Students go online to make the grade

In a first for Manjimup Senior High School, Year 7 and Year 9 students will complete their NAPLAN testing online this year.

Vice-principal Steve Miolin said it would be interesting to see how students would respond to the new format.

“Our technician and operations manager are confident the online system will function well and it will be interesting to see how it pans out given that students across Australia will all be sitting NAPLAN in the same timeframe,” Mr Miolin said.

While students were regularly using computers in classrooms, Mr Miolin said they were still required to submit most school work in handwriting.

“How that translates to online will be interesting, especially for extended writing pieces,” he said.

“It will suit some students more than others.”

Mr Miolin said other online testing such as Western Australia’s Online Literacy and Numeracy Assessment for Year 10s, 11s and 12s was generally well accepted.

The online NAPLAN testing differs to hard copy as it uses “tailored testing” which the Department of Education said meant “better assessment” and “more precise results”.

Online testing would also mean a faster turnaround for results, Mr Miolin said.

The testing will begin next week.