When I arrived at the testing site, they admitted me right away and I got to work without any instruction. It's as if they could read my mind in knowing that I didn't want anything to do with this test, so get me out of here ASAP. Literally, I said less than 5 words to the woman administering the test, who turned out to be the same woman from last time. I was actually pretty surprised that she didn't remember me after the fuss that I made during my previous test, but on second thought I figured it's probably a good thing.
Turns out there were two specific parts of the test that I failed - the "gradebook" portion that I wrote about, and an online quiz, with the most epically difficult questions I have ever had to answer on an online technology test in my entire life. More on that later. So I decided to tackle the gradebook part of the test first. I take my seat at the computer, boot up Excel, and crack out the new gradebook. It was the EXACT same assignment as the previous test, with the minor difference that the students names had been changed. This time, however, I made a small, semi-insignificant-to-two-decimal-point-change to my assignment. I contemplated adding a column where I carried out the calculations to 20 decimal points, titling the column "Actual Score" and then putting the column next to it with 2 decimal points and titling it "Actual Score". I thought, you know, maybe they'd find it helpful if I plotted the student's scores on a dot plot, and calculate a linear regression line that would demonstrate the correlation in the student's scores versus their grades before and after truncating the extra digits in their calculated scores. Then I thought, I could push this even further and calculate the variance of their scores before and after decimal adjustment, and then use this to create a normalized distribution of grades which could then in turn be used to extrapolate future students' scores in the class, and predict what type of course averages could be expected when converting the student's actual scores to two decimal points.
However, by this time I think I had spent a cumulative time of 46 seconds creating the workbook and considering the various possibilities, and I figured I had wasted sufficient time on this problem already by even having to show up to take the test again anyhow, so I might as well just do the absolute minimum skill level demonstration that assessment requires and move on.
Then I had to move on to the online quiz portion of this TECHNOLOGY test. I failed this section previously the first time because I thought way too hard about a number of the questions, plus I mostly failed it because a number of the questions on the original test are incorrect or unclear. So I had to take it again. I committed a number of the questions to memory and have listed them below. Try your best to see if you can answer them - no cheating!
1. Which of the following can be used to enter information into a computer?
A. A cup of coffee
B. A gas pump
C. 3 fluffy bunnies
D. A keyboard
2. Which of the following displays the information from the computer?
A. A puddle of mud
B. The bathroom mirror
C. Your library card
D. An LCD monitor
3. Which of the following websites can be used to search the internet?
A. Google
B. The refrigerator door
C. A car tire
D. Jet fuel
4. If you had questions about your school's computer lab, who would you contact?
A. An Anasazi tribal leader
B. The governor
C. Your school/district IT department
D. An outer Mongolian nomad
Answers: D, D, A, C
How'd you do? Rough stuff huh? Coming from an IT professional - that test was BRUTAL. It TRULY tested my technology competence, and helped me learn how to make technology relevant in my classroom.
In all honesty, this entire program is a joke. I'd place the blame with San Jose State for coming up with such a pathetic test, but it's the state of California that requires us to take the test, and they're the ones who have authorized the test. So I suppose I can thank the state of California for setting such a high bar.
Thanks California - glad I can be part of helping you get your state together.
1 comment:
What? D, D, A, C? Where did you get those answers? Guess I should read through those questions again... :)
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