Online AP testing glitches snare state students
“Given the wide variety of devices and browsers students are using, we anticipated that a small percentage of students would encounter technical difficulties,” said Jaslee Carayol, a College Board spokeswoman. “We have a makeup window in June, so students have another opportunity to test.”
Record, who is Connecticut’s 2011 Teacher of the Year, teaches three levels of AP physics. She said she knew whoever went first was going to bear the brunt of technical issues.
“Unfortunately, it was my specific students,” she said.
And others.
Erik Matire, the Shelton School District’s interim school counseling leader, said a few students had the same issue uploading photos of their work on the Calculus exams that were given on Tuesday.
“It seems that it was related to either the default photo format on some of their devices or the size of the photo files,” Matire said.
Record said she participated in every teacher training session the College Board offered on the online format.
Teachers were told there were three methods to submit answers. Students could type it into a word document, copy and paste the answer into a testing window or hand-write answers, take a picture and upload it onto the site.
Never, Record said, was it mentioned that students who used iPhones or iPads to upload photos of their work would have to change the settings to make it compatible for uploading onto the College Board system.
“They did specifically take time to overtly say Internet Explorer was not compatible. They never said anything about Apple,” Record said.
Even though those devices are often used by students.
Once encountering difficulty on Monday’s test, two of Record’s students tried to sign up for a test retake using the key code supplied by the College Board. The key code had a typo and would not work.
Not until Record went to Twitter did she discover it was a pervasive problem.
“The only response from college board on Twitter was try again,” Record said.
Eventually, Record and other teachers figured out how to fix the coding error on their own and spread the word.
As for the incompatibility issue, the college board tweeted the following out on Tuesday:
“If you want to submit a photo of a handwritten AP Exam answer from an iPhone or iPad, make sure to change your camera settings so your photos are saved as JPEGs, not HEICs. Go to Settings > Camera > Formats > Select “Most Compatible.”
“Nice of @CollegeBoard to share this the day AFTER exams started,” Record tweeted in response. “You knew from your own data most kids taking science & math exams planned to hand write & submit photos. Not a good look.”
On the plus side, Record said she was able to warn other AP teachers about the issues.
Record has another 12 students scheduled to take the Physics 2 test on Wednesday and 20 taking Physics 1 on Thursday. So far, she’s heard of no other problems.
She is also glad that students who studied all year got to take some kind of exam. Even if they have to take it a second time.
“By and large my students felt prepared,” Record said. “They are committed to try it again.”
Martire said Shelton students who encountered glitches were also instructed to complete the makeup request form.
“I have not received any reports yet of problems with that process,” Matire said. “Students do need to be mindful of the timer to ensure they can upload and submit before the exam portal closes, which is stressful.”
In the end, not everyone decided to participate in the online AP exams, which unlike traditional three- to four-hour tests, are each about about 45 minutes.
Thomas Nardini, a high school senior in New Haven, decided ultimately not to take the exams for courses he studied for all year. He said, by and large, his friends have reported no technological errors but deemed the tests a lot easier than expected.
lclambeck@ctpost.com; twitter/lclambeck