OWLTS Online World Language Testing Software

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OWLTSOnline World Language Testing Software

• Pittsburgh Public Schools
• Prismatic Consulting LLC

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Why create an online language assessment tool?

• There can be no standards without assessments to
  measure student progress.

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History

• Used CALs, 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

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OWLTS

• Authorable Software
• Key Features
• User friendly student test
• User friendly test administration
• Easy for teachers to rate / score
• Improved rating reliability
• Data aggregation
• User friendly task / test development

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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2003 2004 Comparison
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2003 2004 Comparison
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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)

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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 - 5th 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

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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

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Thank You