Below is a list of some of the tech skills students will need to be successful on the online tests, along with practice suggestions when applicable.

Keyboarding
Students will need to be comfortable typing responses. At the very least, they should know where all the keys are on a keyboard.

Practice Suggestions:

  • Miss. Keller’s draggo site, at has keyboarding activities that are appropriate for each grade level. Home row finger placement should be continually reinforced as students type.

Constructed Response Writing
Constructed responses have a certain character limit. Most students do not have an understanding of what 500, 750, 1000, etc. characters looks like.
Practice Suggestions:
The Word Count Tool in Google Docs and Microsoft Word will give users a character count as well. You can find the Word Count Tool under the tools menu in both programs.
Student often do not transfer punctuation and capitalization in constructed responses on the computer. They will need to practice doing so. Additionally, they will need opportunities to practice using the text editing tools available to them on the text (Bold, italicize, underline, bullets, numbered lists, cut, copy, paste, undo, redo).

Practice Suggestions:
Students need practice with typing their ideas directly (i.e. not copying from a handwritten doc.) They can do so in many ways, including:

  • Blogging
  • Typing letters to friends or relatives in Word

Toggling Between Tabs
Students will need to be able toggle between tabs on the assessments.

Practice Suggestions:

  • Give students opportunities to use multiple tabs or windows in a browser

Highlighting
Students can highlight text in questions by using their cursor to select the text they wish to highlight. Once selected, 4 color options pop up, including white (to un-highlight).

Practice Suggestions:

  • Use any word processing application, such as MS Word, to practice with the highlighting tools

Bar Graph and Histogram
Bar graph or histogram items require students to graph data by indicating the height (if the bars are vertical) or length (if the bars are horizontal) of one or more bars. The bar height or length is graphed by clicking on a location within the graph or by dragging the bar to the desired location.
Practice Suggestions:

- A brief lesson on bar graphs - This site showcases the difference between bar graphs and histograms (at the bottom of the page).
- Build a Bar Graph - This site lets you build a bar graph by clicking to indicate bar height (most sites ask the use to input numbers and automatically create the bar graph for the user.)

Answer Eliminator
Students can click on the answer eliminator tool to "cross out" answers on multiple choice answers that they believe are incorrect.

Drag and Drop
Drag and drop items contain "draggers" and "bays". Draggers are the answer options that are moved to bays in response to the question. Bays are areas of an item where draggers will remain once moved there. Drag and drop items require a student to respond by moving a dragger from one place on the screen into a bay on the screen. The student will click on the dragger and keep the button down while moving the dragger to the desired location. Once the button is released, the dragger will be in the new location. Students can move a dragger out of a bay if they want to change their answer.
Examples (These and additional examples can be found in Dot's Dotcom Blog Post):
Grade 3 – Number Lines (drag items to the number line)
Grade 3 – Mariana’s Fractions (drag and drop, drag sliders)
Grade 4 – Number of Stadium Seats (drag and drop))
Practice Suggestions:

  • (Mouse skills games - any)
  • Map Snap
  • Drag & Drop Skill Practice(less primary)

Test Taking Tools
Ruler
Some questions will have a ruler available for student use. Students will need to be able to click and drag to rotate the ruler as needed.

Calculator

Some questions will have a calculator available for student use.

Line Reader

The digital equivalent of the EZ Reader strip:

Students will need to be able to use a drop-down menu to access the tool and be able to drag and drop to resize/move the tool as needed.
Magnifier
Allows the student to magnify item content while preserving clarity, contrast, and color. The magnifier can be accessed from the User Menu in the top right corner.

Students will need to be able to use a drop-down menu to access the tool and be able to drag the magnifier around the screen as needed.

Flag

A Flag button is located at the top of the screen. This should be used for any question a student would like to review at a later time.

Review

A Review button is located at the top of the screen. This can be used to navigate directly to a question and to access "flagged" questions.

Navigation

Navigation buttons appear at the top left of the screen for each question. Selecting the forward arrow button takes you to the next question. Selecting the back arrow button takes you back to the previous question.

Practice Suggestions for all test-taking tools and other PARCC-related skills can be found at: