Sorry for the Danish post i hope you can translate it.
The Ministry warns that Microsoft programs can create problems for written exams for students with Mac computers.
Users who have updated the programs to the latest version may experience the programs running slowly, freezing and crashing. This means that the examinees are delayed in their work and that parts of the answers risk being lost, write the Agency for Education and Quality and the Agency for IT and Learning in a notice to schools.
Sorry for the Danish post […]
Never apologize for your own language.
Thanks! I guess foreign languages nowadays are just a minor inconvenience.
That said, apologising for sharing an article in one, is an even smaller inconvenience for me, so I can as well do it, for the sake of the few who may feel that its a huge burden
Unless you’re French.
At Microsoft, autocorrecting “apple” to “appelle” is such such a minor and humourous oopsies that they will use to force an update on all users next week at 4:59pm when they are all trying to save stuff before going home. But in the real world, that’s annoying as heck.
I understand approximately half of what you wrote, but I see quite a few people upvoted you. Is this what dementia is like?
At fedi, this is totally ok! Because I can just block you and not have to deal with your negativity.
I actually wasn’t being negative, but carry on.
Here is the translation of the Danish text into English:
“Chaos and Confusion” during Exams after Word Update Ministry warns that Microsoft programs may cause problems for students with Mac computers during written exams.
For several written exams, students with Mac computers have experienced issues with Microsoft Word if they had the latest version of the program installed.
BY Thomas Prakash TODAY AT 10:42
High school student Silje Højer Lauritsen was about an hour into her exam on Thursday when her computer started having problems. Suddenly, her Word program began running slowly. The word processing program “froze,” and she could not save her answers for the assignment in the marketing subject, where she was explaining companies’ value chains.
- It was really frustrating, especially because you are already so stressed and have so many thoughts during an exam, she says. Many of the other students in the exam room at the HHX high school in Risskov, Aarhus Business College, experienced similar problems. Silje Højer Lauritsen estimates nearly half of them did.
Problems at several high schools IT staff and teachers ran in and out of the room to help the students, and they ended up giving them an extra hour to complete the exam. However, not everyone succeeded.
It was almost as if it wasn’t an exam anymore because there was so much chaos and confusion. SILJE HØJER LAURITSEN, STUDENT, HHX HIGH SCHOOL IN RISSKOV
- I have a friend who had her assignment deleted because of it, and now she has to take a makeup exam in August, says Silje Højer Lauritsen.
At several other high schools in the country, the same problems have been experienced in recent days.
- It caused a lot of unrest in the exam situation for the affected students, says Flemming Madsen, IT manager at Aalborg Business College. The problem is due to a recent update to Microsoft Word, which can cause the program to run slowly and crash for students with Mac computers.
‘Use other programs, or take frequent backups’ The Ministry of Education is aware of the problem and warns educational institutions that there may be issues with the latest version of Word and Excel for Mac users.
- Users who have updated the programs to the latest version may find that the programs run slowly, freeze, and crash. This means that examinees are delayed in their work, and parts of their answers risk being lost, writes the Danish Agency for Education and Quality and the Danish Agency for IT and Learning in a message to schools.
- We encourage institutions to inform students about this problem so they can take precautions, such as taking frequent backups or using other similar programs, the recommendation says. One solution could be to uninstall the new version and reinstall an earlier version of the program - downgrading Word from version 16.85 to version 16.84.
Help to solve the problem The Danish Agency for IT and Learning provides guidance on its website on how Mac users can solve the problem and downgrade to an older version of Microsoft Word.
Distracted from the task The ministry states that it is not responsible for the use of so-called third-party programs used by institutions and students and therefore does not have an overview of how many were affected by the problems. At the HHX high school in Risskov, Silje Højer Lauritsen felt that the IT problems made an already stressful situation even more stressful.
- It was almost as if it wasn’t an exam anymore because there was so much chaos and confusion, she says.
- I felt that it took a lot of focus away from my tasks.
Microsoft apologizes At Microsoft, one of the world’s largest IT companies, they regret that the latest update is causing problems.
- We are aware that there may be issues with the latest version of some of our products for Mac users, reads a written response from Microsoft in Denmark.
- We apologize for the inconvenience and take the problem very seriously. We are in close contact with our product team, who are working to solve the problem. In the meantime, we encourage all affected users to follow the recommendations to reinstall an earlier version and take frequent backups, says Microsoft.
Man I feel old, back in my day we weren’t allowed to use anything more powerful than a TI83 on most exams and the answers were on scantrons or paper due to fears of using the internet to cheat. These days with GPT I’m surprised that’s not even more of a concern.
I feel you! When i took my exams we didn’t even have the internet!
LibreOffice is pretty capable. There are also web-based options.
Bet the school and students will continue to use Word and risk future critical times with proprietary software they’re not in control of.
“Use löpande backups” I mean isn’t that built in? Could they just use something else? Like LibreOffice is a thing that exists.
