TenPlusTwo

November 8, 2009

CAT 2009 Online Mock Test Event by EduBrite

Filed under: Uncategorized — Ajay Upadhyaya @ 10:42 am

CAT is just around the corner and this year it is looking quite uncertain to students due to complete online format of the exam. IIM has published a few tutorials but students will agree that having mock tests is the best way to bell the CAT.

EduBrite launched its new online social learning network mba.edubrite.com with the online mock test series to help students get free access to mock tests and online exam experience. Signup is completely free and single user account can be used to access all community sites or microsites on EduBrite’s network which also includes TenPlusTwo community for schools and colleges (www.tenplustwo.com).

The online test series offers three tests available in an online exam format which will run for about a week. Students can take these tests in any sequence anytime during the event. Tests can be paused in between to allow break (note that real exam would not allow any breaks).

EduBrite would be conducting two events (each running for a week) to provide maximum benefit to large community of CAT aspirants. Two events will allow students from all over India to plan when they would like to appear for the tests before the exam (as CAT final exam is scheduled over a week starting end of Nov). Students can appear for both events (if they like) to see their progress week over week. Detailed analysis of each test will be available to students once they finish the test showing section and question wise feedback. At the end of each event, rankings and percentile scores will be available. Nothing can come close to this to get ready for final D Day which could be anytime Nov 28 – Dec 7th (details available on IIM website http://www.catiim.in/)

mba.edubrite.com is powered by EduBrite’s collaborative learning platform (which also runs TenPlusTwo, a social learning network for Schools and Colleges), where all the community features like groups, forums, polls, events and messaging are available to all members.

CAT Mock Tests Series

April 27, 2009

New Appearance

Filed under: TenPlusTwo Feature — Ajay Upadhyaya @ 5:26 am

Today we are releasing tenplustwo.com with new UI. Along with the significant changes in the colors, layout and navigation menus; what we have also done is changed the Home page a lot. Users can now get their messages, friends, recent tests, comparative performance index on the home page, along with indication of how much effort they are putting in each subject.

The comparative performance index is calculated on weekly basis, and is dependent upon the percentile in last few weeks. Students should strive to keep this number in the higher ranges.

home-new

HomePage

Messages, Friends, Updates

Messages, Friends, Updates

April 12, 2009

Analytics

Filed under: TenPlusTwo Feature, TenPlusTwo Solution — Ajay Upadhyaya @ 6:41 pm

One aspect of online social learning platform which is most important to students is, Analytics. Students can see their progress week-over-week. They can analyze the areas they are doing well and where they need to work more. In social learning network, analytics enables students to compare their performance with their friends and other users in the network. This is perhaps the most valuable feedback students can get which is not available to them in schools or in coaching centers.

In the first version of the Analytics feature, TenPlusTwo is providing several analytical views to the students which show weekly trends from various perspective. Student can compare themselves with other students by going to Comparison mode in any of the views.

  • Cumulative Percent - this view shows the weekly trend for the overall % score of user on any subject, exam or region. Cumulative score takes into consideration, all previous week’s scores on the same subject, exam or region.
  • Weekly Percent – this view shows the weekly trend for the % score of user on any subject, exam or region in that week. Students should work taking tests regularly every week, to have weekly percent consistently in the upper region.
  • Weekly Percentile – this view shows the weekly trend for the percentile if user on any subject, exam or region. The percentile is calculated based on how student’s scores this week compare against scores of all other users for the same subject, exam or region in last 26 weeks (6 months). Students should try and keep their percentiles consistently in the upper region.
  • Weekly Wrong Answers – this view shows weekly trend for the wrong answers selected by the student. Since many exams have penalty for the wrong answers, students should try to take this view as a measure of how they could loose points in the final exam, if they don’t read the questions properly, before answering them. It can also help them put a check on temptation of guessing the answers in multiple choice questions. Not to mention – keep this trend low
  • Weekly Correct Answers – this view shows the weekly trend for the correct answers selected by the student, students should try to consistently keep this up.
  • Weekly Not Attempted – this view shows the weekly trend for the number of questions which is not attempted by student. This trend could be in the higher region when you start taking tests before completing the entire syllabus, and it is perfectly okay. But as you complete the syllabus, see that this trend should consistently go down, and you understand entire syllabus well to answer most questions. So try to keep this in the lower range.
  • Weekly Total Tests Taken – this view just shows the consistency of your effort week over week. Ideally you should try to maintain good balance of tests you take every week so you cover all subjects, and exams you are targeting to appear. This will help prevent not to overdo one area and ignore the other.

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January 20, 2009

TenPlusTwo Tour

Filed under: TenPlusTwo Feature, TenPlusTwo Solution — Tags: , , , , — Ajay Upadhyaya @ 7:32 am

January 19, 2009

Online Exam Marketplace

Filed under: TenPlusTwo Feature, TenPlusTwo Solution — Tags: , , , — Ajay Upadhyaya @ 3:38 am

First, let’s define it

A marketplace in general is a place where sellers and buyers meet and do commerce. TenPlusTwo provides first of its kind Online Exam Marketplace which empowers the Test authors (Publishers, Coaching Institutes, Schools, Teachers and other Educational Bodies) to sell their tests online in the form of not a downloaded test, but like an online exam. The difference between a downloaded test (available on many websites today) and an online exam is that the former is like any regular product selling on e-commerce sites, whereas the later is more like a subscription to an online event, which is conducted at specified time (in the cloud) and subscribers from anywhere take the exam at the same time.

Who is the buyer?

Students who are preparing for the engineering & medical entrance exams are consumers of these online exams, who need to practice as much as they can before the real exam. Stakes are high, and the students need high quality tests which tests them as much as the real exam and at the end they can get as much as real assessment of their standing among all students taking the exam.

So what exactly someone need to host an online event?

First and foremost, you need to have your own authored tests which you want to host in the form of online event. You can work with TenPlusTwo team to upload your tests. Creation of tests for TenPlusTwo is easy, all you need is familiarity with popular word processor like MS Word or any other HTML editor. You need to create the tests using the template TenPlusTwo support provides. You or someone from TenPlusTwo team can setup your event, at the date and time you specify. An event can have multiple tests which can be conducted at different day/time.

Subscription Model

The event subscription model allows various choices to conduct the events. You can sell the event subscription as a whole or each test in the event can be sold individually. You can set maximum number of subscribers for the events. Access level for the event can be either Free, By Invite or Paid.

  • Free Events

If you are looking to expand your brand name to more students in the country, free events could be a great means to do so. Students always look to get as much practice tests and assessment of their ranks as possible, you could create the tests (could be short or full length) and put them as free online events. This model is suited for small coachings and teachers who conduct private tuition.

  • By Invite Events

This subscription model allows you to have a controlled event which is visible to only the users you invite. This is suited for coachings or schools who want to have free tests only for their own classes.

  • Paid

Paid events are the fully commercial form of events, which require authorization codes for subscription. The authorization codes are issued when someone purchases the event. Paid events are great means to do business in the online exam marketplace which is running 24×7x365.

Selling Events

You can provide all the event related information like the course content, sample questions (just to give a flavor of tests you have prepared) and any other info using the news and articles about the event. The buyers and sellers can engage in discussion using the comments on events or the private messages. If there is a value in the content you are selling and the price is right, you will surely going to find buyers for it. Marketplace allows sellers of every size to compete and provides choices to the buyers. You can use the same test to conduct multiple tests.

Is it cutting into my existing revenue?

Absolutely not, the online exam should be seen as another revenue channel, if you run a educational institute. It will help you reach out to more students nationally. It may even help you minimize your cost by eliminating manual evaluation of answer sheets and allow you to conduct multiple events using same question bank.

When is the right time?

As the exam season is approaching, this is the right time to conduct online exam events. Get in touch with TenPlusTwo support to learn more.

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January 18, 2009

Effective Collaboration using TenPlusTwo

Filed under: TenPlusTwo Feature, TenPlusTwo Solution — Tags: , , , — Ajay Upadhyaya @ 7:59 am

Educational eco-system comprises many different actors, these actors are

  • Students
  • Teachers
  • Parents
  • Counselors
  • Schools
  • Coaching Institutes
  • Publishers
  • Exam Boards
  • Government Agencies
  • Corporate world

TenPlusTwo aims to provide an effective collaboration system which each of the above actors can use to maximize their participation in the overall educational process. Communication is an essential means to collaborate effectively. Online communication is the a great means which can be used by all the above actors in the internet age. Everyone uses e-mail for communicating with friends, family and colleagues. E-mail is one of the most popular e-mail application till date. But with success comes price. Today everyone is spending a lot of time cleaning the huge amount of spam e-mails they receive in their Inbox. The e-mail channel has become one of the easiest to use for mass marketing and spamming. E-mail is point to point communication method, which limits collaborative needs of a larger group.

The web2.0 brings new tools for collaboration in the form of wikis, blogs and various forms of commenting system including wall, scrapebooks etc. TenPlusTwo provides an easy to use wiki and blog system and extends it to meet the needs of an online educational system which students and teachers can use for posting solutions to tests and questions, making and sharing notes and the usual articles and news postings.

Making groups or communities for students, schools, teachers or any other educational bodies will bring all the actors on the same platform and open up the inter and intra actor communication channel, e.g. student-student, teacher-teacher, parent-teacher, student-coachings. Groups employ another way of communication which are Forum & Polls. These are very effective for a teacher to communicate with a group of students, as it builds a persistence knowledge base which is not point to point. Questions posted by one student are seen by everyone in the group and they all benefit from the answers to those questions.

TenPlusTwo also provides a unique commenting system which turns each online test and question into an implicit discussion topic, by allowing users to post comment for them. Each question can be discussed online and it builds a persistent trail of opinions and thoughts about the question’s solution. You can view a question in context of a test or independent of it, but the discussion comments always follow it.

Solutions is another unique feature which allows everyone to post their own method of solving a question/test by posting solutions. Different minds can have different methods to solve a particular question, an example is difference between modern arithmetic and vedic mathematics. When students see these unique ways of solving a particular problem, it also helps them build greater understanding of the subject.

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TenPlusTwo is just a platform which opens up all the above mentioned tools for use by everyone involved in the education field. No tool can be successful without use by the intended audience. Needless to say that if the tool fills a need the users will definitely use it.

To summarize, here are salient features which position TenPlusTwo as an effective communication/collaboration platform for education

  • Secure Messaging
  • Groups & Schools
  • Forums
  • Polls
  • Comments
  • Blogs
  • Solutions
  • Wiki (News/Articles)
  • Ratings
  • Tags
Forum

Forum

Polls

Polls

Indian Schools Network on TenPlusTwo

Filed under: TenPlusTwo Feature, TenPlusTwo Solution — Tags: , , , , , — Ajay Upadhyaya @ 12:25 am

Indian education system is one of the biggest in the world. There are hundreds of thousands of schools at various levels and they all are facing a big challenge  today which is about relevance of their own existence. Today I find 11th and 12th graders spending more time of the day in alternate educational bodies like Coaching Institutes and Private Tuition and attending schools only to meet the minimum attendance requirement. There are many reasons for this like competitive pressure on the young shoulders to clear the various professional entrance exams, as well as in many cases the school teachers not putting the school classes in their priority. What we really need is to develop all round personalities of the students which is possible in only in the regular schools system (provided they play honest role in doing what is expected of them). Attending round the clock coachings can prepare students for cracking a particular exam but I doubt how it will help them build all round personalities without sports, exhibitions, debates and all other activities which school (can) provide.

One solution to this problem could be to enable the schools to hook on to the latest trends in social and technological spaces which attracts the young students so much. All schools, small or big should have access to publish information about their campuses and communicate with other schools. All school teachers in 21st century should be able to freely communicate with students and other teachers in the country. Technology can make this possible, and TenPlusTwo provides a means to achieve this on the social learning network platform.

Today there are more than 10,000 schools information is added in TenPlusTwo, which is more than just a directory of schools. What it means to these 10,000 schools is that they all have access to put their profile on the internet, publish news, organize events, conduct student/staff surveys, provide a discussion forum, communicate with students, teachers, parents and other schools freely without having to pay for any IT department or infrastructure. TenPlusTwo is building the social learning network to provide a cloud where all the small and big 100s of thousands of primary to secondary schools get connected and a free flow of information starts which helps the whole educational eco system in the country.

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Here is how I see TenPlusTwo playing a crucial role in (re)asserting the role of schools.

  • Bring all the school staff, students, alumni and parents on a network which is not bound by the official boundaries and school charter
  • Help teachers and students to communicate using the modern ways of 21st century and help them better understand each other
  • Enable parents to get more and up to-date information on school their kids are attending and competitive environment in front of them
  • Bring alumni and counselors to the schools network and have them open dialog with students and teachers. Alumni who are in various industries should be able to help the students and teachers by providing practical career counseling
  • Provide all the technological tools to schools, once the they have access to a free to use platform, I’m sure adoption is just a matter of time
  • Last but not the least, the schools network of TenPlusTwo is first of its kind in the world just like the unique educational ecosystem of India

When you use TenPlusTwo, make sure to associate yourself to the schools you attended or are attending. If you don’t find your school in the system, just go ahead and add it, adding school is simple. We have added only 10,000 schools as a seed but we know this is just about 1% of what is there in India. So take a lead and bring your school to TenPlusTwo. Also complete your school membership profile, it will be something other TenPlusTwo users will look at first when they want to know about you. If you are not studying anymore, you should still add yourself as alumni to establish your link with your school you attended a while ago.

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January 16, 2009

Student: Practice^3

Filed under: TenPlusTwo Feature, TenPlusTwo Solution — Tags: , , , , , , — Ajay Upadhyaya @ 7:12 am

Regular practicing will help you more than anything…

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Take the Tests from the exams you are preparing for. The tests and questions are organized by Subject, Region and Exams. You can use the Test and Question tab of the site to browse the questions or test any way you like. Moreover, you can also use tags to quickly locate tagged entries, or use text search.

Take the pop quizzes. Since the pop quizzes are generated on demand, nobody knows which question will be served to you, so this is a great way to challenge yourself and practice. Ideally don’t create pop quiz which is more than 30 min of duration. Most of the entrance exams have negative markings these days, so configure the markings criteria to mimick the real life tests which will help you in making a habit of answering only the questions you are confident about.

solution

Add solutions to tests and questions will not only help others, but will also help you by highlighting your contribution to all the users on the tenplustwo. Also, when you post a solution for public, you think twice before posting it, and that clarifies your own finer doubts if any exist.

Be open to comment on the correctness of the questions, the questions and tests on tenplustwo are given by some other users, and can have errors. Be proactive in pointing them.

comments

If you want to add a small set of questions or any test from any exam which is not already available on TenPlusTwo, feel free to send it to us in any format.. we’ll be delighted to put it on site for everyones benefit. You also can brag to your friends that you contributed a test which they all can take.

Students: Using TenPlusTwo, weekly

Filed under: TenPlusTwo Feature, TenPlusTwo Solution — Tags: , , , , , , — Ajay Upadhyaya @ 5:43 am

I see 11th and 12th graders going thru a very tough time due to pressure put on them to do well in the entrance exams which will get them into the well accepted definition of a successful life. Although a lot of peple have different opinion on this trend and I agree with those opinions to some extent, there is very little choice we have these days. Here is my thought on how to use TenPlusTwo can help every student if they follow some weekly routine, this should take not more than 3hrs per week.

Weekly Notes
Summarize your notes from class or tuition in your online notes. Everyday you may be going to 3-4 different tuition and classes, you may have your workbook to make notes in the classes, but making a short summary at the end of day or week could help you recall all the classes you attended in the week. You can also make note of questions you want to ask to your teacher in your next class or even post the question online in some of the Forums on TenPlusTwo. If your teacher or coaching is using TenPlusTwo groups, then you can post questions anytime.

notes

Weekly Study Plans
Make a brief plan about what you want to achieve in the next week, this is will help you guide your activities in the week. You don’t want to do over planning either, but having some small points will help. At the end of the week just check if you are on track, or slipping away. A few weeks here and there should be okay, as long as you know you need to cover up in the coming week

Practice
Practice is the key to success in your future exams. If you are preparing for any medical or engineering entrance exams, you should try to take atleast one test a week for each subject you are preparing. There are a lot of previous years papers available for your practice. Don’t worry if you are in the beginning or middle of your session and a lot of topics in the syllabus are not yet taught in your class. Even if you know 10% of the syllabus, no harm in taking the test. You will know how much you understand from the 10% already covered in your class. I recommend taking test without pause, although TenPlusTwo allows you to have any number of pauses.

TakeTest

TakeTest

Challenge Yourself
A very important routine you can start adding to your weekly schedule is 30min of surprise test by using the Pop Quiz. Generate a test with subjects you are willing to work on in any week, having a test with 30-40 questions is sufficient for a 30 min test. Don’t worry too much with the results from these tests, all they meant to do is to prepare you for the real show at the end of the session.

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Communicate

You can build a close friend network from like minded students from all parts of India, use comments, messages, forums etc to communicate with friends and all other users on the network. An active student in the student community is definitely going to do well in his/her career. Share your knowledge and thoughts thru your blog and articles. Be open to receive comments on your postings and be active to comment on postings from others.

inbox

April 29, 2008

About

Filed under: About TenPlusTwo — Tags: , , , , — Ajay Upadhyaya @ 9:53 pm

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What is TenPlusTwo.com

TenPlusTwo.com is a social learning network which connects students from all parts of India. TenPlusTwo is different from other social networking sites as the focus here is on learning and helping students excel in their career. Also it is different from other learning sites as we do not hire any educators/teachers or conduct online coaching ourself.

Mission

Our mission is to create an easy to use online service where teachers, students, coachings, schools and other educational organizations can come together and interact with each other freely. Teachers can contribute content for the subjects they are expert in, answer students questions, create their groups and even create their own tests or post solutions to tests posted by others. Students can feel the national competition by competing with students from all parts of India, post questions, comment on the specific tests and questions, take tests and pop quizzes at the time they like and create their own social groups and friends. We believe an open education platform is a necessity today for the huge students and educators base in India.

How to join

TenPlusTwo is free to signup and use. Just click on the Signup link. All you need is a valid email id as we send an account confirmation link on the email you provide.

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