Help Needed re 3d Grade Info Lit TRAILS Testing

Message posted to the InfoLit Listserv:

TRAILS (Tool for Real-time Assessment of Information Literacy Skills)
Do you work with 3rd graders or have a colleague who does?
The TRAILS project seeks school librarians working with 3rd grade students to assist in testing items for the new TRAILS-3 assessment tool designed to measure information literacy skills at the 3rd grade level.

The TRAILS-3 tool will be similar to TRAILS-6 and TRAILS-9 (http://www.trails-9.org). It too will be a freely available tool offering immediate feedback on student information literacy competencies at the class or individual student level. Privacy is assured; no student identifying information is collected.

TRAILS consultants began last fall to work with 3rd grade information literacy standards to write objectives and then develop items addressing those objectives. We are now ready to have 3rd grade students take an assessment to verify the workability of the items.

Requirements to be a testing site:
1. Testing population: 3rd grade students
2. Technology: computers with Internet access
3. Time needed to administer: estimate of 20-30 minutes/session
4. Testing time period: March through May, 2010

If you are interested, please fill out the TRAILS-3 Testing Volunteer Interest Form at http://CTLSilhouette.wsu.edu/surveys/ZS98172 by Monday, March 8. School librarians selected for participation will be notified the week of March 15 and provided specific directions for administering a TRAILS-3 assessment. Please direct any questions to Barbara Schloman, TRAILS Project Director, bschloma@kent.edu.

TRAILS has been well received. More than 8,300 school librarians have signed up to use the tool. Since going live, more than 13,000 sessions have been delivered to over 248,000 students. Numerous requests from librarians working with grade school students prompted us to undertake the development of a 3rd grade version. With your help, we can offer the library community one more tool to assess student understanding of information literacy competencies.
We hope you will consider being part of this project and ask that you share this invitation with colleagues.

Cheers, Barbara

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Barbara F. Schloman, Ph.D., AHIP
TRAILS Project Director
Associate Dean and Professor
University Libraries
Kent State University
Kent, OH 44242
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http://www.trails-9.org
voice: 330-672-1665
fax: 330-672-4811
e-mail: bschloma@kent.edu
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