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Subject:Re: Best CBT software From:Peter Neilson <neilson -at- windstream -dot- net> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Wed, 12 Mar 2008 16:53:34 -0400
Greg Sweet is right about getting the objectives nailed down first. My
wife and I have both been subjected to ridiculous computer-based
training in the past couple of years. There is some truly awful stuff
out there that makes learning a real pain. (Getting a good grade, on the
other hand, seems to be a snap.)
You might say, "... but the tools were good, they just weren't used
well." That may be the case, but if the tools do not suggest or even
enforce some kind of testing of the training modules, the results will
be of unknown quality at best.
Some of the systems permit the student to cheat easily; others make it
somewhat difficult. Most of them allow the course writer to create exams
that do not match the training items that were presented, so having a
way to cheat is very handy. Frequently the exams will get negatives
wrong, so that a question, "Pick the item that does not match the
criteria," has a "right" answer that BEST matches, and it's up to the
student to fool the system into letting him retake the question until he
discovers the right wrong answer.
Oh, I suppose I'm being a curmudgeon, and all this stuff is the Wave Of
The Future, and I'm being left behind with my horse and buggy where I
actually expect there to be right answers, and where I'm not supposed to
let the horse cut corners so I won't get overturned. Too much of a
fussbudget.
Let us know if there's actually something that's worthwhile.
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