GradeCam Converts Cameras into Test Scanners

• By David Nagel
• 05/21/09

##AUTHORSPLIT##<--->

GradeCam has released a software tool that allows Webcams and other types of cameras to be used to scan multiple choice tests and collect data to be used to aid instruction.

The software, also called GradeCam, is an image recognition application that's used in conjunction with Web cameras or document cameras to provide an alternative to test scanning machines known as optical mark readers, or OMRs. This is meant to allows for a cost savings over traditional OMRs while also opening up the technology at the classroom level, with teachers able to scan tests on the fly and discuss test results immediately. Forms are printed from the software, and tests and quizzes can be taken either in pencil or in pen.

"With GradeCam, after the kids scan in their quizzes, I know each student's score immediately, and how the class did overall on each question," said Alice Keeler, a math teacher at Clovis High School in California, in a prepared statement. "This allows me to review the quiz in class immediately and re-teach the questions that students missed while the text is still fresh in their minds."

The software is also designed to gather data and store it automatically in an electronic gradebook. (The company said it works with all electronic gradebooks, including home-grown systems.)

Some additional features include:

• Support for credit/no credit assignments;
• Scores can be posted in gradebooks by swiping the form rather than typing grades;
• The software includes a number of report types, such as item analysis, class item analysis, statistics, class and individual standards reports, and others; and
• Support for creating custom forms with student IDs pre-"bubbled."

GradeCam is available now. Further information can be found here.