Norway Trying Out Laptops For High School Exams
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.
Norway is being very lenient compared to what we have to do when we take standardized tests here in the US.
When it's test taking time; your pockets must be empty of virtually anything and the only items your allowed to have are a #2 pencil and scrap paper. If these rules are violated, it could end up in not just you, but your entire class retaking the test. There are also very strict rules when it comes to seating and going to the bathroom during standardized tests (In general, it's just a big pain in the ass). Kudos to Norway for trying something new.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein