Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Norway Trying Out Laptops For High School Exams

Posted by timothy on from the high-school-unmusical dept.

The BBC reports that Norway is experimenting with a system that would let secondary school students take their school exams on laptop computers. According to the article, using computers for exams isn't new there, but it's been on fixed machines rather than personal computers that the students can take with them and use for other purposes throughout the school day. Having suffered through three years of exams taken on the awful SoftTest (inflexible, single-platform, ugly, buggy), I hope they do a better job — this is something that is all too easy to get wrong.

9 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. Should be from the redundant redundancy dept. by tomhudson · · Score: 4, Funny

    News: Norway Trying Out Laptops For High School School Exams

    Here, let me fix that. Let's go all the way:

    News News: Norway Norway Trying Trying Out Out Laptops Laptops For For High High School School Exams Exams

    Now you can read the headline in STEREO (be happy it's not quadraphonic or 7.1 surround sound :-)

    1. Re:Should be from the redundant redundancy dept. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yo Dawg, we heard you like headlines so we put a headline in your headline so you can read while you read

  2. Ironic by googlesmith123 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ironically though here at the University of Oslo (capital of Norway) we use pen and paper to do our exams on object oriented java programming (yes, we write code by hand...with a pen...)

    --
    Say NO to unpaid Internships!
    1. Re:Ironic by Chees0rz · · Score: 2, Funny

      CS101- My first time programming. Pen+Paper quizzes. The part that freaked me out the most?

      public static void main( String args[] ) {}

      The rest was cake... but I didn't quite understand what all that mumbo jubo was...

      my final year in college- one professor had us writing out all sorts of crazy algorithms- some as easy as searching a string, others more complicated assembly programs that took about 8 times reading to understand the problem.

      I always felt SO smart coding without a compiler or assembler on those tests. It was really a great feeling. Until I'd get it back and realized I lost a point for forgetting a semi colon...

  3. Re:I wish i had that in my day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    ya see that way I would have got into a posh college and I'd be surrounded by people with iPhones and doing hot chicks with preppy clothes and messy hair who drink expensive coffee.

    Alternatively you can get the same experience by going to Starbucks and save yourself $40,000 a year in the process.

  4. Re:Is it secure? by maxume · · Score: 2, Funny

    My security is currently at level 5, but it looks like level 6 is imminent.

    Sometimes, security goes all the way to 11.

    --
    Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
  5. Re:Computers... Pfft... by syousef · · Score: 2, Funny

    I took tests on stone tablets. So, get off my lawn.

    Stone tablets? STONE TABLETS???? LUXURY!!!!!

    When I did my tests we didn't have stone tablets. Only the professor had them! We had to scratch our answers in the mud or dirt! And if it rained we had to repeat the whole year!

    --
    These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
  6. Re:Computers... Pfft... by syousef · · Score: 2, Funny

    Stone tablets? Writing! When I did my tests you had to sing the entire oral canon while accompanying yourself on a lute!

    A lute? A LUTE??? LUXURY!!!!

    --
    These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
  7. Forget Norway by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Norway? More like Snore-way!