LiveText Selected as Assessment Tool for Third Annual Big Island Chocolate Festival

CHICAGO, May 14, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The Kona Cacao Association, Inc. recently held its third annual Big Island Chocolate Festival at the Fairmont Orchid, Hawaii on the Kohala Coast of Hawaii Island—the purpose of the festival being to provide an educational and outreach opportunity for local cacao farmers, the hospitality industry and cacao enthusiasts.

The Festival encompasses demonstrations, a student chef competition, a professionally judged taste-off competition, and fundraisers—proceeds currently split between the Kona Pacific Public Charter School and the "Equip the Kitchen" campaign for the new Hawaii Community College-Palamanui. LiveText, a comprehensive assessment, e-Portfolio and accreditation management system used in institutions of higher education, was chosen as the festival's preferred assessment platform for the student competition.

This is the second year in a row that the festival has featured a student culinary competition. As student teams designed, created, and plated their chocolate entries, the judges used LiveText's web-based assessment technology on iPads to evaluate the teams' entries on presentation, temperature, size, quality, taste, texture, craftsmanship/techniques, time management and overall presentation. A group of professional and celebrity chef judges used the platform's rubric-based technology to assess the entries in real-time on a four-point scale for each of the criteria and to provide immediate feedback.

The idea to use LiveText on iPads in a competitive environment at the Festival came from the collaborative efforts Chef Teresa (Cheech) Shurilla, University of Hawaii Maui College, and Mark Cook, educational specialist at the University of Hawaii Community Colleges System Office.

This LiveText technology is the same that is used for the UH Community Colleges' ongoing instructional assessment and e-Portfolio project, which started three years ago with culinary programs on Maui. Funded through a Carl D. Perkins Vocational & Technical Grant, the project has established a formal assessment strategy to monitor student achievement, including the completion and attainment of skills and standard outcomes in real time. Besides improving assessment activities, the LiveText technology has enhanced instruction and student learning, as well as help student retention rates, noted Mark Cook. The technology will be launched at community colleges on the Big Island next spring.

"This instance of judging is essentially an assessment, and through the capabilities to provide immediate rubric-based feedback and comments to student contestants through LiveText, this competition became an invaluable and rich learning experience—and that's our goal—to create engaging learning experiences for students. We are pleased that LiveText has been used in this way," said Dr. Christopher Kalmus, president of LiveText.

For more information or to arrange a demonstration of the assessment platform's capabilities, please email [email protected].

About LiveText, Inc.
LiveText is a leading provider of campus-wide assessment, e-Portfolio and accreditation management solutions. LiveText's comprehensive and flexible solution allows for seamless integration within an institution's existing architecture and effectively collects and reports data measuring outcomes-based learning goals and institutional objectives for continuous improvement. LiveText is an Affiliate Member of the IMS Global Learning Consortium. For more information, visit www.livetext.com.

About the Kona Cacao Association and BICF
The mission and goal of the Kona Cacao Association is to promote the cacao industry on the Big Island of Hawaii by presenting the Big Island Chocolate Festival as an educational and outreach opportunity for local cacao farmers, the hospitality industry and cacao enthusiasts. Beyond creating, implementing and promoting the Big Island Chocolate Festival, the Kona Cacao Association will work with cacao growers, producers, chocolate enthusiasts and chefs to help create a recognizable brand for Hawaii Island Chocolate. To learn more, visit www.konacacaoassociation.com and www.bigislandchocolatefestival.com.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140514/87642

SOURCE LiveText, Inc.