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.
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Hanna,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog! I liked how you would discuss what the article was saying, but say what you were thinking after each section. I too think that it's really common for schools to adopt programs, but I think that teachers need to be careful not to just go off of what the computer says. Like the article mentioned, "good evaluation must ultimately be done by a human" which i think is something that people forget when using those programs.
the interactive ways to use technology as as assessment was really cool to read, and I love that we can make things so fun for students that is actually benefiting them. Technology, when used correctly can be a great tool, we just need to make sure we are taking a deep look at what we are using and making sure that it is whats best for oru students!
<3 Nice blog!
Hanna,
ReplyDeleteGreat blog! I found this article interesting, as well. It brought up some great references for using assessment technologies. I like how you made the distinction that these technologies are for aiding assessment and cannot completely assess themselves. This is the job of the trained educator. I think that as you said, there are many great types of assessment technologies, such as webquests and electronic portfolios. As we get out into the profession, perhaps we will be able to explore more of these tools, now that we have a greater understanding of their purposes.
Hanna,
ReplyDeleteGreat job, your blogs are always so in depth and thurough! I really liked your point about how many schools just take their one program they know works and use it regardless of how accurate it may be. This is true, like you said, especially with the problem of labeling students. So many students are labeled incorrectly and schools like these are not helping this problem! Along with this, you talked about how assessments from a computer on its own cannot be possibly accurate. I agree with you and think this is another huge issue in our schools. Why should a computer label someone? It shouldn't! We need good educators to take the information and interpret it and combine it with what they know too.
Hanna,
ReplyDeleteYou made some great points! I think technology can be so exciting and the possibilities for how we can incorporate them into our classroom are endless.Assessment technologies are powerful and can be a great tool but just as you said, these alone are not enough. We need trained professions to interpret and make sense of the results...a computer cannot possibly be relied upon to make such important decisions. Great job!
Great thoughts here Hanna :) I agree with what you said in the final paragraph about what you took away from the article. While assessment technology can be useful for teachers, they cannot replace human interpretation of data. In our day and age I think it is tempting to choose to turn to computers to do the work for us but I think we are quickly learning that may not be the best choice! As future educators, we must be sure we rely on ourselves to take and interpret data but also remember to take advantage of technology tools where they may encourage our students.
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