With Microsoft ending support of Windows XP, and PARCC supporting Windows 7 or 8, schools must upgrade equipment before the 2014 testing under Common Core standards. Microsoft has announced that it will end support of WindowsXP on April 8, 2014. This is in spite of the fact that over half of users still use XP [...]
April 25, 2013
Common Core Testing: SBAC and PARCC
States will begin testing students under the Common Core State Standards in 2014. PARCC and SABC are the testing consortiums developing online or computerized tests. Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium or SBAC. At $31/student, SABC provides testing services to thirty-one member states (links are to state departments of education): California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, [...]
February 4, 2013
Teens Poor at Finding Information Online
In a new usability study, experts say that adults are better than teens at finding information online. PARCC, are you listening? Are you designing your tests using research-based usability standards? Usability guru, Jakob Nielsen and his research firm, say this: Teens are (over)confident in their web abilities, but they perform worse than adults. Lower reading [...]
January 17, 2013
Computer Upgrades by 2014: Unanswered Questions
A recent survey of US schools says that 56.1% of schools systems are Windows XP, which must be upgraded to at least Windows 7 before Common Core testing starts in 2014. I keep wondering about maintenance on those computers. Picture my 15-year-old son in a parenting class, one of the few electives available to freshmen [...]
January 4, 2013
Top 6 CCSS Questions of 2012
The Common Core State Standards evoked some questions in 2012. Here’s a recap of the year’s top 6 concerns. Where did the Standards come from? Who wrote the Standards? Fiction v. Nonfiction? Cursive Writing v. Keyboarding? What happened to the free curriculum maps? When will educators get a look at the high-stakes tests so they [...]
July 3, 2012
Technology Readiness Tool: Is Your District Ready to Test CCSS Online?
The web-based Technology Readiness Tool is a project that allows schools to survey their current state of technology. By 2014-25 school year, school who have adopted the Common Core must be ready to do online assessments. But do they have enough computers (laptops, netbooks, iPads) with the right operating system and right software? The first [...]
November 11, 2011
Assessments Affect Common Core Standards: PARCC
It’s one thing to create Common Core State Standards; it’s another to assess students taught with those standards. The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is concerned with assessment and has just publically released the PARCC Model Content Frameworks in English Language Arts/Literacy and Mathematics. The Model Content Frameworks serve two [...]
