When it comes to assessment solutions, it doesn’t have to be an either/or decision.
Packaged assessment solutions are much like a prix fixe
meal—satisfying but limiting. Open source software is like homemade
chicken soup—delicious but a pain to make. “A proprietary product is
like buying content with technology,” says Caroline Meeks of the
Harvard Graduate School of Education Technology. Meeks thinks the
commercial- versus-open-source debate is, at its heart, a curriculum
issue because software packages targeted to standardized tests won’t
align with alternative content: “If you want that, great. If not,
consider open source and figure out how to create content yourself.”
Scott Floyd, instructional technologist with White Oak (Texas) ISD,
says open source assessment products would generally be considered a
software tool as differentiated from an allencompassing commercial
solution. “I don’t know anyone who could afford the time to create a
comprehensive knowledge test and give it away for free,” Floyd says.
Meeks concurs, saying that open source/free assessment tools “are
not yet ready for prime time” but are “closing the gap” with
proprietary assessment applications.
The best decision? Most school districts use a mix of proprietary
and open products. Rochester (N.Y.) School District, for example, uses
McGraw Hill’s Acuity commercial assessment tool, and adds its own
questions to Acuity’s nationally normed database. This generates and
distributes Rochester’s customized tests and tallies the results,
according to Dr. Tim Cliby, coordinating director of instructional
technology. “It has no flash or photos,” Cliby says. “But I like the
way it’s worded. And we can use it different ways and ask it to assign
questions based on student weaknesses.”
Although Floyd leads Texas teacher’s Strategic Open Source Software
Special Interest Group, White Oak ISD, too, uses a mixture of
proprietary and open source assessment products. The district uses
commercial products such as Kamico, Study Island, and Renaissance
Learning to assess reading levels and language skills and Accelerated
Reader for monitoring. But the district also encourages teachers to use
Moodle to create tests in specific subjects. “It’s more work in the
beginning (to put questions into Moodle), but it’s less work in the
end,” Floyd says, "and the tests can be modified later for an
individual student or a different class. The kids love it.”
Moodle is a gold mine of open source assessment tools, having more
than 62 pages of modules, including assessment quizzes, exercises,
skill practices, and vocabulary. However, there are other open source
or free tools and resources that are less commonly known. Foremost is
Texas’ TRACKS practice tests in four subjects, designed to prepare high
school juniors for the TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills)
tests required for graduation. Although based on Texas’ state tests,
they cover core curricula in English, science, math, and social
sciences that are taught nationwide. Anyone can access the Web-based
tests free and retrieve the results on each subtopic instantly. In
addition, each TRACKS subtopic links back to a library of study
materials so students can increase their understanding of sections they
missed, according to Erich Pelletier, program coordinator.
Two other free/open source software applications are Hot Potato, a
tool for creating interactive worksheets, and LAMS (Learning Activity
Management System), a framework and visual tool for combining sequences
of activities into online lessons, Meeks says. While Hot Potato is
intuitive, LAMS requires more time to create and manage, she says.
Other resources include Curriwiki and Merlot, ATutor, Claroline, ILIAS,
and the Manhattan Virtual Classroom, she says.
Ken Task, a retired teacher who taught in Victoria, Texas, is
helping others create Moodle-based assessments using the Texas
Technology Assessments Moodle.
“This module is an example of what can be done collaboratively with little or no money,” he says.
However, despite Moodle’s potential for helping districts benefit
from each other’s work, numerous obstacles to collaboration persist,
including district policies, data access and ownership, internal power
plays in support of one particular Moodle model over another, and
intellectual property issues, he says. “There’s lots of growth in free
and open educational content,” adds Meeks. “But is it reasonable to
expect every teacher to create everything from scratch? Probably not.”
The debate about commercial versus open content seems to mirror that
about professional development: One size just doesn’t fit all. The
challenge to districts is to find a blend of commercial and open source
tools that fits their budgets as well as their learning curves.
-- Pam Derringer