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On July 1, 2012, Trevor Holster and Bill Pellowe will give a presentation / workshop during the 5th Annual Extensive Reading Seminar in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture on the Extensive Reading Survey add-on for MOARS. MOARS is a free, open-source Mobile Audience Response System for students to use with iPod Touch, iPhones, and other mobile browsers.

The Extensive Reading Survey add-on is currently released as version 1 Beta. It is available for download in the MOARS download section.

Our presentation time is TBA. Here's the abstract:

Using a Mobile Audience Response System to Monitor Extensive Reading

Trevor A. Holster (Fukuoka Women's University) and Bill Pellowe (Kinki University)

Extensive reading (ER) requires comprehension of large quantities of interesting text of appropriate difficulty. Following a pilot experiment using paper surveys, the presenters developed an open-source module for a mobile-device-compatible survey system to collect data from students about ER. Analysis using many-faceted Rasch measurement (MRFM) indicated reliable measurement. This workshop demonstrates the module, and how it generates data easily imported into MFRM software, not only helping teachers monitor students' ER, but also informing text recommendations and future purchasing decisions. No previous experience with the software demonstrated is assumed.