As students are equipped with free computers it seemed like a waste of money to purchase advanced calculators as well. Videocent has together with Katedralskolan in Lund, Sweden, developed an one-stop-shop solution for schools that are interested in this saving.
During exams the students are given an USB memory to insert into their computers before powering up them. This USB memory prevents the students from using the wifi-wireless network and access the computers normal hard drive. Once started the student see three icons on the screen – the first one is a simple pocket calculator, the second a more advanced graph calculator and the last one is a wordprocessor.
No computer skills are required by the teacher. Tests can be handed out on paper as usual, and students answers can be collected on paper. For use of the wordprocessor, the teacher can place a document on the USB memory, and the student can write his or hers answers to the USB memory if desired.
Together with the school branded USB memories, Videocent delivers easy to use failsafe USB duplicators that can be handled by the teachers or janitors, instead of the IT department. It’s as simple as inserting a master USB memory, the receiving USB memories and then pressing a key. The picture below shows a duplicator which copies 15 USB sticks in less than five minutes from a master.
Normally a school has computers of different brands and models. With our solution this doesn’t matter – the same USB stick can be used independent on which computer the student has. The functionality are tested on the schools specific computers before delivery of the system.
Further information can be found in the article Exam concept delivered to the four largest secondary schools in Lund and provdator.se (in Swedish).
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