Lesson 8

I am skipping over Lesson 7 because I am working from home. I'll submit it later.

I thought the test experience at Learning Express Library was very positive. Unfortunately, the initial homepage seems cluttered and frenetic. As a librarian, I'll probably need to walk patrons through registering and finding the right tests or ebooks the first time they use the site.

I looked through tests under Elementary Education. The promotional materials claim the tests are for ages 4 years to adult, but judging by the elementary math section it looks like they meant 4th grade through adult. 4th grade is the earliest level math test I could find offered. I took Algebraic Thinking and Patterns. The test loaded quickly; instructions were clear; scoring was accurate; the explanations were very clear and complete. I especially liked that they explained all the answer choices and why each was correct or incorrect. The "Congratulations" remark just before you view your test results was really encouraging.

I also looked at the high school Grammar Practice 1 exam. The initial instructions were totally confusing and unnecessary. They would stop patrons before they even got to the first question. In the actual test, the instructions are repeated just prior to the group of questions you need them for, and the questions are perfectly clear. Here again, the librarian would need to walk many testers through the first few steps in order for them to get the benefit of the exam. This is unfortunate, because some users will just quit and never ask a librarian for help and thus never reap the benenfits of this very useful resource.

I will probably alert my elementary students' parents to this site for summer review.

I looked at two ebooks, "Think You Know Your Vocabulary" and "Algebra Success in 20 Minutes/Day." Both took literally several minutes to load, which could be frustrating for patrons on limited time internet access computers. Once loaded, the program moved between pages quickly. For the visually impaired, the adjustable font size is helpful. This site really opens up the world of self-education to anyone on almost any imaginable topic!