“First footing” in technology
Conversion to digital text production in English tests
January 27th was the fateful day when classes 7a/7b ventured out to write their first text for an English exam on their PCs. Both teachers and students were excited about the proceedings. The central question was: would technology work?
The idea to introduce the new approach NOW is a follow-up to what has happened in distance learning so far – where students practically produced all their texts on digital devices. While writing their texts, the students were monitored via LANSCHOOL - a software primarily used to block Web-applications, access to files or other programmes on the PC to categorically exclude any cheating.
The programme chosen to accomplish this task was WORDPAD as there is no spell check available, which is one of the basic requirements established in the Assessment Scale for text correction. We are grateful that the IT department organized printers for each group which enabled students to print out their texts individually for proof-reading. In the end, both students and teachers were proud of having coped with this challenge successfully in a foreign language. Students were happy to hand in neat and tidy texts and teachers could save time when correcting them as legibility and layout clearly stood out as the major advantages.
