According to a recent article in Education Week, the National Assessment of Educational Progress will have students from grades 8-12 type up their writing exams. Instead of hand writing their responses, the students will have the privilege of typing their responses to exams. This makes a great deal of sense considering how much technology has influenced our lives. Billions of email messages are sent everyday, millions of blogs are updated daily, and not to mention the amounts of typing that is done on a computer by millions of companies worldwide. The computer has become an intricate part of our lives; therefore it only makes sense to make it an intricate part of a student’s educational life, if it has not already. NAEP will asses the student’s by focusing on three different details in a student’s response- the student’s ability to persuade, to explain, and to convey experience. Having these three details included not only helps student’s education wise, but it can also help them with their future careers or in the workplace. NAEP plans on setting this new challenge into motion by 2011 for grades 8-12 and by 2019 for fourth grade, mostly because most Elementary schools are not equipped with the computers.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2007/03/14/27nagb.h26.html
