SOAR

1 Bob and Us| Ekove Pte Ltd

Bob and Us.

A Graphic Story

and

An Introduction to

SOAR@ekove

Systemized Online Assessments and

Resources

(http://soar.ekove.com)


Hey there!

Ever wished that your marking could be done in a jiffy?

Ever wished you could collate the marks without lifting a finger?

Ever wished you could create a test while during the Deal or No Deal

commercial break?

Ever wished you could speak to parents about their child�s performance with

precise data on how their child is faring?

How about generating a pre-test and post-test for mathematics during

recess?

Ever thought about having a competition during your English lesson to see

who gets the most marks in Grammar without even having to plan for it?

Would you like to post assignments to your students while on vacation in June

without having to worry about marking tons and tons of assignments when

you return?

Maybe you would like to have an online chat with your students to discuss a

topic of interest?

How about an e-mail system which you can use for situational writing

practice?

Wouldn�t it be nice to contact all your students by e-mail without having to

create one for them?

Don�t you think it would be fabulous if you could collate your students� whole

year�s result by topics, components and question types at the click of a

mouse?

How about getting the entire class to be quiet by pressing the mute button on

your keyboard?

Imagine if you could get your principal deported to Angola by clicking on

the delete button?

Well, we did!

And we managed to find a way to get what we wished for and more...

(but we are still working on the last two)


We thought we would present you this system by using a narrative

style (like a story) so that you can understand our message better.

For this story we will be using Bob as our hero.

This is Bob.

Rather, this was Bob 8 years ago. We couldn�t get a more recent

picture of Bob so we will have to make do with this one for now.

Cute, isn�t he?

Just like how it took Bob some time to grow up to be the big boy

that he is today, it took us some time to get here.

We designed a system called SOAR which we know will amaze

you because it still amazes us.


So, what does SOAR do?

SOAR allows teachers to create assignments online and to post

them to their students. You don�t even have to worry about the

questions; we are building the database of questions even as you

are reading this. You can create assignments which look almost

like the school worksheets that you may be using, except that we

have taken the marking of the worksheets off your hands and

lengthened the short life of your red pen in the process.

This description is just the tip of the iceberg. There is more to come.

In fact we don�t even know where to start.

Tell you what; let�s start with the user � Bob.


THE FIRST CHAPTER

Like Bob, every student gets a user name and password which

they use to access the system online. Once Bob is logged on, he

sees this page first.

This would be the student�s homepage. This is where Bob can

access all the features found in the system. We will describe the

features one at a time.


The Learning Module

Here Bob can do three activities.

1. Practice on randomly generated Grammar Multiple Choice

Questions.

Bob can do as many as he wants and for as long as he wants.

And you don�t have to mark it. The system marks the questions

and tells Bob whether he got them wrong or right. It also points out

the correct answer to Bob.

Come on Bob! You can do it!


It even gives Bob a running score that updates his score after he

submits each answer to let him know how well he is doing.

Well done Bob!

And the system keeps all of Bob�s scores from the day he started.

(we will show you that a little later..)

2. Practice on randomly generated Vocabulary Multiple

Choice Questions.

Well the same goes for this section...

Bob gets to practice on randomly generated Vocabulary MCQ

questions.

And Bob gets the same running score for his efforts.

It looks like Bob is not doing too well here.


Well, we were prepared for that actually. Bob is probably not

doing too well because he finds it cumbersome to check the

dictionary (don�t they all).

So we decided to help Bob along a bit. We gave him an online

Dictionary feature to help him out. And it looks like this...

We had some arguments deciding on the background colour of

the button but eventually the programmer with the biggest biceps

got her way...(again)

Anyway...

By clicking on this icon Bob can come here to check on a

particular word such as anklet or any other word for that matter

And he gets the search results instantly and it looks like this...


It couldn�t have been easier for Bob. The dictionary feature can

be found in all the Practice Modules in English. We liked the

dictionary so much that we decided to get Bob a Thesaurus.

Bob enters the word here.

And he gets a fabulous response from the system.

Awesome...isn�t it?


SOAR continuously collects the performance data of the users

and archives them for viewing anytime by parents, teachers or

Bob himself. Hence, every time Bob does a practice the results get

stored. All one has to do is go to the reports section which looks

like this.

Ooops...that�s the wrong one

This is the correct one.


By clicking on Learning Module � English Bob is brought to his

archived results.

The archived results show Bob his scores from day one. It even

gives him a cumulative score for all the practices that he has

done.

And his teacher didn�t have to do a thing...yet!


As you can see from the table, the reporting is pretty elaborate

and you even get to see when and how often Bob has been

honing his grammar and vocabulary skills...

Looks like Bob has been pretty busy. Way to go Bob!


3. Download Mathematics worksheets (it�s already there) to

print and practise anytime, anywhere.

Let�s get down to Mathematics.

Bob is not doing too well in this subject and we thought we will

help him out.

With this system Bob can access Mathematics worksheets online

so that his tutor or parent can help him out at home. Bob can

choose the topic that he is currently doing in class...

Let�s say he chooses the topic on Whole Numbers...

He is then provided with a selection of worksheets that he can

choose from.

Bob clicks on a worksheet and the worksheet appears on his

screen as a pdf document.


Bob can do a few things. He can do the questions off the screen

in his exercise book or he can print it. Once he has completed the

worksheet he can check the answers by clicking on the related

answer sheet link on the website under the Answers column.

Worksheet code


When he does that the answer sheet appears on the screen in pdf

format.

All he has to do now is to locate the correct list of answers by

matching it to the last three digits of the worksheet code which

can be found at the bottom of the worksheet and looks like this -

WS#: 3-M-1-01-SP-019

Bob can also record his marks and the date that he did the

worksheet on by clicking on Update Marks.


The system then collates his mark and saves it for future reference.

The report looks like this.

If Bob does a particular worksheet more than once, he can

update the system more than once and the system will reflect this

in its reports. Bob can view the reports topic wise or as a whole.

Bob�s parents, teachers and tutors will then know how much Bob

has done and which worksheets he has done to improve in his

Mathematics. They can also help Bob choose other worksheets

that are available in the system for Bob to practise on.

We have come to the end of the Learning Module and Bob�s

teacher still has not lifted a finger to play a role in moulding Bob.

Well, that�s the way we planned it.


THE SECOND CHAPTER

The Practice Module

In this module Bob accesses assignments that Bob�s teacher has

created and posted to his account. It took Bob�s teacher less than

10 minutes to do this as the questions were already in the

database.

When Bob accesses the system and clicks on the Practice Module

link he is presented with this page.

Here Bob can click on whichever e-assignment that he wants to

do and goes about doing it. Bob�s teacher has ensured that the

online e-assignments do not take more that 30 minutes to

complete.

Bob can click on any assignment that he wants to do. For each

assignment the due date, marks, difficulty index, number of

attempts and the status (completed/not completed/in progress)

are stated.

For Mathematics, SOAR has the following question types.

Multiple Choice Questions,

Open Ended Questions

and Word Problems


Back to our story...

When Bob clicks on any of the Mathematics assignment, he is

instantly brought to the first question of the assignment and it looks

like this.

And the next question looks like this...

And so on and so forth...


If Bob finds any question to be difficult, all he has to do is click on

Hint 1 and he is given some help in doing the question.

Sometimes, depending on the difficulty level of the question Bob

may be provided with more than one hint.

You have seen the Multiple Choice questions. Here is how the

open ended questions look like.

And the word problems...


Once Bob has completed his e-assignment he is

shown how well he has done it, section by section.

And his results.


If he wants to find out more about how he has done he can do so

in the reports section.

This shows his e-assignments summary.

If Bob does a particular assignment more than once, then this

table will show the highest and lowest marks that Bob got for all his

attempts. His last attempt (No. 9) is shown here and reflects the

same marks as the one in the previous reports table.

And it doesn�t stop there...

If Bob (or his teacher, tutor or parent) wants to dig deeper and

analyse his performance by topics and question types for a

particular e-assignment he can always do so by going to the

Individual Assignment Analysis section.


The report looks like this.

The Overall Summary table at the top shows the Overall Summary

(duh...)

The rest of the tables show an analysis of his performance by

topics and question types.

And all this took Bob�s teacher 10 minutes to create the

assignment and SOAR did the rest with clockwork precision.

Traditionally, to provide such an analysis, it would have taken his

teacher a couple of years.

Yes, I am exaggerating but you get my point...

But it still doesn�t stop there.


Like I said SOAR collects data as if its life depended on it. So it

archives and collates all these results to give Bob an overall

summary of all the Mathematics e- assignments that Bob has done

so far and it looks like this.

This summary is the mother of all summaries. It is organized to give

a topic wise and question wise summary of how well Bob is doing

in Mathematics.


The Test Module

I am not going to go into a long description like I did for The

Practice Module as it is not very different in its design and

processes.

However for Bob there are some differences. They are as follows.

1. There is a time limit. (set by his teacher when creating the e-

assignment)

2. There are no hints.

3. He can only attempt it once.

4. The report shows the highest, lowest and average marks for

the class (and not for attempts)


THE THIRD CHAPTER

I know I have been too indulgent in my description of the

Mathematics component of SOAR so far so I will keep this section

as short as possible.

For English these are the components that you can find in SOAR.

English

Grammar MCQ,

Vocabulary MCQ,

Comprehension MCQ,

Grammar Cloze,

Vocabulary Cloze,

Comprehension Cloze,

Editing,

Punctuation,

Graphic Stimulus,

Synthesis and Transformation,

and Comprehension Open Ended

We have to tell you though that except for the rest, the last two

English components would require you to manually mark the

answers.

The English components in SOAR follow the same format as

those found in assessment books and school worksheets but

the difference is that the system marks them for you.

(Am I saying this too many times?)

I know I might be testing your patience here by being too

long winded but my Boss insists that I do it.

(we are secretly working on programming the delete button

on our keyboards to enable us to deport him to Angola or

Botswana �whichever is further)


However I will make it easy for you. I will just show you screen shots

of as many different English components as I can.

1. Grammar MCQ

2. Vocabulary MCQ

3. Vocabulary Cloze (only the first answer slot is shown here)


4. Comprehension MCQ (only the first question is shown here)

5. Comprehension � Open Ended (only the first question is shown here)


6. Grammar Cloze (only the first answer slot is shown here)

7. Comprehension Cloze (only the first answer slot is shown here)


8. Editing (only the first answer slot is shown here)

9. Synthesis and Transformation

There you go. That�s all of it for now for English. We are still

working on the Graphic Stimulus Component and the

Punctuation MCQ question database and we are pretty

much almost there.


REPORTS

1. This is the individual e-assignment analysis.

2. This is an overall view of all the e-assignments done so far.

3. And this, like we say, is the mother of all summaries. It gives Bob an

up to date summary analysis of his overall performance in all of the

components.


THE FINAL CHAPTER

I know it seems like we have pretty much shown you

everything but there is still a lot more.

I still have not shown you the teacher�s module where the

teacher creates the assignments and posts them to his

students.

I have still not shown you how you how convenient it is for a

principal or teacher to view any of the student�s reports from

the comfort of their chair anytime, anywhere.

I have still not shown you how SOAR can be used to

generate printable worksheets that can be used in the

classroom.

I have still not shown you how the chat function works.

I have still not shown you how the children can

communicate by e-mail using the system.

I have still not shown you how we can customise the system

to show your school�s logo on the landing page.

I have still not shown you how I can bend my thumb 100° the

other way without using excessive force or spraining it.

I have still not shown you how you can share the e-

assignments that you have created with your colleagues.

And that is not even including the further eight

enhancements that we have made to SOAR in recent

months to make it even better.


You may have some questions like...

HOW MUCH?

Although we would very much like to eclipse Microsoft in terms of

earnings, we are keeping it affordable for now.

Call me (be nice), tell me how many students you would like SOAR

to cater to and I�ll tell you how much. You may subscribe for just

your class, or for your level or even the entire school.

WHO DO I CALL?

You can reach me at [email protected] or call me on my

mobile during office hours or whichever hours you are

comfortable with at +65-93892999 and ask to speak to Ram.

If you or your colleagues need a personal demonstration or you

just want to see how I look like, you can call me too.

FREE GIFTS?

Well we would love to give away a McDonald�s Happy Meal

voucher and a Condo at Sentosa Cove to every 88 888th

subscriber to the service but we only just started so that would

have to wait.

HOWEVER we are giving every school a chance to try out the

system by giving away a free trial to the first one or two

teachers from your primary school. This offer is only valid for

teachers who are teaching in Primary 3, 4, 5 or 6 as SOAR only

caters to those levels.

BUT if your school is convinced that this system is just what they

wanted and want to subscribe straight away then quickly read

the section on WHO DO I CALL? and call me quickly!

mailto:[email protected]

SOAR

Documents

Transcript of SOAR