Oregon Public Broadcasting

This month, students in about a quarter of Washington's middle schools are changing the way they take the state's new assessment test.

They'll no longer be filling in little ovals. Students are trading their number two pencils for computer keyboards. It seems a natural move for a generation that grew up online.

But it requires some adjustment on the part of school districts and the students themselves. Inland Northwest Correspondent Doug Nadvornick reports from one district that's making the shift.

It's the start of second period at Evergreen Middle School in Spokane Valley.

The eighth graders in Kyla Watson's language arts class are filing into the library's computer lab.

Debbie Herman: "OK, come on, you guys, really quickly..."

Librarian Debbie Herman is trying to corral them. Today's lesson is not about vocabulary or grammar, but about how to take the state's new online reading test.

Debbie Herman: "And we have the opportunity to do sixth and eighth grade reading and seventh grade math on the computers..."

Evergreen is one of more than 360 schools that have volunteered to let students try the test online.

About three-quarters of Washington's third-through-eighth graders will still take the test on paper.

Debbie Herman: "We're going to go through the demo, so that you know what the tools are. When you get to the tutorial, you're going to be able to practice with all the tools, using the help, doing all of those things. It is a practice test. It is not something that is going to count."

The students watch and listen to a short demonstration from the state school superintendent's website. Once that's over, they file into the computer lab and get to work.

Teacher Kyla Watson thinks there are pros and cons to moving state tests online.

Kyla Watson: "You do have a group of students that are very comfortable with computers. We're in the computer lab a lot, doing a lot of research and typing."

But Watson says, even though these students are surrounded by digital media, they've always taken standardized tests with paper-and-pencil, filling in bubbles and writing short essays. So in this transition, she says it helps to give them practice before they take the tests for real.

Kyla Watson: "By letting them know and seeing what they're actually going to be getting into is going to be a huge advantage for them because they'll already know what's expected of them."

Watson says it's not just the high stakes of the test itself that makes students anxious. What happens when your computer crashes? In the class just before this one, a surge protector overheated and forced half the computers to be shut down.

Kyla Watson: "So their concern was are we going to able to, if we do have an emergency computer shutdown, will I be able to finish my test? They understand that these tests will go with them to high school."

Carissa Miller understands the anxiety this new test brings. She's from the Idaho Department of Education. Her state has had online testing since 2003. She says school districts initially grumbled about the change, but have since seen the plus side of digital testing.

Carissa Miller: "Teachers can see immediately, and so can students, what kind of scores they get. So that's probably the biggest benefit."

Back in Spokane Valley, Bill Ash is in charge of leading his district's transition. He hopes the new online test will bring the same benefit.

Bill Ash: "In the long run, the test results should be back to us within a few weeks, as opposed to a few months. And then the information becomes more relevant and you can use that for student placement purposes, whereas in the past, we had to wait until the middle of August before we got our results back."

Oregon has also made online testing available to schools the last few years and reports similar success.

After the bell, the eighth graders in Kyla Watson's class save their tests and start to move toward their next classes. Victoria Nauta and Aly Rose say, now that they've seen the digital test, they're not so intimidated.

Victoria Nauta: "It was nice. I found myself just sitting there taking the test, rather than all tensed up and worried about it."

Aly Rose: "Having this tutorial and everything, it has eased my nerves and I'm so not nervous for it anymore."

Rose, Nauta and their classmates have until June 4 to take their tests online for real. Washington students who take the paper-and-pencil tests will fill in their bubbles between May 12 and 28.