Company Blog

This week, I am attending the CCSSO National Conference On Student Assessment in Orlando Florida. So far I have attended some fascinating sessions on large scale e-Assessment, and the assessment of English Language Learners.

It was particularly interesting for me to hear representatives of the Departments of Education in Indiana, Virginia, Idaho and Oklahoma speak about the lessons learned from e-Testing at the State level. These lessons are remarkably similar to the lessons Learnosity and the NSW Board of Studies have been learning in Australia by delivering the Computing Skills Test online over the past number of years. Everything from administration, staffing, training, scheduling, reporting, communicating with participant schools and students, test design, special needs examinations (the list goes on and on), are echoed in our experiences in New South Wales.

What I did find surprising was to hear a number of speakers in various sessions mention the mandatory use of on-screen testing, with the "obvious exception" of students with special needs- such as large text, different colours, extra time, blind users etc. It seems that Learnosity is unique in the fact that our on-screen assessments have been built from the ground up with the special needs students in mind... most assessment vendors seem to be struggling with such special provisions.

I look forward to another few days of stimulating presentations.