Technology Tools for Assessment and Evaluation

This article, by Leanne Robinson, Joanne Carney, and Tim Keiper, discusses technologie's role in assessment and evaluation. It begins by distinguishing between assessment, analysis and evaluation and explaining how these three steps come together for the Decision-Making Process. Robinson warns that computer applications that evaluate reports by themselves are not sufficient for making decisions. To make educated decisions based on the report, "an educator should make the final judgement of the worth or merit of the summary" (2). I think it is common for schools to adopt a certain computer application that spits out a number score to label students by. I'm sure they don't put it this way, but that's how it really is. Teachers must analyze the data and evaluate based on the data, assessing all of the interacting factors. Robinson next goes into the difference between formative and summative evaluation. Formative evaluations tend to inform us of how to teach and how we can change based on how our students are doing while the skills are being formed whereas summative evaluation tells us what to teach next. So where does technology fit into assessment?
Evidently, "assessment technologies... hardware and software that are used to support and enhance our methods.. allow us to manipulate, house, collect, and interpret data" (4). It is important for teachers to be able to present their data in an organized way before analyzing it. Assessment technologies are used all of the time to graph student progress, responsiveness to interventions, keep track of grades in a gradebook, assign weights to different assignments, keep record of projects, etc. They are time-savers for teachers and also allow teachers to communicate student progress easily to students and their parents.
Another use of assessment technologies is to compare data to other students in the classroom, school, district, or nation. Some programs that do this are Intervention Central, DIBELS, and Aimsweb.

What interested me most in this article was the interactive ways to use technology as an assessment, like webquests for example. Students can use the computer and its applications to disseminate or collect data. Making the webquests in class so far has been enjoyable and I can see that students would be excited and motivated working on them. The electronic portfolios are also a great idea, I thought. It's much easier to grade, keep record of, and store electronic portfolios than bulky projects or physical portfolios that take up space.

I think the main point that I took away from this article is that assessment technologies should be used to support and supplement our assessment methods. They are not there to be the assessment method themselves. Assessment entirely made by a computer cannot possibly be accurate.

The I-Generation

Reading Carol Tell's article, I found myself agreeing with her more than most the other articles we've read so far. I like that she asks readers to think over the purpose of using technology in the classroom before spending dollars using it. Merely having computers in the the room does not enhance learning or make the education better. It is effective teachers who do that. Technology can be used as a tool by teachers, but it certainly cannot replace good teaching. Tell explained that "computers will not only make a difference in the way kids learn but also in the way their brains approach information processing," (2)and these changes are likely to be permanent. She goes further to argue that this frequent exposure to technology may "train [children] to be knee-jerk followers of whatever will give them the quickest pleasure" addicted to stimuli (6). If kids' attention is dependent on stimuli, they will be selective in attending to information not necessarily based on importance or relevance, but instead based on how much it entertains them or how long it can keep their dissolving attention.
Tell discusses the other possible affects of using technology too much in the classroom and whether or not it is appropriate or necessary for younger students. She presents the worry that students may use screen time as an escape from having to interact with people or pay attention to a teacher. Students who have difficulty with social relationships or with paying attention might be too comforted by the situations given by a computer, and thus miss out on essential opportunities to learn from their weaknesses.
I agree with the article in that "children under age 7 really do not need to be using computers" (4). I thought she made a good point in saying that the technology you learn on as a child is bound to change by the time you're an adult in the workplace or even in high school. Computers tend to eliminate some of the active part of learning by doing some of the 'thinking' for you. I feel that I have personally experienced this. Being in front of a computer screen can suck you into another realm or zone. I think that the early years of students' lives should focus on interpersonal skills and thinking skills, not computer literacy skills. I am shocked when I hear about pre-schoolers using computers already!
Last summer, I taught a Science and Technology camp and I could tell when the students had had too much screen time in one day. It was unbelievable how motivated the kids were to play, what seemed to me pointless, games. I wondered how many hours their parents allowed them to play at home too. I'm sure some kids hour logs would be scary.
I can see there is a lot of pressure to have the best technology available at school. At my high school, every single classroom had ActiveBoards installed, when less than half of the teachers actually used them on a daily basis. Most teachers seemed forced to use the side white boards as to avoid the ActiveBoard.
The money used on computers may be better used in other areas.

Ah the good ol' Oregon Trail

I'm sure I am not alone in saying that The Oregon Trail was one of my favorite games during my elementary school days. The choices that this game did offer the player was intregueing to me as a child because you got to run the game how you wanted. It also made it easy to personalize your game. I think this was the beginning of a style of many games today, where your character has to make lots of decisions throughout the game that determine what you'll encounter next.
I felt that Bigelow was unnecessarily harsh to The Oregon Trail. I don't say this only because I enjoyed playing the game as a kid, or at least, I don't think so. I felt that some of his points were over-the-top. Bigelow's claims support that The Oregon Trail is incredibly inaccurate beyond the surface facts. He pretty much bashes the way they represent every group - women, African Americans, Native Americans, men, etc.
I found it really interesting that in his article, Bigelow argues that "The Oregon Trail players need not take into account the lives of others unless it's necessary to do so in order to accomplish their personal objectives" (88), failing to give an example of one game where the player is not the main character. I cannot think of any other game where the player is a side character that contributes to another character's objectives. In order for the game to be enjoyable, of course the player will make decisions on their own behalf to advance further in the game. I don't think players would be very excited about playing the game if their character was not the focus, to be honest.
Bigelow notes that this game doesn't accurately portray the west migration/invasion since "the one choice The Oregon Trail programmers don't offer students-as-trekkers is the choice to harm Indians" (89). This is peculiar to me because imagine if the programmers did offer that choice... I'm sure this would put them in much more trouble with people like Bigelow.
I can see how the article holds some truth in that the game does not give the full picture to the player of the lives of people involved along the journey. However, I do think that perhaps some of the deeper relationships among groups of people were left out since the game is designed for students ages 6-15. A six year old might be very confused when a character says he/she is a slave or that there was much violence between the Natives and the Whites.

Though this blog is getting long, I wanted to share one more thought.
I did like the last two pages of this article. It wasn't all bad.
I thought Bigelow presented some good considerations for teachers. We should definitely critically think about what we expose our students to, both on the computer and off. Biases are unavoidable, but we can still try our best to make more informed decisions about materials and curricula.

In my practicum last year, the second graders were doing a simulation of the Oregon Trail in groups of four. Each team got really into it, making decisions together and keeping journals of their second hand experiences on the trail. It worked out really well and made for some good discussions when students were posed with challenges and decisions to make for their teams.