Tests and Tech

“You have got to be kidding me.”  

The silence between us was palpable, and one of us wasn’t happy.  Not mad, but not happy–a kind of a stunned disbelief was clear on her face.

Again, I could hear her look loud and clear: “You have got to be kidding me.”

When I get uncomfortable, I almost always fall back on humor.  It’s my defense against just about everything.

“The good news is, you don’t have to remember a thing I just said.  I’m going to put it all in an email,” I said with a smile. I was hoping to see one on her face, too.  Not quite, but close. A softening, perhaps.

Whew.

—

Like many of my readers, I’m a teacher.  I’ve been in and out of a formal classroom for 14 years now.  And you know what?

(Hold on, let me get in my rocking chair as you start to imagine my gravely voice.) 

“Back in my day, the only thing we used to take a test was a pencil!”  

—

Oh, how times have changed.  My district is in the process of moving into a new learning management system (LMS).  Today’s LMSs have more bells and whistles than I could ever imagine, and one of my jobs is to help teachers learn how to use them.  That’s where I was at the beginning of this story.

Giving a test: 

• You create the questions–no small feat to learn how to do so.
• You create the assessment from the questions–again, another skill to learn.
• You assign the assessment (“release” it, to use the correct term).  That’s another separate process with its own learning curve.
• You take your students through the process: After you learn how to do that, you need to figure out the best way to teach the kids to do it.
• You monitor the process and reassign as needed.
• When it’s all said and done, you need to know how to locate and look at the results.

Easy, peasy…right?

Please.  Don’t look at me like that!