Nick Bryner, a high school senior in Los Angeles, had just completed his AP English Literature and Composition test last week. But when he snapped a photo of a written answer with his iPhone and attempted to upload it to the testing portal, it stopped responding.
The website got stuck on the loading screen until Bryner’s time ran out. Bryner failed the test. He’s retaking it in a few weeks.
Bryner is among the many high school students around the country who completed Advanced Placement tests online last week but were unable to submit them at the end. The culprit: image formats.
My kids — like millions of others — finished out their spring semester at home. Even though they are in elementary school, I’ve been shocked at how bad a lot of education-focused applications and websites are. If kids have to do more schoolwork at home in the future, these tools have to get better, and fast.