Moving State Testing to Computers?

    This year my state began to do state testing via the computer. Not all the schools had to do this new computer testing, just the schools that were to "test" out the program. Lucky (or unlucky however you see it) my school was able to test out the new state testing program. 

     I am a huge fan of technology so naturally I was all for the computer testing. It seems like everyone should be incorporating more technology into the classroom and computer testing would force teachers to do it.

     However, I did not think of all the trouble that would go into implementing new computer testing. First, our teachers had to get all on board. Even if they didn't like this way of testing, they had no other choice. They had to get familiar with the program and style, and then they had to teach their students how to test on the computer. They had to have many practice sessions before they had their students take the actual test. So not only were teachers teaching students the content for the test, but also how to take the test itself. Second, our school had a lack of computers. Half way during the year we had to have a new computer lab installed to accommodate this new testing. This sounded like a great thing to me, more computers for our school! Yes! Just what I had been waiting for.  In reality this meant that the lower grades, mine included, actually were going to get kicked out of the computer labs because of this testing. More often than not, the lower grades missed computer lab time several weeks in a row. I completely understand that they get computers lab time over us to take the test, but this means that students are going to get less exposure and less computer skills in the lower grades. If we are trying to get our students more proficient in technology, we should be using more of it not less. Finally, the writing portion of the test was also on the computer. Most of the students don't have the best keyboarding skills. Some students were more worried about their typing rather than what they writing about. 

    I am sure there are more problems and stress that came with this new way of testing, but since I don't teach an upper lever grade my student do not complete this testing. Last year was just a test year, next year it is be used by the entire state. It will be interesting to see how this testing will be played out in my state this coming school year.