Module+5+Reflection


 * ​Reflection Prompt:** How has technology impacted or changed your classroom assessment and evaluation? Has your data collection methodology changed with technology? If technology has not impacted your assessment and evaluation, what would you like to change? Discuss technology and your own productivity and professional practice.


 * Description**

During Module Five, I read Chapters Four and Five in the Technology Facilitation and Leadership Standards book. These two chapters discussed ways to use technology to assess and evaluate students, improve productivity, and enhance professional practice. I read two online articles about classroom assessment for learning and explored websites that had several examples of productivity tools that are available for teachers. On the Springboard discussion boards, I shared with my colleagues how we use iPads at Sylvan Learning Center to assess student progress and how I have used Progress Book, a Web-based information system, to manage student grades and attendance. I could enter grades from school or at home, and parents could access grades and missing assignments online from home.

**Impact**

In Chapter Four of the ISTE book, I learned that computer-based testing can help teachers get immediate feedback about student performance and provide teachers with the data needed to improve student learning and track student progress over time. Computer-based testing can also be applied to standardized testing and provide quick results. I also learned that there are a limited number of quality tools available to assess student technology literacy and that the tools that are available are expensive to implement. Since No Child Left Behind has placed a stronger emphasis on core academic content areas, there is little funding available to purchase student technology literacy assessment tools. Technology can also be used to manage information about students and their academic, discipline, and medical records. Technology leaders should learn as much as possible on how to use technology to evaluate learning

In Chapter Five, I learned about productivity and telecommunication tools that can help teachers complete tasks more efficiently. One issue is that it takes a lot of time to learn how to use these tools, and another issue is that teachers are not using some of these tools to their maximum capabilities. Technology leaders can make productivity tools easier to use for teachers. These tools can help teachers plan, implement, and assess instruction; communicate with parents; and participate in professional development. Educators should have a shared vision and accept shared responsibility to meet goals for student learning and work together to make decisions that improve productivity.

From the online articles, I learned that classroom assessment should be an active process in which students learn to use data to manage their own learning, set goals, and communicate success with others. Teachers should provide specific feedback about student progress, and students should know what quality work looks like. I also learned ten tips to using student response systems. I learned that they help limit the effects of peer pressure on student participation, but they should not be overused. Students might be less motivated to answer questions based on what they really think or know about a topic.

From the websites that I explored and the Springboard discussion boards, I learned about several tools that my colleagues use to assess students and be more productive professionals. Some of the assessment tools were AIMS Web, MyBigCampus, Star, and Map, while some of the productivity tools were ProgressBook, iPad applications, and SmartBoards.

**Intent**

As a teacher at Sylvan Learning Center, I intend to use previous teacher comments to guide my instruction when students are using iPads to learn math and reading. I hope to plan extra time to review those comments before students start working on skills. I know that I can’t access comments and have students work on skills at the same time, so I need to use good management skills to accomplish both things and plan extra prep time before instruction.

For my Instructional Design class, I am currently working on a group project where we need to find a good technology tool to help graduate students demonstrate the critical thinking and decision-making processes in a course on classroom assessment. There was a link on our Springboard site called Productivity Tools. I found several examples of mind mapping tools that might work for this project. These tools were bubbl, cmap, Freemind Share, Mindomo, mindmeister, and VUE. I plan to check out each of these websites to find out which one might work to design instruction around for this project.

If I teach in the classroom again and have access to student response systems, I will definitely use the ten tips that I read about online. I can keep questions and answers short, limit answer options, integrate questions without giving students time to think about their responses, and use think-pair-share to promote participation. I can use student response systems as pretests or as test review games. However, I will not overuse student response systems, since it can be monotonous and students can get uninterested. I feel that “clickers” are great tools to assess student learning because teachers can get immediate feedback and can save data for future use.

Even though I am not currently teaching in a K-12 classroom, I can use the productivity tools from this module in my role as a graduate student. For the group project that I have to complete for Instructional Design, my group uses Google Drive to work on class assignments in a collaborative way. I have also posted several documents that are important to our project, including our team progress reports and project timeline, to our group folder. Everyone in our group can access those files. One colleague mentioned a website on the discussion board called Doodle. He said that people can input dates and times, and Doodle will figure out the best possible group meeting time and e-mail it to all the group members. Perhaps this is a tool that could help us manage our group schedule more effectively. I also plan to check out another site he mentioned called Diigo where you can bookmark any website you find and save it to a personal account. This tool could be very useful since I access the Internet on both on my home computer and on the computers on campus. No matter what computer I am using, I would have access to websites that I might need to complete research projects. Finally, I am using a planner to write down daily assignments and make to-do-lists. This was practical as a high school student and also as an undergraduate when classes met multiple times a week. However, I have found using a planner more challenging as a graduate student since the courses I am taking are online. Since I am spending a lot of time online doing school work, I am interested in finding an online productivity tool that can help me manage my schedule and my workload each week.

Even though we use iPads at Sylvan, teachers are not allowed to download additional applications to the devices. Also, I don’t have an iPad for my personal use. Therefore, it is difficult for me to apply some of the information I learned about iPad applications that are designed for teachers and students. Some of the applications I learned about were very interesting, including the DropBox app for saving files and the Stick Pick app for choosing students to answer questions. I wish that every student could have their own iPad to use at school, but many school districts don’t have the funding for it. It is the role of technology facilitators and leaders to find creative ways to secure funding for new technologies.

While reading some of the posts on the discussion boards, I was disappointed, but not really surprised, that some schools were still using paper and pencil methods to complete administrative tasks (i.e. taking attendance, writing lesson plans, and recording comments about student progress) instead of using digital tools. I realize that we still have a long way to go until technology is fully implemented into all our nation’s schools. Sometimes I feel like the amount of technology that can be found at a school depends upon how much money has the school has to spend on it. However, I am always reminded about the schools in the city where I grew up, Barberton. Barberton is definitely not considered a wealthy district. Most of the students come from low-income families, but there are some areas of the city that are middle class. Through effective grant writing, I feel that the Barberton Schools have done an excellent job integrating technology into the classroom, especially at the middle school and high school. I wish that I had the kinds of technology (flip cameras, netbooks, and wireless networks) that students are using today when I was in school!