What does assessment have to do with technology.

1. Technology and
Assessment

2. Two Parts
1. Using new technology to assess
2. Assessing new-technology driven projects

3. Quiz Apps
• Quiz Apps
• More assessment apps

4. Benefits of Quiz Apps
• Great for measuring content knowledge
• Some of these apps allow online tracking of students
• Less time spent marking
• There are ready-made quizzes available
• Students can do these quizzes from anywhere
• Immediate feedback
• Saves paper/ink
• Efficiency

5. Limitations of Quiz Apps
• somewhat limited to first level of Bloom’s
Taxonomy - knowledge
• Potential cheating opportunities
https://retechtraining.wordpress.com/2008/07/16/how-adults-learn-to-use-technology-effectively/ http://gradpost.ucsb.edu/tools/2012/4/30/assessing-with-e-portfolios.html

6. Grading Tools
• Spreadsheets (Excel, Numbers, online
equivalents)
• Apps - Engrade, Sesame, Gradebook

7. Benefits of Online Grading
Tools
• Automatically calculates final mark!
• Allows weighing of categories/assignments!
• Access from anywhere!
• Some have ability to link to parents/students!
• Easily plot performance graphs!
• Efficiency

8. Limitations of Online
Grading Tools
• Emphasizes grades over anecdotal reporting
• How does the grade represent understanding of
curricular concepts
• Reduces assessment to numbers and graphs

9. Current Trends
• Province has introduced Report Cards which place more emphasis on
Outcome-based Anecdotal Reporting
• “Authentic Assessments” are more holistic in their measurement of
learning
• More anecdotal reporting on report cards
• Different kinds of assessments like interviews to get into certain faculties
like Medicine
• Greater consideration of other aspects like volunteering, extra-curricular.
• Digital tech emphasizes efficiency, quantification and statistical
analysis. Is this at odds with “authentic assessment” which tends to
be slow, thoughtful and qualitative?

10. Authentic Assessment
• What is it?
• These include narratives (written comments),
portfolios (carefully chosen collections of students’
writings and projects that demonstrate their
interests, achievement, and improvement over
time), student-led parent-teacher conferences,
exhibitions and other opportunities for students to
show what they can do. - Alfie Kohn
• There are online resources for creating digital
portfolios

11. Assessing Technology
based Projects
• Challenges
• Considerations

12. Challenges with Assessing
Technology-based Projects
• Potentially many different forms
• video, text, blogs, comic strips, etc.
• Expectations may be vague - Some students like
to know exactly what they need to do to get the
mark they want

13. Considerations when assessing
Technology-based projects
• Be clear on what concept you are evaluating
• Base your assessments on curricular outcomes
• Be careful not to measure the quality of the medium
over the content (unless that is your intent)
• Rubrics need to be general enough to work for all
different formats (use Rubistar)

14. • Tech can help us organize our assessments
and measure content!
• The danger of digital technology is that it risks
quantifying and simplifying assessment into
percentages, graphs, and statistics in the
pursuit of efficiency and pretty packaging.!
• It still takes a human to probe for deeper
understanding and connect with the student to
plot a course for future learning.
Final Thoughts

15. Resources
• http://www.alfiekohn.org/article/degrading-de-
grading/
• http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/
tech111.shtml
• http://education.qld.gov.au/smartclassrooms/
documents/strategy/pdf/smart-newsletter.pdf
• http://www.teachthought.com/technology/8-
educational-apps-to-create-digital-portfolios/