In August and September, schools around the country will have an opportunity to assess their readiness to move to NAPLAN Online in 2018.
“The test will give state and territory education authorities valuable feedback about the extent of school readiness to undertake NAPLAN Online from 2018,” said Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) CEO, Robert Randall
“Teachers will practice managing the classroom logistics for an online assessment as well as the processes for administering the test.”
Schools across Australia will start to go online from 2018 on an opt-in basis.
State and territory education authorities are responsible for determining when their state/territory moves to NAPLAN Online.
These education authorities are preparing schools for the move from the current paper-based NAPLAN tests to online-based assessments.
They will support schools with a variety of readiness tools, activities and training, including this readiness test exercise for selected schools.
NAPLAN Online will allow for a wider range of question types and a broader range of skills to be assessed.
It will also feature tailored testing, where the test automatically responds to student performance, providing more, or less, demanding questions based on how a student has gone in previous sections.
This means that NAPLAN Online will provide more precise results and a more engaging test experience for students.
When NAPLAN moves online, test results will also be available within weeks instead of several months under current arrangements.
This will assist teachers to identify learning priorities and meet individual student needs earlier than with the current NAPLAN paper tests.
As technology develops, ACARA aims to further refine the delivery of the tests to best use the available technology as well as to provide increasingly sophisticated assessments and valuable feedback to teachers, parents and education authorities.
Significant planning, development, research and trialling have been ongoing since 2012 to support the move to NAPLAN Online.
ACARA has established a demonstration site to help students and teachers familiarise themselves with NAPLAN Online and continue to work with the Australian Government and all states and territories on planning, research and development activities required for the transition to NAPLAN Online. More infomration is available at www.nap.edu.au.