Top Tech Tools for Assessment and Evaluation

Elizabeth Beste

Aurora University EDU 6210

July 8, 2015

Gonzales, L., Vodicka, D., & Young, C. (2014). Top tech tools for assessment and evaluation. Leadership, 43(4), 22-25. Retrieved July 8, 2015.

Top Tech Tools for Assessment and Evaluation

Summary

In this article, three members of the Association of California School Administrators examine fourteen technology tools that can be used for evaluation and assessment. These tools were picked because they were free, easily accessible, and relatively easy to use. Since the implementation of the CCSS, the authors felt that they needed to address shifts in education. According to the authors, administrators are now taking on the role of instructional leader, while teachers are moving to facilitating and away from strictly delivering content. Students are becoming more responsible for their own learning. So, these tools have been picked for administrators to use to support classroom teachers. They especially wanted to use tools that didn’t need a lot of time investment from the teacher.

Main Points - Teacher Evaluation – Sites with Teacher resources.

The first tool introduced was teachingchannel.com. This was considered the favorite new website because it provides teachers with a wide variety of videos linked to discussion boards that are led by teachers. The videos demonstrate effective teaching in action on focused topics. Teachers can tag videos for sharing. This website is free, but requires teachers to set up accounts and there are additional paid services available.

Learnzillion.com is a website of instructional resources for teachers, parents, and students, created by teachers. Lessons, and lesson ideas, as well as resources are available online. A lesson might include the plan, standards, slides for training, a video of the lesson in action, materials or handouts, and assessments.

The next tool is Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Everything (http://www.schrockguide.net/assessment-and-rubrics.html).* As a top educational technologist, Kathy provides teachers with rubrics for assessment, as well as resources on a wide variety of technology or web tools, Common Core areas, and project based rubrics.  Additionally there are graphic organizers and report card comment suggestions. These are tools so teachers don’t need to invest their time creating these from scratch.

Technology Integration Matrix (fcit.usf.edu/matrix) is a website that offers examples of teachers using technology at 5 levels from entry level to transformational. This allows teachers to find videos and resources at their own comfort level. There are also evaluation tools so teachers can create technology assessments.

The next tool was the Orange County Department of Education Site (ocde.us/commoncoreCA/pages/default.aspx).  This site was included because it provided a very easy to navigate common core site. Included are professional development tools, lesson templates, and parent resources.

Livebinders (livebinders.com) is a social bookmarking site. It contains binders of information on any number of topics and the user can also create their own. Each binder contains lessons, links, resources, videos, online handouts, and more. Any resource that can be found online is connected in this binder.

Main Points – Student Assessment – Sites used for assessing students or instant feedback.

Socrative (socrative.com) is a student response system that can be used from computers or hand held devices. Teachers can load questions or polls and students can respond in short answers or quizzes. Teachers can use this type of assessment to immediately adjust instruction to fit students’ needs.

Another tool that was mentioned was infographics. Infographics are easily designed visuals that can be used to present or share information and data. The term infographics refers to the format, not a particular website. The authors recommended 4 websites, but only two Easel.ly and Glogster are still free or low cost and geared toward education. The other two are now high cost and geared toward business or professionals.

Myon.com is a paid subscription that provides online leveled texts from any device. There are quizzes after each story to provide assessment. Teachers can monitor and track progress. This is geared to elementary students but could be used with older students depending on their reading level.

Scholastic Math Inventory (http://www.scholastic.com/education/assessment/mathematics/smi-index.htm) provides mathematics progress monitoring. This is a computer adaptive tool that is aligned with the CCSS. It is paid, but the authors feel it fills a needed gap and is very important for RtI.

Main Points – Leadership Tools – Geared toward organization and data driven improvements.

Data-Driven decision making as well as other valuable content can be found on cosn.org, the website for the Consortium for School Networking. This site offers resources and tools that focus on using technology to grow learning environments. The authors especially liked the area on how to develop data-driven culture within the school.

Pearson Assessments for a Changing Landscape (http://paframework.csprojecthub.com/?page=home) hosts many different assessment types on their website. There is information for those trying to understand the different types of assessment. Additionally, there are digital resources and video tutorials.

Tableau Public (tableausoftware.com/public) is a free too that allows the user to create visuals such as charts, maps, or graphs from different types of data sources. The authors suggest that this would be useful for parents and community members, as well as students, when trying to help them understand complex information. It is only available for use on PC.

Recommendations

The authors point out that if the reader finds one new resource that they can use then progress has been made. They ask the readers to look at at least one resource from the lens of the teacher. They also remind the readers that they need to work with networks to make sure the sites are accessible and that new applications emerge quickly and that these resources are likely to change.

Reflection/Application

It was interesting to look at these tools from the view of administration and how their perspective is different than ours.  I especially found this true on the cosn.org site. It is geared toward technology experts at the district level. There was information about instructional focus and infrastructure that I don’t always get to look at. I think the article as a whole really reminded me to look at tools from everyone’s perspective.

There were many different tools that I might try in the near future. I really liked LiveBinders and I think it might be one that I like better than a few of the social bookmarking sites we looked at in class today. I have previous experience with Myon and really found it to be a great program to use with students.

*Note: as of today, all the tools or websites I have mentioned are current and functional. I have updated Kathy Schrock’s to the newest link. One feature of Google was also listed, but this feature is no longer available. 

How 5 Inspiring Tablet Classrooms Are Changing Education

Noonoo, S. (2014). How 5 inspiring tablet classrooms are changing education. THE, 11-15. Retrieved July 7, 2015.

Elizabeth Beste

Aurora University EDU 6210

July 7, 2015

How 5 Inspiring Tablet Classrooms Are Changing Education

Summary

            This article briefly looked at five classrooms around the country that are using different forms of tablets in different settings and situations. Each individual teacher has developed creative ways to use tablets that fit their specific setting and student population.

Main Points

            In classroom number 1, a high school teacher from Illinois used 1 to 1 iPads with Google Drive and Schoology. Students work collaboratively, but not together. Students give feedback and help edit or refine each other’s work. Another way iPads are in use is that students are all able to look at outside resources individually to provide the collective group with hundreds of additional academic resources. Students access as many as 100 additional resources in a two day period. The only negative comment was that while writing is improved, iPads are not great for formatting. The teacher will be implementing the same plan using Chromebooks, at another school. He feels that what he does is not controlled by the device.

            In the second classroom, a speech pathologist uses iPads and SmartEdPads. SmartEdPads are an android device preloaded with special education specific apps. The apps can be geared to meet the students IEP. Since she is a speech pathologist, her focus was on the speech apps specifically. Students used such features as a karaoke machine and other apps with record abilities to encourage students to speak. She had two students that were selectively mute, that were beginning to speak more because of the tablet use.

            The third class mentioned was an elementary second and third grade teacher who only had access to three iPads per classroom. She used the iPads most frequently with her ELL students. In addition to sight words apps, she used drawing apps to help students demonstrate their comprehension of stories. After whole group reading instruction, the ELL students were given differentiated work on the iPad because their comprehension levels were not on grade level yet. Students used vocabulary activities,  additional e-books on related topics at their reading level, or other literacy skills apps. The ELL students no only increased their reading skills almost 2 years but became quite tech savvy and could use those technology skills to be class leaders.

            The nation’s first school to be fully 1 to 1 was the fourth school in the article. Students in this school use computers for everything and are almost paperless. Work is submitted through MS OneNote which allows teachers to quickly grade and respond to student work. From a teacher viewpoint, grading is faster and there is little work to take home. Additionally, their school has the ability to do a lot if inquiry activities using 3D software. One example given was to calculate the volume of oddly shaped 3D images.

            Finally the article introduced a high school science teacher who received a grant to purchase a cart of 1 to 1 iPads. He immediately flipped his class and went completely paperless with his class. He moved his desk to a corner of the room, set students up in table groups and stopped classroom lectures. He created video lessons for students to watch on their own. Students were put in control of their learning. Students were taught different presentation methods using different presentation programs. Now students can create their own presentations using their own preferred presentation method. Students spend time one day a week focusing on the topic they most want to research. The class blogs about their research findings. One student wrote his own program to study sound waves.

Recommendations

            While there were no specific recommendations, each teacher gave ideas and solutions that worked best for their class or situation. They knew their student population and their resources and found technology that worked for them. They allowed the curriculum and the students to dictate the technology needs, not the reverse.

Reflection/Application

            What I most liked about this article was the fact that there were a variety of situations, grades, and technology uses. Some teachers had 1 to 1 while others had only 3 iPads. Most of the ideas given could easily be transferred to a different platform or device and wasn’t iPad only. The teachers listed off a variety of apps and software that they used, so that the reader has a lot of ideas. The activities were age appropriate and were very differentiated. I intend to look into several of the products mentioned, such as podcasts and Book Creator to see if these could be used in the classroom.

Using Nearpod in Elementary Guided Reading Groups

Elizabeth Beste

Aurora University EDU 6210

July 6, 2015

Delacruz, S. (2014). Using Nearpod in elementary guided reading groups. TechTrends, 58(5), 63-70. doi:10.1007/s11528-014-0787-9.

Using Nearpod in Elementary Guided Reading Groups

Summary

In this article, Stacy Delacruz introduces the reader to the concept of using mini iPads with an app named Nearpod when working with guided reading groups. Nearpod is a free app, with paid additional upgrades, that allows teachers to create presentations with quiz features, embedded videos, and slides and is available in iOS, Android, and web formats. Teachers create presentations that are saved with a student code. When students enter the code, they are linked to the app and the teacher can see them on her screen. The teacher controls the pace of the presentation because students can only move when the teacher advances to the next slide. 

Delacruz takes a lot of time to explain the guided reading framework and how it compares to using Nearpod. She includes two tables of information for the reader. In the first, she compares the components of preparation and materials, the steps during reading, and what happens after reading in the traditional guided reading setting and with Nearpod. She then walks the reader through the steps where she explicitly writes what questions would be asked, reading behaviors and how she would provide extension and word work. Some of the differences would include using quiz questions with Nearpod instead of graphic organizers or worksheets with the traditional method. Nearpod would allow students to type answers to open ended questions, where traditional guided reading might use journals. Students can also draw within Nearpod, rather than completing this on an additional sheet.

Purpose

            The purpose of this study was to investigate whether or not elementary students respond well to this app within their studies. Delacruz asserts that since this apps inception in 2012, there are 95,000 registered teachers using it. However, there has been little research to support its use in the elementary classroom. There have been some reports about teacher use, but nothing from the student perspective.  

Participants 

            The participants in this study were fourth grade students from a suburban elementary school in the southeast. At this school, 60 % of the students received free or reduced lunch. Additionally, 65% of the fourth grade consisted of English Language Learners. The reading groups chosen consisted of nine students that made up the highest and the lowest reading groups within fourth grade. Four of the nine students were ELLs. The highest and lowest groups were chosen in order to compare their reading comprehension of the selected story.

Methodology

This study used qualitative data gathered during the fourth grade, guided reading sessions The student teacher conducted semi-structured interviews to determine student preference and anecdotal evidence to determine student understanding of vocabulary through student drawings. The interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, and coded, allowing the student teacher to establish common patterns.

Findings

            When asked whether they preferred reading using the Nearpod app or traditional print book, all the students preferred Nearpod. The main reason was that Nearpod allowed for interactive use. Students liked being able to take a quiz or draw a picture from the same device, rather than having to go elsewhere. The students that were ELLs appreciated the ability to draw what they were thinking. One of the fourth graders commented, “I knew after the first time that our answers would be shown. It was like a game and I didn’t want to make any mistakes” (Delacruz, 2014, p. 69).

            The student teacher was asked about the benefits over the traditional guided reading curriculum. The student teacher felt that the students were more engaged and that it was easier to have immediate assessments built into the program. Students could take a poll and Nearpod would create a pie chart of results instantly.

            The student teacher also identified several challenges to using Nearpod for guided reading. One challenge was that if a student was dropped, the technology teacher was needed to be on hand to log the child out and in so they could continue. This program does not have some of the features that are found in other digital reading programs, such as text to speech and dictionary searches. Each page of the book had to be created using PowerPoint and then loaded into Nearpod.

            The student teacher also went on to note that Nearpod would be beneficial to students beyond guided reading groups. It could be used across the curriculum. If the upgraded subscriptions of Nearpod were purchased, teachers could use it to present videos for science or student created presentations. Additionally, she felt that the same presentation could be presented in other schools or overseas so that students could compare and contrast their views and ideas with children in other locations.

Reflection/Application

While this article was supposed to help provide research that shows how elementary students respond to this app, I think overall it missed the mark. While there is some anecdotal evidence, 9 students do not really provide a lot of support. Based upon the lesson outline provided, students worked on one chapter of a book. Had this been many groups, more children, or an entire book, the outcomes might have been different. I would have been interested to know if the teacher could have kept the level of engagement throughout. Would the teacher have been able to keep up with all the work required to prepare the lesson and would this play a role in engagement? Would it have been as interesting to students on day eight as on day one? Also, the background information about the guided reading framework was a larger portion of the article than the actual study or the explanation about the product being used.

One of the first issues that struck me was the fact that in order for the students to read the book, the pages of the book were loaded on to PowerPoint slides and then saved in a PDF format. These were then loaded into a Nearpod presentation. As someone concerned with digital citizenship and having a LIS endorsement, I see some glaring copyright issues with this practice.

This product appears to have many possibilities. However, this study really only addresses activities on a substitution level. While it is called “interactive” by the students, some of what was described is little more than an electronic worksheet.

I would really like to investigate this product further and am looking at using it for the final class presentation. I briefly looked at the product in order to get a better understanding, but I would be interested to compare the free version with the features that are upgrades. Also, there are many presentations available for sale. I would like to see if these are worth the cost. Finally, I would like to find uses for the product that go above the line on the SAMR model.