Software Helps Districts Prepare to Implement Online Assessment Testing Programs

Dell software today announced the Dell KACE Family of Appliances offers systems management tools to help schools evaluate technology readiness for several online assessment testing programs. These national programs, which measure student progress toward college and career readiness, include Smarter Balanced, Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College Careers (PARCC), Dynamic Learning Maps (DLM), National Center and State Collaborative (NCSC) and Assessment Services Supporting ELLs through Technology Systems (ASSETS).

As school districts evaluate existing technology readiness for these online assessment programs and plan for additional technology purchases, Dell KACE can ensure districts’ devices, including PCs, laptops and tablets, meet these programs’ configuration specifications. As a first step, national programs such as Smarter Balanced and PARCC, are providing a “Technology Readiness Tool” to help K-12 schools identify their current technology infrastructure in preparation for the transition to online testing. Once the infrastructure has been identified, Dell KACE can then determine whether or not districts need to buy new hardware or operating systems to support the testing system.

In order to administer these new assessment programs, a school district will need to ensure its computer type, hardware, browser versions, operating systems, and other equipment are configured correctly in order to interact with the appropriate assessment systems. Additionally, districts will need to ensure configuration with Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) authentication and role-based permission for administrators, allowing them to log in and send configuration items to managed components; and alerting and remediating disk issues.

Visit http://www.kace.com/products/overview for more information.