Bushweller, Kevin. (June 2000). Electronic Exams: Through away the No. 2 pencil-here comes computerized testing. Electronic School. Available: www.electronic-school.com.

Online exams appear to be the wave of the future. The benefits for educators are numerous. They include instant results and analysis. This leads to time saved and decreased workload. One can instantly find out strengths and weaknesses for a student, a class, a school, or a district. Scoring and grading would be made amazingly simple. Also, students today are more likely to have experience with technology and may prefer this type of testing. Online testing can be adaptive, changing difficulty based on the student’s responses. It is also felt that students would be more interested and motivated in taking an online test than answering in a booklet. This way the teacher does not have to make multiple copies of tests. More and more standardized tests are leaning toward online testing, and soon the SAT may follow.

However, everything about online testing is not so positive. Officials are worried that with the recent craze in high stakes testing, online testing may exacerbate the problem. Not all students are skilled with using computers and time restrictions may cause students who know the answers to not finish and receive lower grades. These tests would also eliminate partial credit, where a student could have done the problem correctly but made a mistake near the end.

I have taken one online exam, and I did not like it. There was no structure and you took it at your own leisure. This made it hard to prepare for. As a teacher I would worry about cheating. I also worry that this will take the human element out of teaching and evaluating. I also share the belief that we need to get a handle on the high stakes testing. Making it easier to grade will multiply the problem. Sometimes, good intentions and thoughts go too far. This, I believe, fits that description. When I read articles like this one, I feel sorry for the kids today and the direction that things are going. You can’t standardize your students.