Teacher Discussion Forums

Hello my colleagues,
I hope someone can help me. I am teaching in Saudi Arabia, and have suddenly been asked to test in a CALL lab rather than the traditional paper tests we have been using. Perhaps you could help me find software that:
* can publish a test to a LAN without internet access
* can randomize items so students get questions at different times
* offer the student one time only to review
* can handle sound files to test listening abilities
* can offer immediate scores
* can do an item analysis
We have a budget, and are looking for the right solution!
I'd appreciate any advice or ideas...
Dunebob of Arabia

If you really want to go overboard Blackboard or Web CT. If it's just for testing then Question Mark, but they have strange licensing regulations that could end up being expensive.

Ok here's a suggestion...

I'm assuming that your LAN is 'hubbed' around a server.

If you can run or are already running an AMP system (Apache, MySQL and PHP), you can quite easily set up a Moodle LMS (Learning Management System).

With a relatively steep but short learning curve, you can set up regular tests for your students with all the results stored on the MySQL database. The tests can be multiple choice, open cloze, short answer, essays, etc. or any combination of test types. The tests and activities can be timed and you can also incorporate images and audio in a basic way.

I've successfully set up some Cambridge CAE practice tests for my students and I'm getting some very positive feedback from them.

I'm a developer so this stuff is pretty easy for me. I understand that all this seems a bit daunting for someone without much IT or development experience. Moodle is very well documented and there's a lot of people out there who can provide support.

Oh yeah, and one very important detail - Moodle is Open Source which means that it's free for you to download, install and use and if you want to do anything specialised with it, you can hire a developer to make the changes or write the new code for you.

http://moodle.org/

Hope this helps.