adrianmott.com

Socrato is a web service dedicated to improving student achievement by helping improve testing.  The company is based in North Andover, MA and it’s focus is to provide practice testing materials online to make taking practice tests easier and more accessible.  Thus far, their main focus appears to have been on state-level standardized tests – the MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System).

Socrato’s practice testing interface is clean and easy to use, which is good since it’s kids using it for the most part.  Tests that I tried included multiple choice and true/false questions, but it appears that there is some fill in the blank questions as well.  Once you’re finished with a practice test, you can go through and review your answers and learn from your mistakes.

Aside from allowing students take practice exams, Socrato also allows teachers to upload their own content (tests, assignments, etc…) in a variety of formats, which is nice.

The pricing for Socrato’s services is somewhat preventative (and a little unclear) it appears.  The service appears to be free for individuals, but if a teacher wants to implement the service for their class sections, it then will cost a minimum charge of $5,000 (and $15/student for over 333 students).

My fiance Aimee, who is the English department head at a local charter school thinks that the $5,000 minimum 1 year charge for “online student practice & assessment” is somewhat preventative for tight school budgets, especially in this economy.  Thus I anticipate that most users of this service will simply use it on an individual basis, making revenue rather difficult.  They do provide test result comprehensive reporting for tests like the MCAS.  This could be useful but faces a lot of competition.

Competition is another drawback in this space – services like Grockit and PrepMe provide similar services – and in the case of Grockit, also have a simpler, easier interface (though the premise is a little different).  Grockit has created something that seems invaluable – creating a game out of testing.  It’s something that all of the companies in this space should look into incorporating, for the simple premise of making school fun for kids.

I would recommend that the company make practice testing even more accessible in an effort to increase traffic (one click practice tests perhaps?).  All in all however, I really do like the service and I will recommend it to students that I know who want an easy place to practice testing.  It’s a service that I wish had existed when I was in school, and therefore think it is useful overall.

Here are some other info/reviews on Socrato:

• TechCrunch
• TradeVibes
• MarketWatch