1 OWLTS Online World Language Testing Software Pittsburgh Public Schools Prismatic Consulting LLC

2 Why create an online language assessment tool? There can be no standards without assessments to measure student progress.

3 History Used CAL’s, SOPI tape mediated test Created own tape mediated test Tape administration was difficult and cumbersome Obtained FLAP grant to develop test software OWLeTS current version 2.5 – Working on version 3.0

4 OWLTS “Authorable” Software Key Features o User friendly student test o User friendly test administration o Easy for teachers to rate / score o Improved rating reliability o Data aggregation o User friendly task / test development

5 User Friendly Student Test Easy to understand student user interface Practice tests to increase student comfort level Accommodations for special needs Students are more comfortable with computer than tape recorder

6 User Friendly Test Administration - District Flexibility in test size/grouping - Small or large groups from single student to large scale district wide testing This year 1800 students tested – With audio tape only able to test 900 per year Testing at widely distributed multiple sites – Tested at 36 sites this year No distribution of testing equipment such as tape recorders, tapes etc.

7 User Friendly Test Administration - Teacher Testing manual for teacher use Practice test increases teacher comfort Can test any language – ESL – Non-traditional languages Can test different languages at same time in one room

8 Easy for Teachers to Rate / Score Teachers can rate from anywhere Teachers can do 1 rating in a sitting or 100 Can listening to same sample repeatedly without fast forwarding or rewinding Easy to re-rate speech sample (second or third rating) Teachers can easily provide rating / score and feedback comments

9 Improved Rating Reliability To follow ACTFL/OPI protocol OWLeTS can be configured to prevent teachers from rating own students Has been validated with SOPI and OPI Easy to compare ratings between raters – Inter-rater reliability checks Provides means to give feedback to teachers on ratings Enhanced training – Can pull speech samples and ratings for comparison in training sessions

10 Data Aggregation Tied to student information system Easy to create new reports on collected data Data collection allows analysis of student ratings by: – class, section, school, district, language, program, race, socio-economic, etc. Can compare data from ratings by raters – rater reliability

– 2004 Comparison

– 2004 Comparison

13 User Friendly Task Creation - Authorable Easy to create and edit tasks Records and plays multiple audio formats – WAV – MP3 Accepts any image file – Clip art – Photos (jpg, bmp) – Movies (mpeg, wma)

14 User Friendly Test Creation - Authorable Easy to create and edit tests including length Tests can be created for any – Level -Novice, Intermediate, Advanced and Superior – Age - 5 th grade, university admission, teacher candidates – Language – traditional, non-traditional, ESL Can change test from day to day or hour to hour Tests can be created in any structure – This test is structured like CAL (Center for Applied Linguistics) / SOPI – Can be structured for ESL - TESOL (Teaching of English to Speakers of other Languages) – Other

15 Future – Version 3.0 Each teacher will have own task / test bank Students will have online practice from home Addition of writing and reading assessment Additional test item types; cloze, multiple choice, short answer, etc. Improved student user interface.NET

16 Thank You