Chalkface Blog

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  • Happy Birthday

    It’s Yacapaca’s birthday, exactly two years since we started the project. And, according to Sergej, we shall today make our 1000th ‘commit’ (update) to the software itself. That’s not quite 1000 improvements because it includes all the original development effort, but it’s close.

    What’s both fascinating and cheering is not just how it’s grown, but how fast it is growing now. I last reported student numbers at 100,000 on 21st May; today they will hit 125,000. That’s 25% growth in just two months; the fastest growth rate in Yacapaca’s history.

    From anecdotal evidence, what underlies the growth spurt is that the system is now strong enough for teachers to confidently recommend it to colleagues as the best place to create and run their own assessments.

    Credit for the quality of the software goes entirely to the simply amazing development team in Kharkov.

  • 5000 teachers now Yacapaca members

    We are cracking champagne this afternoon having just signed up our 5,000th teacher on Yacapaca!

    I am delighted to welcome Alison Bayley of Thomas Peacocke Community College in Rye to our growing community. Alison, to celebrate we’ve just given you 1000 free credits on the system. Enjoy!

  • High praise

    Some things are just too good not to share, such as this comment from Jane Weller of Cheam High School‘s Maths dept.

    Absolutely brilliant! I’ve never known my class so engrossed in a lesson. They worked almost in silence on the survey I’d set up, then were challenging each other on the multiplication & division tests. I can’t stop telling people about it!

    Jane has written a really nice Learning Styles survey. I’d like to show it off to you, but so far she is keeping it in her private area on Yacapaca, so you’ll just have to imagine what it might look like – assuming your learning style is predominantly visual, that is.

    Jane is moving to Overton Grange school in September. Something tells me they are in for a treat.

  • eAssessment training days

    A particular pleasure recently has been to observe the increasing trend of early Yacapaca adopters seeking to induct colleagues. It is an extra level of validation when somebody thinks that what you are doing is good enough to share with their friends. And I’m a sucker for flattery.

    These pioneering adopters tend to learn by tinkering about. They don’t just not need formal training, they don’t want it. So we don’t didn’t offer it.

    Now things have changed. The teachers who are joining Yacapaca on the strength of the recommendation of a colleague are typically more pragmatic people. They want to know how they can do assessment more effectively, using less of their own time, using an online system.

    To meet that need, we have set up a series of four one-day eAssessment training events around the country. The aim is to give a strong enough grounding that you can use Yacapaca as a day-to-day assessment tool in any subject. We will cover both the objective (multiple choice etc) and subjective (ePortfolio & short text) sides of the system.

    • Birmingham – Friday, July 7th.
    • Milton Keynes – Monday, July 10th (run in conjunction with Milton Keynes LEA and focusing on PSHE)
    • Swansea/Port Tabot – Friday, July 14th
    • Guildford – Tuesday, 18th July

    Cost £95.00 including lunch
    to book call Chalkface on 0800 781 8858
    or email sonia_n@chalkface.com

    Day Plan

    The day will cover Yacapaca from start to finish:

    Day-to-day usage

    • Adding students and additional teachers
    • Selecting and setting tests
    • Analysing results (including advanced analysis)

    Authoring your own tests

    • Creating different question types (multiple choice, cloze, survey)
    • Managing your question bank
    • Constructing multiple tests from a single bank

    Writing for publication

    • Writing stems with clarity
    • Options that that facilitate guessing and ‘gaming’, and how to avoid them
    • Writing formative feedback that best facilitates learning

    ePortfolios and Short-Text resources

    • Basic setup of the ePortfolio module
    • Setting and monitoring tasks
    • Authoring portfolio tasks
    • Converting MS Word worksheets into interactive online resources
    • Writing ePortfolio resources for publication

    The group will be kept small to ensure personal attention to each delegate, so early booking is advisable.

    If you are planning to purchase a Yacapaca site license for your school, we can also provide this same training course on-site. Currently we won’t charge for this, but will require you to help us market the event to teachers from other schools near you.

  • ePortfolio integration

    This evening we are uploading the next major improvement to Yacapaca. The ePortfolio is now integrated into Yacapaca for both teachers and students.

    Teacher module

    As teacher, you will see a ‘gateway button’ in the Yacapaca banner. This will take you into the ePortfolio module. You will find most of it self-explanatory, but please do refer to the ePortfolio Instructions if you get stuck.

    There are assessment tasks on the system already for DiDA, the GCSEs in Applied Business and Health and Social Care, and ICT for ABE. But over and above that, it really is extremely easy to create your own ePortfolio tasks.

    Student module

    The student ePortfolio module is integrated via a new button in the top left of the banner. This leads to a list of all ePortfolio assignments, from where the student proceeds into the specific task. That list will be empty until/unless you set some assignments.

    We’re not charging a bean for the ePortfolio until September, so if you want to know what the possibilities of ePortfolio working are, now is the time go and have a play! It has so many creative possibilities that it’s really up to you how you want to use it.