Cut MAP Testing Setup by 66%

October 19, 2013 mbkkelsey Leave a comment

Update on this post: NWEA contacted me to let me know that they offer expanded support times for international schools – 3am GMT Monday to 1am GMT Saturday. There’s also a web form at http://www.nwea.org/about-nwea/contact-us if you prefer not to call. Finally, they’ve got support forums at http://community.nwea.org/ – it looks like a mixture between pedagogical and technical questions. Props to NWEA for being proactive and responsive.

I’ve had a steep learning curve this year: in addition to my responsibility over all things IT, I have three preps as a tech teacher, work with three elementary classes, and am the MAP testing coordinator. When you wear a lot of hats you look for efficiencies, and one of the most frustrating things about MAP testing was how obtuse and labor-intensive it was.

Cutting Per-Test Setup Time by 66% Through Scripting

The previous MAP testing coordinator told me to leave 15 minutes between sessions to set up tests. I quickly discerned that this was to do with the labor-intensive nature of MAP testing. Each station needed to be logged in and have the correct test selected. Between waiting for the login to occur and selecting the right MAP test for our Mac Minis, it would take about a minute per workstation. Luckily, our school had shelled out for an Apple Remote Desktop license. This enabled me to do a batch login for all of our testing stations simultaneously by executing the following Unix command, which just tells the workstation to simulate the keystrokes of an actual physical login:
osascript <<EndOfMyScript tell application "System Events" keystroke return delay 1.5 keystroke "username" delay 1.5 keystroke return delay 1.5 keystroke "password" delay 1.5 keystroke return end tell EndOfMyScript
Make sure you replace the credentials with those from your environment, run the commands as root, and save the above as a Template in ARD so you don’t need to type/copy-paste the commands each time:

Screen Shot 2013-10-19 at 11.23.39 PM — Click to zoom.

I also set up a user account that executed an Automator action at login to connect to the NTE share, launch TestTaker and send the login keystrokes to TestTaker:

*note that the script to log into the TestTaker problem – the last link in the chain of events in the Automator scrip – is a bit different, as per the code below. The 60-second delay at the beginning gives TestTaker time to launch before inputting proctor credentials:
osascript <<EndOfMyScript tell application "System Events" delay 60 keystroke "mapproctorusername" delay 1.5 keystroke tab delay 1.5 keystroke "mapproctorpassword" delay 1.5 keystroke return end tell EndOfMyScript
When all was said and done, I simply needed to select the class, student and test after sending the login commands from ARD. It cut our setup time from 15 minutes to 5 minutes.

On the Magic of Resumable Downloads

NWEA is so considerate to offer the MAP for Primary Grades audio files as a 1GB download that is non-resumable because it’s behind a secure login. Under absolutely ideal conditions, that download would complete on our school’s 2Mbit line in just over an hour. Except that our connection doesn’t get 2MBits/sec to NWEA’s servers, so the effective download rate is about 30KB/s. And guess what happens if the download gets interrupted, like it does EVERY TIME you try to download it?

You get to start all over again, from the beginning. That’s what.

Solution to downloading huge MAP for Primary Grades audio files if you’re on a slow, unreliable internet connection in West Africa? Get your parents to download it for you, then have them post it to your personal web hosting service. Then, download it using your favorite resumable HTTP downloader like wget or uget.

Or, if you have access to a diplomatic pouch, order the DVD. Ours arrived three days into our testing season, and the hand-written title etched in Sharpie ink made it clear that not many people go with that option.

Beating Obtuse Software Design

Here’s the funny thing about the NWEA TestTaker client (the software that students use to take MAP tests) for Mac: it’s not actually a native Mac program. If you open Activity Monitor while TestTaker is running, you’ll see a process for wine. No, not the delicious stress reliever we all know and love – quite the opposite. Wine is an open-source compatibility layer that allows you to run Windows programs on Linux systems without actually installing Windows. Apparently, NWEA decided it would be better (easier?) to take the Windows TestTaker and hack it to work with Macs by running it in Wine.

Now, I love open-source – my primary machine at home is a custom-built PC running Linux Mint Olivia. But a lot of open-source is not exactly end-user friendly, and it’s only free if your time is worthless (ie you’ll spend a lot of time setting it up). I’m actually shocked that TestTaker runs as well as it does, but it’s still prone to obtuse errors. If a test session closes down unexpectedly and you get a student set up on another station, there’s a good chance that TestTaker will give you a “resource busy” error until you manually log into the server and terminate the old client’s connection from there. Sometimes you’ll just get helpful errors like the one below that inexplicably disappear when you repeat the exact same action (usually trying to start a student’s test):

And most delightfully, sometimes you’ll launch the Mac client, only to be left with a black screen that you can only get out of by force-quitting the application

Getting Support

You know what’s really convenient? Calling the States at 8pm because you’re on GMT time and the support line is on the US Pacific Coast. That’s how you change admin passwords – there’s no web interface. I didn’t even bother to try, so confirmation emails still go to the old email of the guy I replaced (luckily he’s a stand-up guy and isn’t going to sell our students’ results on for money). ~~I wish NWEA had support forums so they could crowdsource solutions, rather than relying on a less-than-helpful knowledge base.~~ NWEA does have an international support line with expanded hours, as well as a web form to get in touch with people. There are also forums at community.nwea.org. I’ve asked them if they’ve considered doing a web chat support option – I met plenty of people at AISA for whom calling/Skyping is not an attractive option because of the poor telecom infrastructure in Africa.

A Note About Doing MAP Tests on a WiFi Connection

Don’t do it. Ever. It won’t work.

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Attention to Detail and Ghanaian Soap Operas

October 19, 2013 mbkkelsey Leave a comment

I’ve heard that it takes about six weeks for culture shock to set in. So far in Bamako I’m surprised that it hasn’t. Perhaps I’m just too busy between my new role at school, weekly squash at the equestrian club, and regular weightlifting at the only gym I could find on my side of the river. But while I’ve definitely felt that I while I live in a third-world country, I haven’t felt it as an overwhelming burden – until I left.

I departed school early on Friday to catch a plane to Accra for the Fall 2013 AISA educators’ conference, where I was to attend a session for Moodle administrators. One of my school’s perks is free transportation to the airport, so I was picked up in a school van with green diplomatic plates for the 20-minute drive south. As we approached the airport, traffic thinned out and gave way to well-manicured, deserted roads. Mali doesn’t have a population wealthy enough to afford regular air travel – leading to a chicken-and-egg problem where the dearth of passengers means that airlines must charge more and offer fewer flights, and because of the high ticket prices most Malians are discouraged from air travel. And so Bamako-Senou airport needs only a single terminal with a deserted check-in area and lonely immigration officer manned the exit desk. The security line was non-existant and the customs officer who checked my bags had time to chat me up and remark on his surprise that an American had learned some French before wishing me bon journey and sending me on my way. I was almost surprised to find that the departures lounge had a café selling croissants and Heineken along with a poorly-stocked duty free concession; I was less surprised to find every chair filled by French soldiers finishing after their tour of duty in the north.

My flight on Air Côte d’Ivoire opened its gates for boarding an hour early, and it took that long for all the passengers to finally board. This would be their procedure at my connection in Abidjan, too – as would the unusual (in the first world) practice of spraying insecticide into the overhead baggage compartments before takeoff, a practice that the announcement assured me in French and English holds “no harm to you.” I was expecting a cramped seat with well-worn armrests and tired chair fabric, but the plane was surprisingly new and the stewardesses surprisingly mindful, down to admonishing me to turn off my Kindle during takeoff and landing where the staff on an Arab airline would have shrugged and moved on.

The plane landed in Abidjan after a long descent over the muddy waters of the Atlantic coast, and as the plane pulled into its gate I was reminded again of just how poor Mali was. Out the window I could see not one but three OTHER commercial aircraft on the tarmac, and the duty free actually sold … well, things. And on my arrival in Ghana I was greeted by advertisements assuring me that I could use my ATM card at numerous ATM locations in Accra (to date, I have seen only one place in Bamako – my travel agent’s – that accepts plastic). I passed through immigration and past several signs warning immigration officers against negotiating the visa on arrival fees with travellers and warning passengers against being “sexual deviants” and “pedophiles.” The duty free in arrivals was already closed at 8:30pm, as were both exchange kiosks. I exchanged $100 with a man on the street outside for a much better rate that I would have gotten at my hotel and then set off in a cab.

In Bangkok you can get a 5-star hotel experience in the heart of downtown for $130 a night. In Brussels I paid that much for a room at the Sheraton Four Points just off Avenue Louise. In Ghana, that money will buy you a night at the Asa Royal Hotel. It was new enough that Tripadvisor had only one sparse review, and it quickly became clear that it was run by someone without much hospitality training or attention to detail. The bathroom lacked any amenities – even soap – and the shower head did not attach to the wall at all. The hotel didn’t have any Wifi, although a friendly employee promised me that he would buy a SIM card and credit the next day. The bed was covered by thin linens that reminded of the industrial 2-ply toilet paper in the basement bathrooms at Northwestern. The TV showed Catholic masses and Ghanian soap operas that encompassed a confusing mixture of country living, hair braiding, and domestic violence. But the facilities were generally clean and the location was less than ten minutes by foot to La Palm Royal hotel, where I would have spent three times that much, so the hotel was more than adequate for my purposes.

News, Teaching, Technology

Summer Reflections

October 2, 2013 mbkkelsey Leave a comment

A dilemma of being an international school teacher is that when you return to your home country in the summer you’re more often than not homeless and relegated to crashing on couches or begging rooms from family. And you’ve got to meet the obligation of seeing family and friends, even when that takes you across the continent in the few short weeks you have.

This year I spent a week in Belgium visiting a friend and enjoying Kasteel, Delirium Tremens, Leffe, and Hoegaarden before heading off to DC for the week-long JOSTI conference, a series of technology-oriented seminars sponsored by the State Department for international school teachers. Like other conferences I’d been to, this one had a mix of valuable and forgettable sessions. Some were useful hands-on demonstrations of a teaching practice like the flipped classroom, while others were merely presentations of lists of apps, tools, and websites that we might find useful in the classroom. I found that the most useful sessions had four components:

A summary of relevant standards, philosophies, and other pedagogical considerations as background.
A demonstration of the tool or activity
Hands-on activities where teachers relate the presented information to their own classrooms
A summary of best practices related to the tool or activity

It’s hard to fit all that into 90 minutes, but the conference did an excellent job of giving teachers time to process and network, and this is where the real value of the conference was. From the pre-conference happy hour to a baseball game to exploration of DC landmarks, the JOSTI organizers made sure not only that we had fun but that we had plenty of time to compare notes and make connections while doing it. The State Dept also selects a very diverse group of educators, both foreign- and local-hire from every geography from Caracas to Curacao, Bamako to Hyderabad, Kuala Lumpur to Manila. Considering that it’s room, board and tuition paid, I think tech-oriented educators should really consider it, especially those at schools far from big regional tech conferences.

The rest of the summer was spent shuttling between WA, BC, ON, and NY visiting family. We learned that BC wineries make some delicious Gewurtztraminers, Rieslings, and Madeiras among the stunning hills overlooking the Okanagan Lake; that Mt. Rainier boasts the highest snowfall in the continental US; and that France requires you to clear your pet through customs when making any connection through Paris. This created quite a snarl in our travel plans since we learned of the requirement too late to secure the requisite paperwork to clear EU customs, so instead of flying my girlfriend and dog through Paris via JFK as planned, we were rebooking her flight a day before her scheduled departure. In the end I ended up driving her 10 hours to DC to pick up an Ethiopian flight to Bamako via Addis Abbaba, and then driving another five to New York to catch my flight from JFK. We met safe and sound in Bamako, glad to have the world’s worst itinerary behind us.

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