Curses, Foiled Again Batman..........

Each year in our system, the children in grade's 3 & 5 are subjected to a set of state-wide tests quaintly titled the AIM, (or Achievement Improvement Monitor..... Sounds like some form of strange lizard to me :). As we want to do the best by our children, and given that the AIM format is quite foreign to our students, (it is an optical reader corrected, mainly multiple choice test that requires children to shade bubbles and all that next to the required answer), we give the children that chance to see previous tests so that they know what they are getting into. This obviously requires a lot of photocopying. To address this problem, I had the brainwave of scanning a previous test into digital form and then throwing it up onto the SMART Board to work from there.

After waiting for the lamp on the scanner to warm up, (perhaps a blowtorch might be a alternate option :) I had a copies of the test all ready to go. As they were jpegs I decided just to use the Windows Picture and Fax viewer. This allowed me to zoom as required and then advance through the pages of the test. Having collected another group of grade 3's from the room next door, (and palming off my grade 4's), we sat down to do the test on the board. Alas someone had mixed the tests and to my horror the children's reading books that the test items referred to and which I had dutifully given them were from another year to the test pages that I had scanned. SO MUCH FOR SAVING PAPER !!!!!!!!

Despite this major hiccup, we were able to work through a couple of items that didn't need the reader book enough for me to say that yes, once again the board has been quite adaptable to presenting work in a cost saving way.