Tech! Are we becoming too dependent?

Earlier this semester, I had the opportunity to assist with the administration of Georgia Milestone reassessments to level one eight grade students whom had attended summer school. Testing was supposed to occur the last two days  of summer school. Each student was provided a laptop - as testing was going to be administered electronically. After getting all students settled, the ok was given to start testing. However, there was a problem, the state and county's testing systems were not synched. Some students were booted out of the system as soon as they logged in, while others couldn't log in at all. Consequently, testing was halted, and county officials were contacted to resolve the issue. Everyone thought that this would be a quick fix, however, students and teachers languished for almost an hour before the issue was resolved.

Moreover, there was not a contingency plan established for situations like this. Officials were obviously sure everything would go as planned. Students were scheduled to test two sections of ELA on Wednesday and two sections of Math on Thursday. Both days school was scheduled to end at twelve. Due to technical difficulties, parents had to be notified that the school day would be extended by several hours to complete testing because only one section was completed on Wednesday. Also, it was too late in the day to notify all parents in order to extend the day. As a result, teachers were asked to call and notify the parents of students whom would be testing with them. This was a very tedious task to say the least. Fortunately, all students returned the next day and tested without incident.

Are we becoming too dependent upon the technology available to us?

Should there have been a back-up plan for the aforementioned scenario? Perhaps the "traditional" paper/pencil tests in case of technical difficulties.





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