{"id":21839,"date":"2014-04-15T08:08:12","date_gmt":"2014-04-15T12:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=21839"},"modified":"2014-04-15T08:08:12","modified_gmt":"2014-04-15T12:08:12","slug":"bandwidth-computers-classroom-space-all-a-challenge-in-online-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2014\/04\/15\/bandwidth-computers-classroom-space-all-a-challenge-in-online-testing\/","title":{"rendered":"Bandwidth, Computers, Classroom Space All A Challenge In Online Testing"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_21840\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"Florida school districts have to upgrade networking and devices for new online testing.\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2014\/04\/4-15-ComputerLab.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-21840\" alt=\"Florida school districts have to upgrade networking and devices for new online testing.\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2014\/04\/4-15-ComputerLab-300x200.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2014\/04\/4-15-ComputerLab-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2014\/04\/4-15-ComputerLab-620x413.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2014\/04\/4-15-ComputerLab.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">ACS Amman \/ Flickr<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Florida school districts have to upgrade networking and devices for new online testing.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Having enough high-speed Internet and computers are problems as <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2014\/03\/17\/florida-schools-chief-picks-air-for-next-statewide-test\/\">Florida school districts transition to online testing tied to new math and language arts standards<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But testing rules have made classroom space and logistics a challenge as well.<\/p>\n<p><em>Pensacola News Journal<\/em> reporter Michael Scott Davidson <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pnj.com\/article\/20140415\/EDUCATION\/304150014\/FCAT-testing-taxes-school-districts?gcheck=1&amp;nclick_check=1\">outlines some of the issues in Santa Rosa County schools:<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Wyrosdick said the school district has invested about $3.5 million to buy and upgrade infrastructure to meet the minimum specifications for testing systems. The standards are required but not funded by the Florida Department of Education, so a recent half-cent sales tax has financed the purchases.<\/p>\n<p>There are other problems, too. Guidelines that dictate how far apart students taking the test must sit mean that in a close-quarter computer lab, not every available computer can be utilized.<\/p>\n<p>Scheduling is a big problem because most classrooms aren\u2019t outfitted with enough computers to conduct a standardized test, said Bill Emerson, Santa Rosa County assistant superintendent for curriculum, instruction and assessment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt used to be if we had 300 kids taking the FCAT, we\u2019d put them all in the cafeteria,\u201d he said. \u201cNow it takes 10 different classrooms to do that. And most of our schools don\u2019t have 10 computer labs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><!--more-->And as the story notes, schools must also pay for additional bandwidth and new computers. Pensacola&#8217;s Washington High School has 400 computers for more than 1,600 students.<\/p>\n<p>See how ready your school district says it is for new online testing by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flccss.org\/\">checking the Florida Readiness Gauge website.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Having enough high-speed Internet and computers are problems as Florida school districts transition to online testing tied to new math and language arts standards. But testing rules have made classroom space and logistics a challenge as well. Pensacola News Journal reporter Michael Scott Davidson outlines some of the issues in Santa Rosa County schools: Wyrosdick [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":21840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[930,1157,940,1006],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21839"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21839"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21843,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21839\/revisions\/21843"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}