Gone is the "Questions" button in the upper left hand corner of the screen. When clicked, this revealed a list of the questions in a sidebar on the left side of the screen. Icons displayed next to the question number indicated to students if they had completed the question or not. Each question was also a link to jump directly to that question on the assessment. No functionality has been lost, but this has been changed to a dropdown menu that appears in the question heading. Colored icons now appear for questions answered or flagged (note that there is no icon for a question that has been skipped). These remain clickable links that allow for navigation through the test.
Two new features have been added! You can allow students to flag questions for review and eliminate answer options. Both of these options can be found on the PARCC assessment, and represent nice options for students.
Flagging questions for review is accomplished by clicking on the flag in the right side of the question header (see image below) and will result in the red flag next to a question that you see in the image above.
Eliminating an answer option is accomplished by clicking on the trashcan to the right of the option (see image below) and makes the answer option disappear. Additionally, this collapses the answer option, which is very useful if your options happen to be images (see second image below).
These options can be turned on or off in your "Online" menu for the assessment (see third image below).
[caption id="attachment_2135" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
Both images show what fits of this question in one window without scrolling. Notice that the image with collapsed answers allows for "A" and "D" to be seen together for comparison.[/caption]
This update was beta tested by teachers in our district before being rolled out nationwide, and the feedback was all positive. I can personally attest, after working on assessments side by side in both versions, that images load more quickly as well. This is in addition to the fact that we have not experienced the "disappearing image" issues from last fall at all this spring.
If you would like any more information about these updates, please contact me or your building/district instructional technology coach.
