PSAT Testing Readiness
Digital Preparation
The PSAT testing utilizes our chromebooks and has a tendency to use a lot of network bandwidth during chromebook updates and preparation. The PSAT testing organization offers numerous tips and steps for being ready, provided here.
Our Preparations
Mr. Schmitt is the main contact on the administrative side and we need to make sure to coordinate with him.
- Prepare chromebooks outside of testing rooms
- Make sure we all have copies of keys to the carts in case someone is out or unavailable to unlock them on day of testing.
- Be available to provide troubleshooting to students and teachers/proctors ‘day of’ the testing.
Past Issues
A couple of observations from 2023’s design/setup as we had students go into the cafeteria and complete the setup for bluebook and registration for the PSAT:
There was too much time spent rebooting computers and getting bluebook “ready” to use. This took over 30 minutes of valuable instruction time and even required us running around the room helping dozens of people reboot machines. My thought is we should not be using the student’s time for this- we should be prepared and have the laptops ready on behalf of the students and Mr. Schmitt.
The follow-up here is we need to prioritize this going forward for testing to be ready for student use immediately since time is very precious for our students.
Having the students locate the cart home of each laptop, and find their slot, plug them in- one by one created a massive line of one student at a time at a couple of carts. This ultimately increased time spent standing around for the bulk of students. Worse yet, we had to go back and recheck and plugin things - as there were several mistakes and unplugged laptops with their assistance.
To my point, as the line queued up at the cart I was at, I told students to just set their laptops on the table near me. Everyone cleared out in less than 2 minutes, while the cart where we were making students put them away, waited at least an additional 5 minutes. Moreover, i was able to seat properly and validate the cart one time and it was finished before the carts that had student’s assistance.
Network Boosts
We have an available roaming device to boost network signals for the testing days. Mr. Abbott typically places these in the necessary locations. If we have many students working on chromebooks or having to download software or updates, it is critical to have these in place to support the situation and avoid issues.