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An Interview with Dr. Joe Nichols
- By Michael F. Shaughnessy Senior Columnist EducationNews.org
- Published 02/7/2007
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Michael F. Shaughnessy Senior Columnist EducationNews.org
Dr. Shaughnessy is currently Professor in Educational Studies and is a Consulting Editor for Gifted Education International and Educational Psychology Review. In addition, he writes for www.EdNews.org and the International Journal of Theory and Research in Education. He has taught students with mental retardation, learning disabilities and gifted. He is on the Governor's Traumatic Brain Injury Advisory Council and the Gifted Education Advisory Board in New Mexico. He is also a school psychologist and conducts in-services and workshops on various topics.
View all articles by Michael F. Shaughnessy Senior Columnist EducationNews.orgAn Interview with Dr. Joe Nichols
Michael F. Shaughnessy Senior Columnist EdNews.org
Eastern New Mexico University
Dr. Joe Nichols is the CEO and founder of Prasolus, an educational enhancement process designed to accelerate the learning, engagement, and achievement of K-12 students. He recently completed doctoral dissertation research that led to the discovery of an ever-widening gap between traditional paper-based teachers and what he terms “digital learners.”
As an emerging evaluation expert and organizational theorist, Dr. Nichols’ doctoral work focused within the educational administration and leadership arena, with a focus on multivariate classification theory, pattern recognition, and modeling.
For years, Dr. Nichols has focused his energies on the K-12 public schooling partition of the educational community and has become an international expert related to evaluating and enhancing K-12 schools globally and developing meaningful programs and practices in an effort to improve the schooling process for all primary participants.
In this interview he responds to questions about his program and reflects on educational ideas.
1) First of all, what exactly is Prasolus?
Prasolus is a K-12 education enhancement enterprise that equips classrooms with appropriate technology utilization and supportive training in order to bridge the ever-widening divide between traditional paper-based teachers and digital learners. As noted by many, the “divide” results from factors ranging from socio-economic and generational gaps between teachers and students to irrelevant and inappropriate technology utilization in the classroom. As a result, students are not able to identify with the curriculum as a concrete platform for learning; too often, the curriculum and learning activities seem abstract and obsolete to 21st century learners. Prasolus works collaboratively with teachers to appropriately “digitize” certain segments of their curriculum and facilitate appropriate utilization with relevant technology, allowing all students to identify and engage with the learning material. In short, our mission is to nurture a mindset that encourages the heart and soul of a dedicated educator, thereby unleashing the power of collaboration. Consequently, a reflective practitioner can answer the following question from Robert Greenleaf in the affirmative: “Did those served grow as persons?”
The real power behind our process is our web-based application called “Eddy,” which provides teachers a user-friendly mechanism for content entry and immediate and meaningful feedback on students’ learning of the concepts being taught. Using Eddy, the teachers “digitize” their assignments, notes, learning materials, etc. by creating, uploading, or sharing questions and corresponding answers into Eddy by themselves or in collaboration with other educators, locally or globally. The program runs on all the devices in the kids’ hands. When students answer questions, or complete other relevant learning activities, their completed work can be evaluated and analyzed immediately by their teacher. Students can see their results instantaneously, as can their parents and even schools administrators, if they so desire. Teachers can immediately see who is “getting it” and who is not, thereby allowing their pedagogical experience to guide them via the information they now have available relative to each student or group of students – allowing for enhanced learning over time. Consequently, teachers can dynamically tailor the curriculum to individual learning needs by assigning students questions of varying complexity with the touch of a button.
With the convergence of appropriate technology, a robust program like Eddy, a cadre of dedicated educators, and our proactive and supportive professional development, Prasolus facilitates the dramatic acceleration of student learning, engagement, and achievement; increases teacher efficiency, effectiveness, and efficacy; results in more involved administrators; and equips parents with timely information about their child’s learning.
2) How did you go about developing it?
The concept for the Prasolus process came out of my doctoral dissertation at Baylor University starting in 2001. I began by studying student dropouts and teacher attrition. I analyzed the organizational structure via an operations research and “systems-thinking” framework with a focus on the change process. While considering the process of change, I began to see the fundamental flaws in the utilization of technology in most schools. I was keenly aware of the digital divide among the haves and the have-nots among students, but the generational digital divide between students and teachers was alarming. With an understanding of the “frustration index” within the teaching pool and the resultant exodus rate, I was certain that teachers did not complain because they did not care - on the contrary they only complained because they care greatly. As a result, I began to theorize if the frustration index could be mitigated for both teachers and students if the educational and learning ideal could be realized.
Once I had the conceptual framework in place, the next hurdle was determining which technology would offer the most appropriate platform for the process. Despite great strides in technology, schools still fall short of providing a seamless, convenient, robust, and reliable technology support structure for all students, teachers, and administrators. One would argue this is due to “quick fix” or “silver-bullet” aspirations or mindsets – granted set forth with the best of intentions. Moreover, today’s desktop computers and Internet usages are not the educational ideal. A look into almost any classroom with a sizable number of computers reveals all kinds of problems related to the computers’ size, weight, shape, and requirements for multiple cords and wires. Similarly, today’s World Wide Web is disorganized, of uneven quality, and overrun with advertising.
In reality, the world is becoming increasing wireless, portable, and information hungry. Ubiquitous computing, where each student and teacher has one internet-connected wireless computing device for use in both the classroom and at home, must become the new norm. Also, without technology customized to students’ needs, and a cohesive program to integrate the curriculum into the technology, efforts at improvement are just like slapping a band-aid on an open wound that won’t stop bleeding. Fortunately, we have found a way to integrate all of the above ideas into schools into a practical, deliverable, and scalable solution that will usher classrooms into the 21st century.
We developed the Prasolus process in stages. The first aspect of our solution involved identifying the barriers of change within any organization, namely schools, and then identifying potential pathways that would lead to desired goals for all concerned parties. Secondly, we needed to identify appropriate, low-cost, durable, and reliable technology for the kids, teachers, and administrators. We chose handheld devices for their scale and portability. These are just end-user tools within the larger framework of our ‘technological infrastructure’ system. The crux of our solution is our web-based application called “Eddy.” Eddy is the heart of the system, where teachers develop and monitor their curriculums, share learning material with students, and evaluate students’ progress. Thereby, empowering administrators and parents with relevant information about the daily activities of students and their child, respectively.
3) In your “Prasolus” curriculum, what happens to art, music, physical education and home economics?
Prasolus does not have its own curriculum; we provide the platform for teachers to digitize their approved and desired curriculum. We have seen motivated and passionate educators successfully adapt Prasolus to reading, math, science, social studies, ESL and foreign language classes; and the opportunities for other applications in the future are boundless. Granted the curriculum is the “running course” with specific concepts and subject matter criteria that need evaluating and assessing. With that in mind, any running course that uses a question and answer format to evaluate or assess student learning can be adapted to Prasolus. In art history, for example, teachers can upload images for students to identify.
Of course, there are still some areas in education that cannot be “digitized,” nor should they be. Working with a computer cannot replace the exhilaration of physical exercise or the magical feeling of playing an instrument. We are not here to replace the curriculum; we are here to support the adaptation and delivery of it for the 21st century so that, wherever possible, students can become more engaged and, in turn, identify more with the concepts and subject matter criteria being taught.
4) What about that aspect of school that tries to train our children to be leaders, cooperative individuals and well rounded citizens?
Leadership is one of the most valuable skills that students can learn in school. Sadly, it is often a trait that only comes out for those students lucky enough to excel in physical sports, or who have the confidence to run for student office. Prasolus can help identify new opportunities for leadership by revealing students’ abilities that may get missed in a traditional environment. For example, in a paper-based environment, teachers cannot tailor the curriculum to the individual, or at least it is extremely difficult for many. Everyone gets the same test and the same amount of time to complete assignments if they have been identified as a “normal” student. Furthermore, the learning environment is “asynchronous” - evidenced by assignments being graded and returned several days later at best, at which point teachers have already moved on to new material and students have lost interest with respect to their performance. In such an environment, there is little room for real-time customization of the curriculum. As a result, some really bright students can get mislabeled as poor students or discipline problems because they appear to be disengaged from the learning environment. In actuality, these students might just be bored with the material and ready for something more challenging.
What Prasolus does is reveal instantaneously who is grasping the learning concepts and who is not. In a Prasolus classroom, a bright student who may not otherwise “show up” would be identified, assigned more advanced work, and could even be empowered to coach other students. Leadership potential could be identified and honed, rather than missed or ignored. That is just one example of a leadership opportunity that can come out of this.
5) How does Prasolus cope with children who might be mentally retarded, autistic, or have some type of head or brain injury?
Prasolus does not yet have a specific application geared toward children with these kinds of disabilities; however we already know that dedicated educators are utilizing the Eddy interface and incorporating learning material for these particular students. We developed the system to be “user-defined and populated.” Students with these types of learning needs, and the educators that serve them, are the “air” that empowers us to continue to enhance and refine the user experience that will further allow them to continue to customize their learning materials for greater engagement and learning. In the simplest terms, we designed Eddy so that teachers and students can interact with the system regardless of their location on the bell curve.
6) How long have you been keeping data on your system?
We began tracking the performance of our system in a testing environment since its inception in 2006. In 2000, it was still only myself in a “paper-based” world. Now that we’ve been implemented in three school districts, we have collected data from a number of classrooms for a full semester. Dr. Dovalee Dorsett, a large database quantitative statistician, and Dr. Patrick L. Odell, an evaluation expert will begin the process of formally evaluating the effectiveness of the program and process on various learning environments.
7) What is wrong with paper based teaching and teachers that rely on paper?
Barth suggests the problem with schools “is not that they are not what they once were – the problem is they are exactly what they once were.” I do not completely agree with Barth, but I understand what he is saying from a theoretical and practical perspective. The fact is, paper-based teaching has limitations, in that the questions are pre-selected based on the teachers’ criteria rather than the students’ response. Moreover, today’s learners, who thrive on technology at home and after school, are expected to “power down” as soon as they enter the classroom – yet we expect them to remain enthusiastic and engaged. The paper-based learning environment is often stale and tasteless for today’s digital learners.
In a technologically facilitated learning environment, the learning experience is more interactive and organic, where the learning material and activities are adapted to the students’ capabilities rather than the constraints of time on teachers. Of course, the teacher has the ability to set the standards, whereby a certain level of competency is guaranteed by every question. The real advantage is that students who are more capable are identified immediately and assigned more challenging work, and contrarily, those who are struggling are dynamically granted opportunities to gain ground with current expectations.
Moreover, if some advanced students are not identified until later, they may miss opportunities to be encouraged and challenged daily to perform and advance within the boundaries of their mental proclivities. The same can be said about those students that are struggling. If the educational pace exceeds their current capabilities, then frustration and lack of engagement result. Prasolus gives teachers the ability to individualize the system so that proper pacing can be achieved within the boundaries of time.
8) How does your system teach writing, reading and spelling?
The Prasolus process works with any subject that can be taught in a question and answer format. The questions and corresponding answers can come in different forms, such as multiple choice, true/false, short answer, essay, rank order, matching, etc. – in short there are about 20 various question formats. Writing is also possible via a notepad feature, where students write with a stylus. Another benefit of Prasolus is that each handheld device is equipped with a collapsible keyboard, which ensures that students will develop typing capability, a necessary workplace skill, from an early age. Students also develop an aptitude and a passion for technology at an early age, which is a vital skill for the 21st century workplace. So, as teachers are facilitating writing, reading and spelling activities, we are also giving kids real world experience in a modern setting. That is the key to Prasolus: making traditional learning subjects and materials relevant to today’s digital learner, facilitated by a dedicated educator.
9) What question have I neglected to ask?
What is the future of Prasolus?
An even better question might be, “How will Prasolus shape the future?” The effects of Prasolus are far-reaching. Prasolus has so far been applied to classrooms in three school districts in Texas. These superintendents have unanimously called it, “the future of education.” We believe the real future lies in connecting classrooms together on a global scale. The Prasolus process is under consideration by several schools in Guadalajara, Mexico, and Vietnam is also a focus for us right now. Through Prasolus, students and teachers are introduced to learning environments in other countries, which creates an educational experience that approximates the global society in which we all live.
Prasolus can open so many opportunities for dynamic thought exchange between teachers and students in other geographical locations. Can you imagine a learning exercise where American students partner with students in Asia and Mexico? One of the foreign teachers from a “partner” classroom could then visit the American classroom, giving students actual pictures and notes from their students. There are infinite scenarios in which Prasolus could be applied to develop cultural awareness and give students a virtual international experience. The result could be knowledge sharing that spans the globe: a “borderless” classroom that prepares students for globalization, which is a hallmark of the 21st century work environment and the modern world in which we live.
Published February 8, 2007
Eastern New Mexico University
Dr. Joe Nichols is the CEO and founder of Prasolus, an educational enhancement process designed to accelerate the learning, engagement, and achievement of K-12 students. He recently completed doctoral dissertation research that led to the discovery of an ever-widening gap between traditional paper-based teachers and what he terms “digital learners.”
As an emerging evaluation expert and organizational theorist, Dr. Nichols’ doctoral work focused within the educational administration and leadership arena, with a focus on multivariate classification theory, pattern recognition, and modeling.
For years, Dr. Nichols has focused his energies on the K-12 public schooling partition of the educational community and has become an international expert related to evaluating and enhancing K-12 schools globally and developing meaningful programs and practices in an effort to improve the schooling process for all primary participants.
In this interview he responds to questions about his program and reflects on educational ideas.
1) First of all, what exactly is Prasolus?
Prasolus is a K-12 education enhancement enterprise that equips classrooms with appropriate technology utilization and supportive training in order to bridge the ever-widening divide between traditional paper-based teachers and digital learners. As noted by many, the “divide” results from factors ranging from socio-economic and generational gaps between teachers and students to irrelevant and inappropriate technology utilization in the classroom. As a result, students are not able to identify with the curriculum as a concrete platform for learning; too often, the curriculum and learning activities seem abstract and obsolete to 21st century learners. Prasolus works collaboratively with teachers to appropriately “digitize” certain segments of their curriculum and facilitate appropriate utilization with relevant technology, allowing all students to identify and engage with the learning material. In short, our mission is to nurture a mindset that encourages the heart and soul of a dedicated educator, thereby unleashing the power of collaboration. Consequently, a reflective practitioner can answer the following question from Robert Greenleaf in the affirmative: “Did those served grow as persons?”
The real power behind our process is our web-based application called “Eddy,” which provides teachers a user-friendly mechanism for content entry and immediate and meaningful feedback on students’ learning of the concepts being taught. Using Eddy, the teachers “digitize” their assignments, notes, learning materials, etc. by creating, uploading, or sharing questions and corresponding answers into Eddy by themselves or in collaboration with other educators, locally or globally. The program runs on all the devices in the kids’ hands. When students answer questions, or complete other relevant learning activities, their completed work can be evaluated and analyzed immediately by their teacher. Students can see their results instantaneously, as can their parents and even schools administrators, if they so desire. Teachers can immediately see who is “getting it” and who is not, thereby allowing their pedagogical experience to guide them via the information they now have available relative to each student or group of students – allowing for enhanced learning over time. Consequently, teachers can dynamically tailor the curriculum to individual learning needs by assigning students questions of varying complexity with the touch of a button.
With the convergence of appropriate technology, a robust program like Eddy, a cadre of dedicated educators, and our proactive and supportive professional development, Prasolus facilitates the dramatic acceleration of student learning, engagement, and achievement; increases teacher efficiency, effectiveness, and efficacy; results in more involved administrators; and equips parents with timely information about their child’s learning.
2) How did you go about developing it?
The concept for the Prasolus process came out of my doctoral dissertation at Baylor University starting in 2001. I began by studying student dropouts and teacher attrition. I analyzed the organizational structure via an operations research and “systems-thinking” framework with a focus on the change process. While considering the process of change, I began to see the fundamental flaws in the utilization of technology in most schools. I was keenly aware of the digital divide among the haves and the have-nots among students, but the generational digital divide between students and teachers was alarming. With an understanding of the “frustration index” within the teaching pool and the resultant exodus rate, I was certain that teachers did not complain because they did not care - on the contrary they only complained because they care greatly. As a result, I began to theorize if the frustration index could be mitigated for both teachers and students if the educational and learning ideal could be realized.
Once I had the conceptual framework in place, the next hurdle was determining which technology would offer the most appropriate platform for the process. Despite great strides in technology, schools still fall short of providing a seamless, convenient, robust, and reliable technology support structure for all students, teachers, and administrators. One would argue this is due to “quick fix” or “silver-bullet” aspirations or mindsets – granted set forth with the best of intentions. Moreover, today’s desktop computers and Internet usages are not the educational ideal. A look into almost any classroom with a sizable number of computers reveals all kinds of problems related to the computers’ size, weight, shape, and requirements for multiple cords and wires. Similarly, today’s World Wide Web is disorganized, of uneven quality, and overrun with advertising.
In reality, the world is becoming increasing wireless, portable, and information hungry. Ubiquitous computing, where each student and teacher has one internet-connected wireless computing device for use in both the classroom and at home, must become the new norm. Also, without technology customized to students’ needs, and a cohesive program to integrate the curriculum into the technology, efforts at improvement are just like slapping a band-aid on an open wound that won’t stop bleeding. Fortunately, we have found a way to integrate all of the above ideas into schools into a practical, deliverable, and scalable solution that will usher classrooms into the 21st century.
We developed the Prasolus process in stages. The first aspect of our solution involved identifying the barriers of change within any organization, namely schools, and then identifying potential pathways that would lead to desired goals for all concerned parties. Secondly, we needed to identify appropriate, low-cost, durable, and reliable technology for the kids, teachers, and administrators. We chose handheld devices for their scale and portability. These are just end-user tools within the larger framework of our ‘technological infrastructure’ system. The crux of our solution is our web-based application called “Eddy.” Eddy is the heart of the system, where teachers develop and monitor their curriculums, share learning material with students, and evaluate students’ progress. Thereby, empowering administrators and parents with relevant information about the daily activities of students and their child, respectively.
3) In your “Prasolus” curriculum, what happens to art, music, physical education and home economics?
Prasolus does not have its own curriculum; we provide the platform for teachers to digitize their approved and desired curriculum. We have seen motivated and passionate educators successfully adapt Prasolus to reading, math, science, social studies, ESL and foreign language classes; and the opportunities for other applications in the future are boundless. Granted the curriculum is the “running course” with specific concepts and subject matter criteria that need evaluating and assessing. With that in mind, any running course that uses a question and answer format to evaluate or assess student learning can be adapted to Prasolus. In art history, for example, teachers can upload images for students to identify.
Of course, there are still some areas in education that cannot be “digitized,” nor should they be. Working with a computer cannot replace the exhilaration of physical exercise or the magical feeling of playing an instrument. We are not here to replace the curriculum; we are here to support the adaptation and delivery of it for the 21st century so that, wherever possible, students can become more engaged and, in turn, identify more with the concepts and subject matter criteria being taught.
4) What about that aspect of school that tries to train our children to be leaders, cooperative individuals and well rounded citizens?
Leadership is one of the most valuable skills that students can learn in school. Sadly, it is often a trait that only comes out for those students lucky enough to excel in physical sports, or who have the confidence to run for student office. Prasolus can help identify new opportunities for leadership by revealing students’ abilities that may get missed in a traditional environment. For example, in a paper-based environment, teachers cannot tailor the curriculum to the individual, or at least it is extremely difficult for many. Everyone gets the same test and the same amount of time to complete assignments if they have been identified as a “normal” student. Furthermore, the learning environment is “asynchronous” - evidenced by assignments being graded and returned several days later at best, at which point teachers have already moved on to new material and students have lost interest with respect to their performance. In such an environment, there is little room for real-time customization of the curriculum. As a result, some really bright students can get mislabeled as poor students or discipline problems because they appear to be disengaged from the learning environment. In actuality, these students might just be bored with the material and ready for something more challenging.
What Prasolus does is reveal instantaneously who is grasping the learning concepts and who is not. In a Prasolus classroom, a bright student who may not otherwise “show up” would be identified, assigned more advanced work, and could even be empowered to coach other students. Leadership potential could be identified and honed, rather than missed or ignored. That is just one example of a leadership opportunity that can come out of this.
5) How does Prasolus cope with children who might be mentally retarded, autistic, or have some type of head or brain injury?
Prasolus does not yet have a specific application geared toward children with these kinds of disabilities; however we already know that dedicated educators are utilizing the Eddy interface and incorporating learning material for these particular students. We developed the system to be “user-defined and populated.” Students with these types of learning needs, and the educators that serve them, are the “air” that empowers us to continue to enhance and refine the user experience that will further allow them to continue to customize their learning materials for greater engagement and learning. In the simplest terms, we designed Eddy so that teachers and students can interact with the system regardless of their location on the bell curve.
6) How long have you been keeping data on your system?
We began tracking the performance of our system in a testing environment since its inception in 2006. In 2000, it was still only myself in a “paper-based” world. Now that we’ve been implemented in three school districts, we have collected data from a number of classrooms for a full semester. Dr. Dovalee Dorsett, a large database quantitative statistician, and Dr. Patrick L. Odell, an evaluation expert will begin the process of formally evaluating the effectiveness of the program and process on various learning environments.
7) What is wrong with paper based teaching and teachers that rely on paper?
Barth suggests the problem with schools “is not that they are not what they once were – the problem is they are exactly what they once were.” I do not completely agree with Barth, but I understand what he is saying from a theoretical and practical perspective. The fact is, paper-based teaching has limitations, in that the questions are pre-selected based on the teachers’ criteria rather than the students’ response. Moreover, today’s learners, who thrive on technology at home and after school, are expected to “power down” as soon as they enter the classroom – yet we expect them to remain enthusiastic and engaged. The paper-based learning environment is often stale and tasteless for today’s digital learners.
In a technologically facilitated learning environment, the learning experience is more interactive and organic, where the learning material and activities are adapted to the students’ capabilities rather than the constraints of time on teachers. Of course, the teacher has the ability to set the standards, whereby a certain level of competency is guaranteed by every question. The real advantage is that students who are more capable are identified immediately and assigned more challenging work, and contrarily, those who are struggling are dynamically granted opportunities to gain ground with current expectations.
Moreover, if some advanced students are not identified until later, they may miss opportunities to be encouraged and challenged daily to perform and advance within the boundaries of their mental proclivities. The same can be said about those students that are struggling. If the educational pace exceeds their current capabilities, then frustration and lack of engagement result. Prasolus gives teachers the ability to individualize the system so that proper pacing can be achieved within the boundaries of time.
8) How does your system teach writing, reading and spelling?
The Prasolus process works with any subject that can be taught in a question and answer format. The questions and corresponding answers can come in different forms, such as multiple choice, true/false, short answer, essay, rank order, matching, etc. – in short there are about 20 various question formats. Writing is also possible via a notepad feature, where students write with a stylus. Another benefit of Prasolus is that each handheld device is equipped with a collapsible keyboard, which ensures that students will develop typing capability, a necessary workplace skill, from an early age. Students also develop an aptitude and a passion for technology at an early age, which is a vital skill for the 21st century workplace. So, as teachers are facilitating writing, reading and spelling activities, we are also giving kids real world experience in a modern setting. That is the key to Prasolus: making traditional learning subjects and materials relevant to today’s digital learner, facilitated by a dedicated educator.
9) What question have I neglected to ask?
What is the future of Prasolus?
An even better question might be, “How will Prasolus shape the future?” The effects of Prasolus are far-reaching. Prasolus has so far been applied to classrooms in three school districts in Texas. These superintendents have unanimously called it, “the future of education.” We believe the real future lies in connecting classrooms together on a global scale. The Prasolus process is under consideration by several schools in Guadalajara, Mexico, and Vietnam is also a focus for us right now. Through Prasolus, students and teachers are introduced to learning environments in other countries, which creates an educational experience that approximates the global society in which we all live.
Prasolus can open so many opportunities for dynamic thought exchange between teachers and students in other geographical locations. Can you imagine a learning exercise where American students partner with students in Asia and Mexico? One of the foreign teachers from a “partner” classroom could then visit the American classroom, giving students actual pictures and notes from their students. There are infinite scenarios in which Prasolus could be applied to develop cultural awareness and give students a virtual international experience. The result could be knowledge sharing that spans the globe: a “borderless” classroom that prepares students for globalization, which is a hallmark of the 21st century work environment and the modern world in which we live.
Published February 8, 2007
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Comment #1 (Posted by Barry Stern)
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I found the article fascinating and would like to know more. To facilitate greater understanding of Prasolus, it would help to provide a few concrete examples of how students and teachers interact with the specific types of hardware and software involved. For example, at another website I learned about these components of Prasolus: (a) Student Engagement and Learning Gear, (b) Teacher Freedom and Mobility Bundle, and (c) Administrator Access and Involvement Tool. What are these and how do they work? Also, other than providing digital feedback to students, how does Prasolus compare with the management systems of such coursewares as PLATO, NovaNet, and Keytrain, which provide instructors with the capability to monitor student progress in being able to answer objective test questions (e.g. multiple choice, true-false, ranking, etc.)?
