Make a Seamless Transition with VMware Horizon View By Geoff Murase, Sr. Solutions Marketing Manager, VMware

1. Are You Ready to Make the Move to Online Testing?
Make a Seamless Transition with VMware Horizon View
Geoff Murase, Sr. Solutions Marketing Manager, VMware

2. 2
Agenda
§ Common Core State Standards Initiative Background
§ Online Testing Status and Challenges
§ VMware Horizon View Solution for Online Testing
§ Customer Case Studies
§ Summary and Next Steps

3. 3
Goal and History of the Common Core State Standards
§ Problem Statement
• Inconsistent academic standards across different schools and
states
• U.S. educational system falling behind globally
§ Goal of Common Core
• Prepare students for college and work
• All students must be prepared to compete both domestically and
globally
§ Common Core Development
• State led, not a federal mandate
• Work began in summer 2009
• Multiple rounds of feedback from states, teachers, researchers,
higher education, and the general public
• Final Common Core State Standards released on June 2, 2010
Example: 8th Grade Math Scores
Source: 2011 Trends in International
Mathematics and Science Study

4. 4
Common Core Adoption
87%
of K-12 students in the U.S. live
in states that have adopted the
Common Core State Standards*
*EdWeek, July 2013

5. 5
Common Core Timeline
*EdWeek, July 2013
2014-2015
School year to be
digitally ready
for CCSS Online
Assessments*

6. 6
Example Math Standard and Question
§ Standard
• Operations & Algebraic Thinking 5.OA
• Write and interpret numerical expressions.
• 5.OA.1. Use parentheses, brackets, or braces in numerical
expressions, and evaluate expressions with these symbols.
§ Sample Question

7. 7
Funding the Common Core Standards
§ “Race to the Top” is a $4.35 billion U.S. Dept. of
Education contest created to spur innovation and
reforms in state and local district K-12 education
• Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of
2009
• One of the components of the Race to the Top program involves
Standards and Assessments
§ On September 2, 2010, the Secretary of Education
announced that it had awarded two groups of states
grants to develop a new generation of tests
• Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and
Careers (PARCC): $170M
• SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC): $160M

8. 8
PARCC Technical Requirements
§ Minimum bandwidth requirements
§ Security
• Control of Internet access
• No use of cameras (still and video)
• Disable screen capture (live and recorded)
• No Email access
§ Devices
• No access to instant messaging
• No Bluetooth connections
• No application switching
• No printing

9. 9
Smarter Balanced Technical Requirements
§ Sep 2012: Awarded Online Testing
Platform Contract to American Institutes
for Research (AIR)
§ Bandwidth
• Estimate that the Smarter Balanced assessment
will require10–20 Kbps per student or less
§ Custom AIR secure browser download
required
• Monitors activity on the computer
• Stops testing if any other programs run that may
compromise the security of the test
§ Devices
• PCs, Macs, tablets, Chromebooks, thin clients,
virtual desktops

10. 10
State Consortium Alignment
PARCC
Smarter Balanced
Undetermined

11. 11
Agenda
§ Common Core State Standards Initiative Background
§ Online Testing Status and Challenges
§ VMware Horizon View Solution for Online Testing
§ Customer Case Studies
§ Summary and Next Steps

12. 12
Online Testing Status – Mindshare

13. 13
Online Testing Status – Preparedness

14. 14
Online Testing Challenges – Budget and Devices
69%
of schools need more district
provided devices*, but only
18%
of the technology budget is
spent on hardware*
*CDE, September 2013

15. 15
Online Testing Challenges – High Availability and Scalability
§ In April 2013, Indiana students in Grades 3-8
began taking online portions of the state’s
standardized test, the ISTEP+
§ Between 8 and 9 a.m., the testing website
began locking students out of the exam
• Some students were unable to log into their exams
• Others were locked out of the testing website during
their exams, forcing students to wait in front of “Please
Wait” screens featuring an image of a globe — the
infamous “globe screen”
§ In total, the computer problems disrupted
around 30,000 testing sessions

16. 16
Agenda
§ Common Core State Standards Initiative Background
§ Online Testing Status and Challenges
§ VMware Horizon View Solution for Online Testing
§ Customer Case Studies
§ Summary and Next Steps

17. 17
The Desktop Virtualization Solution
§ Desktop Virtualization
• Users access virtual desktops running in the data center
§ Desktop Virtualization for Online Testing Benefits
• Budget
• Centralized management reduces operational expenses
• Space savings as computer labs can be transformed into
testing centers with limited downtime
• Devices
• Support for a variety of clients including repurposed old PCs
and tablets
• Availability and Scalability
• Reduced desktop downtime and increased availability
• New users can be up and running quickly
• Security
• Data and applications reside in secure data centers

18. 18
VMware Horizon View Qualification with Pearson

19. 19
Pearson TestNav Overview
§ Pearson Education
• PearsonAccess – online assessment
management system
• TestNav – test delivery system
§ Online browser based testing
• No client required
§ TestNav was launched in 2001

20. 20
§ Only two vendors have been approved as
“TestNav Qualified”
• VMware and Ncomputing
• NComputing uses a proprietary platform
• Citrix is not TestNav Qualified
§ Qualification Standards
• No error messages
• Fast load time
• No noticeable lag time while interacting
• No significant lag with video, audio and test items
• Security from “login” to “submit”
• No access to other applications or content
• No screen captures, printing, or saving of the
display screen
• All data is encrypted between client and server for
the entirety of the usage period
VMware TestNav Qualification
Additional details can be found at: http://testnavqualified.com/

21. 21
Agenda
§ Common Core State Standards Initiative Background
§ Online Testing Status and Challenges
§ VMware Horizon View Solution for Online Testing
§ Customer Case Studies
§ Summary and Next Steps

22. 22
Case Study – Aledo Independent School District
Based in Aledo, Texas, Aledo ISD provides K-12
education to a student population of approximately
4,600, with 280 teachers and 145 administrative staff
in nine schools.
“We’ve had tremendous success using VMware
Horizon View for Pearson TestNav. Testing season
brings a lot of stress to not only students but the staff
as well. VMware Horizon View allows IT departments
to facilitate these tests in a high availability
environment, which is extremely comforting.”
Brooks Moore, DCS Technology Help Desk Manager,
Aledo Independent School District
www.vmware.com/go/AledoVideo

23. 23
Case Study – Tyler Independent School District
“In order to provide enough PCs for on-line testing
we’ve had to image our computer labs for testing
which meant losing them for regular instruction until
the testing period was over.
Now, using a VMware Horizon View virtual desktop to
access Pearson TestNav allows us to simply have our
students access the appropriate testing VDI image
during the test.
Now we no longer have to touch the computers labs
for testing and valuable instruction time isn’t lost
as normal use is simply a matter of selecting the
base student image at login. This is a great labor
and instruction saver for our district.”
John Orbaugh, Director of Technology Services,
Tyler Independent School District

24. 24
Case Study – Coppell Independent School District
“Using VMware Horizon View with the Pearson
TestNav test delivery system ensures that our tests
are administered in a secure environment that
preserves the integrity of the results.
Test environments are booted directly to our
computer labs and if any attempt is made to
escape out of the test, the test taker is locked out
of the test.
We initially rolled out VMware virtual desktops on a
small scale in the Summer of 2012 but with the
success that we’ve had, we now plan on rolling it out
to all computer labs within our district.”
Chad Branum, Executive Director of Technology
Coppell Independent School District

25. 25
Agenda
§ Common Core State Standards Initiative Background
§ Online Testing Status and Challenges
§ VMware Horizon View Solution for Online Testing
§ Customer Case Studies
§ Summary and Next Steps

26. 26
Summary
§ Common Core standards were developed in 2010 to address
uneven education performance in the U.S. and prepare students for
college and work both domestically and internationally
§ Compliance with Common Core is being driven primarily by the
PARCC and SBAC state consortiums with a target for the
2014-2015 school year
§ Challenges with complying with PARCC and SBAC online testing
requirements include budget, lack of devices, availability and
scalability
§ VMware Horizon View addresses these challenges and offers a
proven and validated solution for delivering online testing in a
virtual desktop environment

27. 27
Next Steps
§ Learn more about VMware’s online testing solution at:
• www.vmware.com/go/K12OnlineTesting
§ Connect with Us:
• VMware Community
• communities.vmware.com
• Facebook
• Facebook/horizonview
• Twitter
• twitter.com/vmwareview
• LinkedIn
• linkedin.com/groups?gid=65932

28. Thank You