http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStoryts.cfm?ArticleID=5469 Essay tests soon could take a high-tech twist in Michigan classrooms: State education officials want to launch a pilot project this school year that would use a computer program to grade students' essay exams. Is this good or bad? Thoughts?
bad, we continue to find a way to take the educator out of the process in an effort to ensure objectivity and save money in the process. A computer can measure syllabals, word length, sentence length, passivity, etc... but can it really measure creativity and uniqueness in this area? I don't believe so. I believe that a learned professor who has experience in the subject matter can provide an enlightment regarding a topic in relation to an audience that no computer can replace. While I have worked with speech recognition programs and special adaptations for both the technical and legal field I just don't think we should take humans out of all the equations. Especially where subjectivity has traditionally been the norm in the evaluation process.
Never mind creativity or uniqueness; I doubt a computer could detect whether an essay is even true, or if the answer is in any sense correct.
