistry, trigonometry, and many other topics. (Note: The question bank exchange also includes many non-dynamic questions covering a wide variety of subjects.) In this issue, take a few moments to review some of the dynamic questions your colleagues have submitted. You may freely download any of the question banks from the forum. And, I encourage you to share your work with others. Integers Fractions Chemistry Calculus Periodic
Functions Conics
Question:
Answer: Included with the update is a new option in the Export dialog that allows the instructor to use the Rationale as feedback. Blackboard supports "Feedback when correct" and "Feedback when incorrect" fields. When you turn on the option to use ExamView's rationale, the content in the rationale field is copied to BOTH of Blackboard's feedback fields so that the student sees the content regardless of whether they answer correctly or incorrectly. Question:
Answer:
When you open the HTML test it should use the graphics you copied to the test folder To search our large knowledgebase of questions and answers or to ask your own question, visit the FSCreations Support Forums.
ExamView Test-Hosting Center Upgraded HThe test-hosting servers have been upgraded to provide an even more reliable and scalable online testing experience. Since we began the service almost four years ago, the application has performed very well (99% availability) with more than 2 million tests delivered online. With the new system, you can count on an even more responsive and reliable system. Educators worldwide use the ExamView test-hosting server to deliver tests and study guides. Students can take a test anytime and anywhere using an Internet connection. Instructors can view results immediately from school or at home. Click
this link to learn more about the test-hosting
service.
Updated
Blackboard 6.x Export Utility Available Click this link to download the latest Blackboard 6.x utility.
Learning
Series for Math, Reading, Science and Social Studies ExamView Learning Series offers thousands of high quality questions in science, math, social studies, and reading that are aligned with state benchmark standards. The Learning Series can contribute to successful teacher performance by helping you prepare students for your state’s high-stakes tests. You can focus your valuable planning time on addressing specific student and classroom needs. Click this link to learn more about the Learning Series. Find out how you can use the extensive Learning Series question library to improve student performance. The Learning Series works with all of the FSCreations products (ExamView, QuickTake, Quiz Show) and with other products from eInstruction and Pearson NCS.
Instantly Find Textbooks that Offer ExamView Question Banks Have you ever needed to find out whether your new textbook includes ExamView question banks? Trying to locate this information on a publisher’s Web site can be somewhat time-consuming. Now, you can use our new search capabilities to instantly answer that question. Let’s say you are thinking about buying new textbooks for your math class. You could find out instantly which Algebra textbooks include ExamView question banks. How about an accounting textbook or a nursing text? Click here to try your own search. New Publishers Plan to Offer ExamView The following new publishers plan to offer ExamView for use with selected new textbooks. Contact your publisher to find out which textbooks will include ExamView as part of the instructor-supplement package.
Has
your school standardized on a test generator? As a result of NCLB, there has been a renewed focus on assessment at the K–12 level. By using a test generator, teachers can more effectively measure student performance and provide timely intervention. At the postsecondary level, course management systems such as Blackboard and WebCT provide instructors with new technology options for delivering instruction and assessing students. A test generator offers an effective way to interact with those applications. Today, school systems have set standards for many of the applications their staff members use daily, such as email, gradebook, and word processing. From an administrator’s perspective, the benefits of using the same application across a school or district are obvious—reduced training and support costs, better data integration, and cost savings. From a teacher’s perspective, the benefits include compatibility with other applications, the ability to easily share information with other teachers, and increased training opportunities. School systems are now starting to recognize that they can realize those same benefits when they standardize on a full-featured test generator program such as ExamView. Why
standardize? So, you may ask, now that we’re all standardized on the same word processor, why should we standardize on a test generator program? Well, think about the time it takes to add a new question or delete a question—about ten minutes? What about renumbering a 50-item test—another five minutes? What about creating two versions of the same test to reduce cheating? At least another five minutes. How much time does it take to score the test for a class of 25 students? A half-hour? An hour? Using a test generator such as ExamView can drastically reduce the amount of time you spend on those tasks. And what about using your questions with other applications? ExamView makes it easy to use your questions with a growing number of applications such as: eInstruction
Classroom Performance System Is
it time for your school to standardize?
If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, it may be time to explore the benefits of standardizing on ExamView as your school’s test generator program. For
more information about standardizing on ExamView in your district,
MindPoint Quiz Show Lite Looking for a fun way to help your students review for the upcoming test? Quiz Show Lite presents ExamView questions in a fun game show format. Students can race the clock or challenge a computer opponent as they answer ExamView questions and earn points. You and your students can download Quiz Show Lite free of charge, so students can play at school and at home. Visit www.mindpoint.com to learn more or to download Quiz Show Lite. Automatically graded tests. 2. Automatically graded tests. You may already know that ExamView allows you to easily create Internet and LAN-based tests that are automatically graded. Did you know, however, that you are not limited to true/false, multiple choice, and matching questions on these tests? You can include fill-in-the-blank questions on your automatically graded tests by using the Completion and Numeric Response question types. Use the Completion question type for questions with text answers. You can even include multiple correct answers when you create your question to accommodate all possible student answers. Simply separate each possible answer with a hard return. For example:
Use the Numeric response question type for questions with numeric answers. ExamView will automatically grade the question, no matter what numeric format the student uses to answer. For example: Question:
A pack of baseball cards costs $2.50. Sales tax is 6%. Jerry buys two
packs of cards at the store. How much does he spend? Formatting your banks for MindPoint Quiz Show or ExamView QuickTake. Are you using an LCD projector to display ExamView questions for your whole class with Quiz Show or QuickTake? If so, you might want to increase the font size of your banks. You can easily accomplish this using the Replace Font command in ExamView. Simply open your bank and choose Replace Font from the Edit menu. We recommend using a sans serif font such as Arial and increasing the size to at least 16 points.
Copyright © 2005 FSCreations, Inc. |
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