Field Test Results

Field Test Results
The multimedia instructional component was field tested by another teacher that I work with. I am the only teacher in the building who teaches intermediate ESL, but she has many of my students for 6th grade reading. We reviewed the web site for Esperanza Rising and have made changes based on comments she made. Some of the comments she made were not able to be changed and those are noted as well. The final product is much better after the changes made.
The first comment she made was about parental involvement. Due to the general language barrier, I communicate through an aide. She and I will construct a letter to the parents letting them know what I am doing and the reason why their child will need an email address if they do not already have one. If they have a problem with this, all answers will be assessed on paper.
The comments she made about the content of the web site are a few spelling and punctuation errors which were corrected on the spot. She acted as a student would by taking the quiz me and test questions. She wanted to know where the finished essays went when she clicked submit. . I do not know the answer to this question. She also wanted to know about the point scale. I told her that I could not get the tests to score, but I was not sure why. She also wanted to add links to the pictures so the students could go to the site and look at other pictures. I explained to her that those pictures are from the Google images pages and there was no reason why they should be looking at other pictures of potatoes, for example, because it had nothing to do with the story. She agreed. She did suggest that for her ADHD or dyslexia students having a listening component would benefit their learning. I completely agreed, and have added a wav file to each page that will read the summary to the student. These ideas and suggestion have made my multimedia instructional component much better and more beneficial.
We also discussed the time allotted to the novel. She reads a novel each six weeks. My goal is to have this book finished within a six week period. I know, however, that the first time there will be obstacles to work through. I will try my best to stick to the six week goal. The last idea she had was to make a research component at the end of the novel instead of the post-reading activities I have listed. I told her that there would be a research/writing component that is not listed on the web site. It is listed separately in my assessment plan, which I showed her and suffices as a research/writing component.
The field test went very well. She was excited about the software I used to create the program, Softchalk. I informed her about the free trial and she might use it for a novel in her class. She was a good person to discuss this with because she is used to at-risk students as well as honor students. Her suggestion for enhancing the writing component was to have the students write the summaries for each chapter; she would make her honor students write this part. I feel that if the students are writing throughout the novel on the blogs and those blogs are of ample writing, the recorded summaries are beneficial as they are. The field test was very informative and beneficial for the both of us.