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Dear subscriber,

Here in New York State we are closing out our school year. I know I am not alone in feeling like the year posed unusual challenges. It is my hope that Innovation Assessments was a great help to you in whatever were your own challenges teaching online. May I offer that, after some well-earned rest, perhaps you would consider getting to know more of the features of the site as we all prepare for the next academic year? The site remains free until 31 July, after which a subscription will be needed in order to generate new tasks.

Keep those suggestions coming! I would especially be interested in ideas from those subscribers from the UK in how to make this site fit your needs. You can find out more about recent and upcoming projects below.

Best regards,
David Jones

New at Innovation Assessments

"Tutor": Students can rehearse multiple-choice or matching terms with the tutor's help. The AI will reword questions occasionally and present key words and phrases for association in study.
"User Manual": Access the entire manual (https://www.innovationassessments.com/manual) or articles associated with each control linked throughout the site. Look for the little green button!
You can now add elements to the course playlist more precisely by clicking the green "+" button above where you wish to have the new element placed.
The term matching system has been completely updated.
Students who complete a task or test that was linked from your Google Classroom will now be referred back to Classroom in most tasks.

Tips for Testing Remotely

Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to administer tests remotely. With the help of my colleague in the math department, I did a study of multiple-choice test scores for my classes. We compared scores before and after remote learning started. We were looking for statistical variations indicating cheating when taking tests online. Since I use Innovation Assessments both in class and online, I was in a unique position to compare. Results showed no significant difference that would give reason to suspect the online grades.

Here are some tips to secure online multiple-choice testing at Innovation Assessments:

Tests can be scheduled to only open for students during a certain time period or to single-use unlock key codes.
Tests can be timed, thus limiting lookup opportunities in book or paper form (average students need around 20 seconds per question, about a minute per question for stimulus-based multiple-choice).
Student screens can be monitored during testing using third party service.
The test window locks up if students browse away.
Test detects full screen mode so that side-by-side answers not possible without teacher knowing.
A right click for context menu (some plugins could give the answers sometimes like Grammarly) deletes the question for no credit on that question
Test detects screen resizing.
Use questions from test banks that students have not seen.
Parents or tutors can be authorized as proctors on site using the proctor access system (under the Utilities tab).

Upcoming Projects

Greater integration with Google Classroom
More user manual topics and "how to's"
Installation of "Proctor" AI for multiple-choice
Upgraded student accounts management
Upgraded merit badge management