WWW/Internet - Portal do Software Público Brasileiro

IADIS International Conference WWW/Internet 2010is undoubtedly not the best solution because it relies greatly on computer conditions and, therefore, might berather problematic in primary and secondary schools in Brazil.4.3 Functionality and the EnvironmentOur environment offers four basic functions within the user profile “examiner”, as follows: “about the tests”(displays a short summary of each available test for examiners to take a quick look), “schedule a test” (allowsexaminers to select a school, a test, a date and time), “give test” (instructs examiners about the guidelines tobe given to students for the successful interaction with the tool – meta-communication system-user isnecessary to the intellectual artifacts (De Souza,2005) and enables the follow-up of the test by examiners),and “check results” (is a projected though not implemented tool that displays a menu with availableinformation, which in turn may be compiled by the system, stored in its database and displayed in the mainscreen. In the future, the system should be able to generate a table containing three columns, the firstdisplaying the number of items (e.g. 1 to 70), the second indicating whether the task was done right (1) orwrong (0), and the third showing the total time taken to finish the task (in minutes). This table would becompatible with any electronic spreadsheet application. As for the user profile “student”, the environmentdisplays the list of available tests and, once a test has been selected, it enables the access to the test inquestion (Figure 3).Figure 3. Example of our solution for the TVRSLIt is up to the examiner to schedule a given test, and this can be done either in advance or right before thetest is given to a group of students. Once examiners have guided students through the system guidelines, theyallow students to log in. The moment a student enters the environment, he/she can choose the correct test andbegin, quite independently from other peers that may or may not be present in the lab. A little progress barproportionally and graphically showing the student’s progress in relation to the question on which s/he iscurrently working is constantly displayed, as well as a clock showing how much time has elapsed and howmuch time remains, so as to help students to manage their time while taking the test (Figures 3). Thisparticular feature may be enabled or disabled by researchers, who in turn are hierarchically abovesupervisors, followed by examiners. The researchers must let the supervisors know in which version thisfeature will be disabled, and they must then inform the examiners. These timing resources may be a greatsource of anxiety and distraction, causing examinees that are more inexperienced or prone to nervousness anddistraction to achieve worse results, hence being able to disable them is a precious tool. The effects of thesefeatures still need to be verified before their introduction5. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORKSFrom the point of view of the interface environment in relation to the user, we would like to stress therelevance of two resources added to the prototype. Firstly, it provides examiners with numerous advantages,including a set of guidelines to be explained to the students, a real time list containing the names of allstudents currently taking a given test, the number of the task on which a certain student is working at a givenmoment, and how much time has elapsed and how much time still remains for that student (a tool that may ormay not be enabled for students to access these pieces of information as well). These tools (especially the lastthree) are a great help for examiners to better manage the entire process. Secondly, our prototype includes atool that allows different examiners working on the same tests to communicate with one another, giving them353