'Here mom, let me show you.' Student pulls out their iPad, uses the short cut icon to open up their Google Apps for Education account and proudly shows their presentation. 'I worked on my passion project with my friend Wehbet today.' We want to tell everyone about her family's culture. It's a slideshow that we want to use at the Multicultural night next fall.'
Well, I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but that's basically how the mother of this student described it to me when we had a chat at the end of the year. She also mentioned that most of the year was like that. Whenever she wanted to know what was going on in class her daughter could just grab a device, log on and show her finished projects, works in progress, rubriks, or a checklist like this one that was assigned earlier in the year. She also commented on how amazing it was to see my comments (as in the image above) right on the work. For this generation of parents it is quite amazing for them to witness the advancements of technology through their children's classwork. As stated in Growing success, 'The primary purpose of assessment and evaluation is to improve student learning.' Through 21st century tools such as Google Apps, families can now see one of the fundamental principles (ongoing descriptive feedback), in action. Through tools such as revision history and comment features, the development of a student's work has been captured online and is an evolving story of their learning. For me as the teacher, it has changed how I see students as learners. Sometimes it is like I can be standing over the shoulder of all of them at the same time and watch them think through decisions. I can use the Revision tool mentioned above and relive their organizational process when developing the project. I can replay the editing steps they went through or didn't! I can see how much time they spend on task or how frequently. But most of all, I can be a part of the process with them and give feedback without drawing red lines through their work or circling errors like many of us experienced from teachers when we were younger.
I don't know if all my students gave the same answer at home when asked about their day, but I do know that they all could and that's kind of amazing.
Well, I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but that's basically how the mother of this student described it to me when we had a chat at the end of the year. She also mentioned that most of the year was like that. Whenever she wanted to know what was going on in class her daughter could just grab a device, log on and show her finished projects, works in progress, rubriks, or a checklist like this one that was assigned earlier in the year. She also commented on how amazing it was to see my comments (as in the image above) right on the work. For this generation of parents it is quite amazing for them to witness the advancements of technology through their children's classwork. As stated in Growing success, 'The primary purpose of assessment and evaluation is to improve student learning.' Through 21st century tools such as Google Apps, families can now see one of the fundamental principles (ongoing descriptive feedback), in action. Through tools such as revision history and comment features, the development of a student's work has been captured online and is an evolving story of their learning. For me as the teacher, it has changed how I see students as learners. Sometimes it is like I can be standing over the shoulder of all of them at the same time and watch them think through decisions. I can use the Revision tool mentioned above and relive their organizational process when developing the project. I can replay the editing steps they went through or didn't! I can see how much time they spend on task or how frequently. But most of all, I can be a part of the process with them and give feedback without drawing red lines through their work or circling errors like many of us experienced from teachers when we were younger.
I don't know if all my students gave the same answer at home when asked about their day, but I do know that they all could and that's kind of amazing.
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