Online Testing Turns the Key to Educational Transformation into Caca :(

Here's a bit that I received in my In Box today... It seems to me that Instructional Technology was well on its way to transforming Education (positively, that is). It holds the key to making what students do in school relevant, exciting, and (dare I say it?) "educational." Instead, those who are determined that school activities should remain emblematic of a dying educational paradigm, are hijacking technology as a more efficient way of facilitating Testing (Oy!)...

Published Online: May 12, 2015

Published in Print: May 13, 2015, as Online Testing Drives 'Tech Prep' Priorities

Common-Core Testing Drives 'Tech Prep' Priorities

Debbie Cruger-Hansen, a 4th grade teacher at Mira Vista School in Richmond, Calif., integrates the teaching of technical skills such as keyboarding and online searching into regular lessons. One recent lesson had students use their tablet computers to find a document on disappearing honeybees.

—Eric Risberg/AP

Schools move to fill technical-skills gap in response to Common Core

By Catherine Gewertz

As most states shift their required tests onto computers, teachers are discovering that their students are stumbling over an unexpected weakness: the keyboarding skills necessary to show what they know.
To close that skills gap, schools are increasingly making time in their days for old-fashioned typing instruction—translated to a computer keyboard—and other skills such as scrolling, mouse-clicking, and dragging-and-dropping.
But spending time on those computer skills has ignited a debate: Is it just another form of "test prep" that siphons away precious classroom time, or is it a wise investment...