<div dir="ltr">Thanks; I'll go ahead and reach out to him. I know there are writing tools available online that we can use once we have the text samples, but obviously they're not customized for Haitian Creole. A lot of the text analysis will probably be more qualitative initially as we read through what the students wrote and try to draw useful conclusions from it. <div><br></div><div>Out of curiosity: what sort of information becomes relevant when analyzing a Turtle Art project?</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 5:15 PM, Walter Bender <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:walter.bender@gmail.com" target="_blank">walter.bender@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5">On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 5:10 PM, Sora Edwards-Thro <<a href="mailto:sora@unleashkids.org">sora@unleashkids.org</a>> wrote:<br>
> Thanks for sharing, Walter. Evaluation is a key component of my own research<br>
> on kids using the XO-1 laptops to develop as readers and authors. Here is<br>
> the data we hope to collect:<br>
><br>
> -reading habits<br>
> We will monitor which books individual students are downloading from<br>
> the server. We will also see the comments and rating readers leave on the<br>
> books.<br>
> -writing habits<br>
> We will analyze writing samples published to the server for<br>
> vocabulary and grammatical complexity. The article is correct to point out<br>
> that these are key predictors of future success. I think it would be a good<br>
> idea to ask the students some of the questions proposed in the article and<br>
> see their responses.<br>
> -spoken stories<br>
> For students who are not yet confident as writers, we hope to also<br>
> collect audio samples of oral storytelling / responses to prompts in order<br>
> to gauge their verbal and narrative abilities.<br>
> -EGRA test results<br>
> the EGRA test measures reading level by assessing students' ability<br>
> to recognize letters, sound out words, and comprehend short passages. It's<br>
> been adapted for Haiti and it's used in Africa as well. I don't really like<br>
> it (why so much emphasis on sounding out words, and only one section devoted<br>
> to comprehension, when the goal of reading is comprehension?), but we're<br>
> using it because USAID likes it and we like getting money from them / people<br>
> who trust them.<br>
><br>
> I remember talking to Martin Dluhos a little bit about his work, but I have<br>
> to admit I don't know much about the possibilities for looking at how<br>
> students are spending their time via the Journal. Where can I go to find out<br>
> more?<br>
><br>
> On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 2:43 PM, Dr. Gerald Ardito <<a href="mailto:gerald.ardito@gmail.com">gerald.ardito@gmail.com</a>><br>
> wrote:<br>
>><br>
>> Walter,<br>
>><br>
>> I agree with your position about this. I often think of it in these terms:<br>
>> we want to talk about depth of learning and not just proficiency in regards<br>
>> to skills and content. To do that, we need to offer al "alternative world"<br>
>> to the one that argues for more and more high stakes testing. The tools you<br>
>> propose seem really consistent with that.<br>
>> And thanks for sharing the article.<br>
>> Gerald<br>
>><br>
>> On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 2:09 PM, Walter Bender <<a href="mailto:walter.bender@gmail.com">walter.bender@gmail.com</a>><br>
>> wrote:<br>
>>><br>
>>> Amidst all the discussion about the future of Sugar, it would be good<br>
>>> to keep in mind what more we can do in terms of analyitics and<br>
>>> evaluation. We have a pretty decent mechanism (wrtiten by Martin) for<br>
>>> data gathering about what kids do; the portfolio for assessing what<br>
>>> they have done; and a few rubrics for tying together some of these<br>
>>> data. The ideas expressed in [1] suggest we could do more.<br>
>>><br>
>>> regards.<br>
>>><br>
>>> -walter<br>
>>><br>
>>> [1]<br>
>>> <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2015/02/26/things-every-kid-should-master/uM72LGr63zeaStOp9zGyrJ/story.html" target="_blank">http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2015/02/26/things-every-kid-should-master/uM72LGr63zeaStOp9zGyrJ/story.html</a><br>
>>><br>
>>> --<br>
>>> Walter Bender<br>
>>> Sugar Labs<br>
>>> <a href="http://www.sugarlabs.org" target="_blank">http://www.sugarlabs.org</a><br>
>>> _______________________________________________<br>
>>> Sugar-devel mailing list<br>
>>> <a href="mailto:Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org">Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org</a><br>
>>> <a href="http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel" target="_blank">http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel</a><br>
>><br>
>><br>
>><br>
>> _______________________________________________<br>
>> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)<br>
>> <a href="mailto:IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org">IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org</a><br>
>> <a href="http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep" target="_blank">http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep</a><br>
><br>
><br>
<br>
</div></div>Martin Abente can tell you more about the data collection side of<br>
Sugar (all of that work is in the new release, I believe. It is a<br>
matter of turning on a server.) Regarding analyzing the writing<br>
samples, etc. we don't have any automated tools for that in place. (We<br>
do have some tools for analyzing Turtle Art projects). We also have<br>
some tools for audio storytelling (the Story activity).<br>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
-walter<br>
</font></span><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br>
--<br>
Walter Bender<br>
Sugar Labs<br>
<a href="http://www.sugarlabs.org" target="_blank">http://www.sugarlabs.org</a><br>
</div></div></blockquote></div><br></div>