The Teacher's 21st Century Toolkit - Assessment Specialties

Teachers often ask, "How can I use technology to assess my students?" There is no quick answer for that one.  I think teachers picture themselves walking around the room with a handheld device and effortlessly clicking away, a few seconds a student, for perfect record keeping.  Actually you can do that, but you first need to examine what your learning goals were, decide what devices you have available and think about the result you would like to have.  Is it a spreadsheet, anecdotal comments, captured video, captured written response or perhaps audio recordings?  As with students, teachers must ask themselves, what is the best program to meet my needs?  Below is a Prezi with 5 varied applications that were either specifically designed for assessment or can be adapted for evaluation purposes.  I'm not a huge fan of the Prezi app (I get dizzy easily, and the element placement layout and linking can make me crazy) but I thought it might be a nice change and would adequately hold my examples.  Use the arrows and click on the links for student examples.  Hope you find something of interest! 

"What did you do at school today?"

'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.

Summary of WRDSB Special Education Supports

Special Education Support across WRDSB follows a vision statement, "Inspired Learners – Tomorrow’s Leaders, the board strives to provide educational opportunities that encourage all students to develop their individual potential in the most enabling environment. When a student’s optimal learning potential is affected by behavioural, communicative, intellectual or physical exceptionalities, special education support is required." page 14, WRDSB Special Education Plan.  This 189 page document provides extensive descriptions and definitions for all Special Education services in our board. Below is a select summary of those supports and their availability to students.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Will Richardson asks good questions.

A question from Will Richardson's book, 'Why School?' page 34,  "With few exceptions, all the things our children are using to connect and learn outside the classroom - social media, cell phones, Internet connections - are banned inside classrooms. In my kid's case, school is the only place in their lives where they can't use the technology they carry around in their pockets and backpacks to answer questions. The only place. Why is that?" 

This was written 3 years ago. Is there an answer? Has anything really changed in that time?  

https://goo.gl/cgA9Yj

Five Minutes of Twitter A Day

If someone stacked a pile of books, magazines, and newspapers in front of me and said, 'You've got 5 minutes, Go!', I'd be hard pressed to do them justice.  But if I find myself with 5 minutes during the day and my iPad or phone nearby, I can be guaranteed to get my money's worth of info! Today I did just that, this time with my laptop.  I started a timer and jumped on to Twitter.  My topic of curiosity for the day was digital learning with a focus on Assistive Technology. In the first 4 minutes I selectively skimmed over 40 tweets and links. For the last minute, I favourited, copied and pasted, added to Delicious and re-skimmed my top 5.   Here's what I found.

http://www.teachsmart.org/ A cool device named Tap-it.

http://goo.gl/4413wk

http://teachingeverystudent.blogspot.ca/2015/07/does-assistive-technology-make.html Great blog article by Karen Janowski posted today about the differences assistive technology can make. Excellent examples across grades of situations we see in all classrooms.

http://paper.li/bwwojci/1361415475?edition_id=2e4d61b0-30e7-11e5-a22c-0cc47a0d164b#!technology A link to #atchat weekly, just filled with great articles from which I chose....

http://bdmtech.blogspot.ca/2014/02/whats-on-my-ipad-assistive-apps-i-use.html Apps to assist dyslexic students. Great list!

http://paper.li/markwcarbone/1343530609?edition_id=a059ca10-32d5-11e5-96e1-0cc47a0d1605#!technology The iPad 3 release date has been delayed!

http://goo.gl/6c7BwE

While the last one is not so AT related, I did spend 30 seconds of my time thinking about paper.li and trying to decide whether I am a fan of this convention that is often seen in Twitter. I have since done a little more research....at least 3 more minutes, and have found this description, 'Paper.li is a content curation service that lets you turn socially shared content into beautiful online newspapers and newsletters.' Decision made...I like it. It is another time saver for me.

This was a great excercise in metacognition, it made me think about how I am learning.  From this I have new conclusions.  1) I need to make better use of bookmarking tools.  2)  I should emphasize skim reading more in my class next year.  3)  There are many assistive technology tools out there I haven't seen yet. 4) It is important to carefully choose who you follow on twitter.  5) I'm a current fan of paper.li.
Those are a lot of take-aways from a 5 minute excercise.  I highly recommend it!

Ask and Ye Shall Learn

Overworked and underappreciated.  An Educational Assistant can make a world of difference in a classroom.  I was lucky to spend 5 years with 2 of the best out there.  I was thrilled when I heard Brenda took on an Itinerant position with our board that allowed her to pursue her skills and interests in technology.  She was our 'go to' person in the classroom and now has a chance to help so many others with her expertise.  Ever willing to help out, she agreed to answer a few questions for me.   I'm glad to have had the chance to learn from her again.  My big takeaway from this is to remember that it is so important to hear about other viewpoints in this large world of education.  

Assistive Technology Interview with Brenda Alexander

LD Itinerant Resources

Educational Assistant

1)  Question:  How can students receive (eligible) Assistive Technology support?

A referral by a school SERT for a student needing support on equipment can be made through the SERS system. It goes to our program leader, consultant who then decides if a teacher CYW or EA is required for support. Depending on the needs a schedule is set up between the school and person in to support. EAs are under the supervision of the teacher on the LD Team assigned to the school and work with them to provide support.

2)  Question:  Can anyone get AT professional development?

Most PD offered at our board is designated for teachers only. An EA can register but will only be contacted if there is an empty space in the class. This contact is sometimes the same day as the course and many EAs with families can't make changes to schedules that quickly. Occasionally PD is offered on designated PD days. These courses have a small number and with  900+ members in our association many EAs are unable to secure a spot. Being part of an LD team I have been included in all training offered to the teaching staff on our team.

3)  Question:  What is the most sought after AT?

Currently our team is supporting GAFE( Google apps for education). We also support Kurzweil, Dragon Naturally Speaking, Wordq and others.

With the availability of chromebooks in almost every classroom our team have been supporting both staff and students with Google Apps this past school year.

Students respond well to programs and apps that use voice to control them or to input information.

http://goo.gl/yl7p9V

4)  Question:  What tools do you need more of?

The best tool we could have is well trained EAs , the students are directly supported by the least trained individuals.

I would like to see all students with a chromebook and with instructions on how to use all apps and extensions. For LD students the laptops run more smoothly, that is less connection drops on wireless, easier setup for apps and with all passwords etc . Having individual laptops for LD students ensures they can always access equipment to complete assignments. Kurzweil is still a more reliable software program than the many apps needed by a student to complete the same tasks.

A tool I would like to see is an easy way to convert paper into a file for use with applications currently available to our students.

Example. Kurzweil scanned files cannot be read or written onto with Read & write for Google.

5)  Question:   What tools are being replaced with online (free) application)

Organizational tools. EX. Symbaloo
Graphic organizers using Mindomo
Calendars for itinerant staff to report schedules to admin
Student planners. Google calendar used in many LD Congregated classes

Policy Pondering Revisited

Over the past several months, I have spent more time than I have in the last 25 years, considering policy and professional obligations for the job I have in teaching. One of the topics I've revisited a few times is our board's view and their decisions about safe and appropriate use of online tools. While I was able to access the WRDSB Responsible Use Procedures online, I also found the opportunity to question one of our technology leaders.  I contacted Elaine MacKenzie who is one of 4 Digital Literacy Support Teachers in our system. Elaine spends her year working tirelessly in schools dealing with social media issues, curriculum, literacy research, and anything associated with technology. She connects with individual teachers, admin, whole staffs, and parent groups.  I'm thrilled to share our online chat about social media.

1) Question:  How are policies created? 

    Answer:  There is a Technology Steering Committee comprised of Senior Admin, Admin, I.T., Learning Services, Business Services, and I.T. consultants. 

2) Question:  In what way are teachers supported regarding safe and appropriate use of online tools?
    Answer: There is a Responsible Use Procedure. Mark Carbone (Chief Information Officer) addresses this at WREA meetings with principals and at meetings with Computer Contacts for each school. It is put into System Memos in our board email system. We have 4 Digital Literacy Support Teachers and a Technology Support Teacher who can meet with staff or individual teachers.

3) Question:  What are the barriers for use of social media and online tools? 

    Answer:  Fear.  OCT and ETFO share scenarios which have discouraged and scare  some teachers. Admin don't use or understand social media therefore don't allow teachers to. We don't have enough System Leaders who use social media well. There is also a Self-Imposed Barrier- many teachers feel that they don't have "time" to use social media. Often they feel that it is an extra amount of learning/work that they would be unable to learn or keep up with.

4) Question:  How are policies changed? 

    Answer:  Ideas are brought to the Steering Committee and discussed.

Our conversation could have gone on and on, these questions only lead to more, especially number three. Elaine will have a busy year again with that one. Thanks for your time @ecmackenzie, we are lucky to have you in this role at WRDSB...now back to summer!