The PARCC initiative was brought to my attention by Matthew Newton at Montclair High School, a K12 school in NJ, USA.

PCs running Webconverger versus Chromebooks

The school contact raised concerns about using Chromebooks in student assessments.

The cost of acquiring physical Chromebooks and their management console to lock them down for American schools is significant.

What if you could turn an existing PC temporarily into a locked down Web kiosk for online examinations for just 10USD?

Webconverger could be just the solution schools need to roll out their PARCC testing in a timely and cost effective manner!

Pursuing a PARCC certified solution

The Web application carrying out the PARCC examinations is called TestNav and it's implemented by Pearson.

When first investigating TestNav, I was disappointed to see requirements for Java and samples that used Flash. It didn't make sense, since later guidelines indicated that Chromebooks could run the application, and Chromebooks do not have Java support.

I tested the new TestNav 8 http://www.parcconline.org/computer-based-samples in the latest Webconverger and they work just fine! Pearson's Qualification Standards for TestNav 8 are not yet publicly posted.