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Notes on an assortment of tools for teachersExampro (age 11-18) ****Setting tests and mock exams is a monster chore. If you want a test that matches what you have covered with the class, there is little choice but to pick at past papers, cutting and sticking the questions that suit. And when you’ve cut and stuck, there’s a nice night in ahead, making up a mark scheme. The brilliantly simple solution is to put the lot into a computer database, fish out the topics you have covered and send the questions off to print. This is what Exampro does and as the list of titles below shows, it does it for most subjects and most levels. In the NEAB Double Science GCSE edition, you start with a list of nearly 1000 questions – that’s around 90 hours of examination time – and start to whittle them down. From a list of familiar topics you can pick all the past questions about the Universe, Genetics or Atomic Structure and find about twenty questions on each. You can click on a button to see each question in detail, see which syllabus topics it covers and look at the answers wanted. Yet another click tells what the chief examiner had to say about how the candidates’ answers to this. What remains is that you copy the questions wanted to your exam – it’s very satisfyingly done by dragging them from one screen window to another. If you want to add say a title page or add your own questions this you can do too. You can reorder the questions, edit them, add your own pictures and adjust where the questions break over pages. It totals up the marks available and the time allowed. And of course it prints the test, mark scheme and syllabus points covered too. It is hard to find what you cannot do: you can sift the questions by level, namely, Foundation, Intermediate or Higher, or by types of question like short answers, prose answers or calculations. If you just wanted say, questions from a particular exam and year, you can pick these out too. The manual, covering sixteen pages, is a good sign of an easy enough to use program. Better would be one or no pages but it is worth working through this, making a few papers to get up to speed. The program could be more intuitive, so a few things need patience – like editing or adding questions. Presumably for copyright reasons you can’t export any thing to a word processor. Technical support, which I tested because I had a duff password, was good and available. Exampro has been around a few years, but this current version is new and smarter looking. It is gaining the credibility it deserves through Helix, the same people that made those protractors and compasses. The price, and this is no pocket money compass set, has to be seen against the task of feeding real past papers (these start from 1994) into a computer, re-drawing the pictures and using an intelligent eye to classify what the exam boards have set. Many teachers will find here a rare something which does them a huge favour. In that sense, this is value for money and easy to recommend for saving time and sticky fingers. The Exampro range has 12 titles covering GCSE and advanced level Maths, English, and science, as well as titles covering UK key stage tests. (Disc for PC from Helix. Price £94 each). Feb '99 NOTE: This is now sold direct by Doublestruck - try Helix for the present.
Revision software group review:Acacia GCSE Revise 96/97 (age 15-16)Inside Track to GCSE - Science (age 15-16)Swift Test Software (age 15-18)Compact Questions (age 15-16)It is almost wry that you spend light years learning what exams give you just hours to write about. I did my fastest learning in exams - quickly finding out if I'd blown it. I guess that's why exams are called big bang assessment. Today s unit for assessing school itself is the exam result. Anything that helps is worth a look, so people look to the computer. Nobody need wonder why there's such an explosion in the market for revision software. For GCSE work there's Acacia s Revise 96/97 which is also pretty easy to use. Students choose their syllabus, choose their topics and how big a test and they re off. It's multiple choice questions again, but this time they don t move on till they hit the right answer. When they do it cheers, illustrates the answer and goes on to the next question. Finally marks are totted up, filed and a topic by topic breakdown is shown. What's remarkable isn't entirely relevant but if students need help say, when choosing their test, a talking head pops up telling them what to do. This alone impresses though if they can understand her explanation of mark weightings, they re probably clever enough not to need this. Still my local school was impressed enough to get a dozen copies - split between science, the library and a loan set. You'll see why as this is a nice looking program. And why not, any volunteer for torture deserves a nice torture chamber. There's a very different approach in The Inside Track to GCSE, which comes in Science, Maths and Geography flavours. There's a definite fun feel to this with a friendly cartoon character offering revision and exam tips. Students work through structured exam questions, answer them on paper and do mark it themselves using the answers supplied. Now that is unusual, strange even. The program grades their marking and offers students a few key facts about each topic, while a teacher s tool lets you print out the exam questions and monitor student progress. It adds up to more practice for students and less marking for teachers. For pure drill, see Swift Test Questions for GCSE Biology and A level. As it's an unassuming MSDOS program with all sorts of installation hassle, I tried quite hard to dislike it. But as punishment goes, this barrage of multiple choice and matching pairs questions is enjoyable and not a bad option, despite appearances. Finally, if you cut and stick your exam papers, Thornes Compact Questions is a dream. This bank of 5000 science questions simply prints out tests you can mark with nice red ink. You choose the keywords and difficulty level, prune questions you don t want and then hit print. Whatever, there are no rash claims about how this will motivate students, it's just plain useful. If passing exams in anything to do with drill and practice, then all of these help with different amounts of gloss. And for those, parents included, who would do anything, pay anything to see their kids survive the big bang can at least look at these with hope. Will they work? I don t know, so I'll just say Good luck New since this appeared: Exampro (age 15-18 from Helix)A superb tool for creating tests with past papers and mark schemes. Almost excellent. (For PC) ContactsAcacia s Revise 96/97 - Science Double and Single Awards software Inside Track to GCSE - Science, Geography, Maths (PC CD-Rom), Logotron. Swift Test Software (PC - floppy), 7 Gowan Avenue, London SW6 6RH. Tel: 020 7731 4108 Price £50 for GCSE Biology, £60 for A level Biology. Compact Questions (Windows PC CD-Rom ) from Thornes Encarta (age 11-adult)An all purpose encyclopaedia with surprising depth of information on many subjects. For example, a search for say, salt or neutralisation yields a good deal of detail. The pictures and words here might be used in worksheets or pupils projects, although the language level is around the A level mark. The section on nutrition features a very useful diet analysis program. Here all the food eaten in a day can be analysed and matched against personal requirements. This would be useful for a whole class to have access to this at the same time, if technical and practical issues can be overcome. (Microsoft, PC; Apple) SSERC Graphics CollectionsAn excellent and large collection of clip-art for science and technology. Includes diagrams of glassware, apparatus and everyday school equipment which can be used in worksheets and pupils work. The pictures can be modified using the Acorn Draw program. ( CD-Rom for Acorn / Mac / PC version on floppy from SSERC). New: Sherston now sell a tool to covert Draw files to Windows metafiles - cost about £10. SSERC Hazards databaseSafety information you could put on the school intranet. (CD-Rom for Acorn / Mac / PC from SSERC or CLEAPPS) The Warwick spreadsheet systemThis extensive system consists of several packs for Biology, Chemistry and Physics. Within the packs are several ready-built models which are powerful and yet easy to use. The Warwick spreadsheet system runs on top of Microsoft s Excel spreadsheet. Spreadsheets in Science - paper / discA booklet exclusively about spreadsheets in science with worksheets showing how to use them. A wide range of examples, written by Howard Flavell and Maurice Tebbut cover data handling and modelling with a spreadsheet. A disc with the examples is also included. Price around £30. Published by John Murray and available from Association for Science Education Booksales. Updated |