Using Technology for Assessments

I learned a lot this course, on how to create or use a variety of digital assessments in the classroom that are beneficial for both students and teachers. 

One important component of classroom instruction is formative assessments. If teachers use formative assessments properly, these assessments can guide small group instruction and differentiation to meet the needs of each student. Online assessment tools can help teachers and students receive feedback quickly, all while making it more meaningful to each individual. I decided to dive deeper into NearPod versus Pear Deck. Here is an infographic I made that shows the similarities and differences of these two tools. Overall, I am in favor of NearPod, as they have more to offer to both teachers and student.  

Another important assessment to use within the classroom is self-assessments. It is so important for students to take ownership in their learning, and assess how they think they are doing. Here is a Goal Setting Sheet: Weekly Goal Work that I created for my students to use when setting goals in reading, math, and vocabulary. I realized that there are so many ways for students to self-assess, and that a lot of technology tools out there can help students self-check, like Google Forms.

Overall, this is was a great course, and pushed me to create a lot of different assessment pieces that I can use with my class next year!

Effective Technology Integration Reflection

This course was really insightful. I learned a ton about what a true essential question is, and how to focus on creating a PBL that match a strong essential question. I thought it was really important to find an essential question that I could revisit in multiple content areas.

I also really loved when we created the Device Management slides when in class. I am going to use a lot of your creative slides in my classroom. I am always looking for easy ways to manage all of the 1:1 iPads in the classroom, and after that class together, I am definitely going to run a tighter ship with their iPads! 'Apple Up' is my new favorite phrase :)

Finally, I loved working on Screencastify, and just how easy it is to use. I think that I am going to try out the flipped classroom for certain units in my math class, and see how it goes. I honestly would have never dabbled in screen casting if I wasn't in this cohort, and I am so glad that I did!

Mastery Learning

I had the opportunity to watch a Talk Talk from Sal Kahn, creator of Kahn Acadamy, and listened to his view on Mastery Learning. He started his talk by discussing how gaps in a student’s learning can cause them to eventually believe that they are not capable of reaching a higher level in whatever academic area their gaps were located. Kahn then talked about being in a position where at the end of a unit, a student’s assessment should that they did not master 25% of the foundational skills, yet they are still expected to move on to the next unit, that ends up being more advanced. This type of non-mastery framework will just continue to widen the gaps, and eventually, there will be a moment where learners will hit a wall, and disengage. This really got me thinking. How are we expecting students to continue to learn more advanced material if they were not able to master foundational skills that they will need to master the advanced material? I think that Mastery Learning is really important, and it is something I would like to focus on, particularly in math. I teach the on-level math class, and students really struggle with foundational skills that they should have mastered years prior. I believe if I can slow down, and allow them to master some of those foundational skills, they will feel more confident, and find greater success once we continue to move on. 

In the article, Mastery, from Instructional Design, it states that “Mastery Learning suggests that the focus on instruction should be the time required for different students to learn the same material.”  We have so many tools readily available to us in order to help students reach mastery like on-demand video explanations, adaptive exercises available for students. I think that because we are in a world with technology at our fingertips, helping students reach their full potential and mastering concepts is possible and should be something we focus on. It is especially possible to differentiate when we have 1:1 iPads, and lots of apps and resources to help students practice concepts to mastery.

Mastery Learning will not only benefit students knowledge on particular topics, but when holding students to mastery learning, they really have ownership in the process, it develops grit and perseverance, and lots can come out of this for the child. Students can interact with each other, dive deeper on concepts, project-based learning, the list goes on. Mastery framework teaches students to embrace what they don’t know, and focus on it, so that they can grow in that area.

“If you let people tap into their potential by mastering concepts, and by being able to exercise agency over their learning, that they can get there.” - Sal Kahn

Penny Rayhill's 10 Tips for Awesome Digital Citizenship!

I listened to Penny Rayhill share her 10 tips on digital citizenship called 10 Tips for Awesome Digital Citizenship. She shared a ton of great apps and websites that you can use with your students and parents that connects to technology and digital citizenship. Here are a few of my favorites she talked about. The first one is commonsensemedia.org. This website provides articles/lessons that focus on positive digital footprints, siting sources, ways to balance technology and other activities, etc. It also is a great place for parent resources to use at home. 

Two other websites, netsmartz.org and ikeepsafe.org are websites that provide videos for students that teach about internet safety, using cartoon characters. In ikeepsafe.org, the main character is a techno cat that a techno cat, that goes through some mistakes while using the internet, and kids an learn from his mistakes. 

Rayhill also mentioned her favorite things to share with students to use on their own. One is called photosforclass.com. This is a site that, when you save a picture, it has image attributes on the photo itself, so you can have conversations with kids that they didn’t take the picture, but you still have to tell others how you got the picture and who took the picture. An app that she uses a lot with her students is called Shadow Puppets EDU, which is a video creation app. This app has image credits built in it’s search engine, so that when students use photos in their video, it provides a photo credits page for kids to use. 

I would love to investigate more of these websites and apps, and begin to try them out with my class. I think the only way to really get a feel for sites like these sites is to use them with the students. I would love to do a lot of digital citizenship lessons at the beginning of the year, even more than I do now, and am looking forward to using these tools to help!

Audio Recording and Screencasting

I loved this course and learned a lot from it! Audio recordings can be so powerful in the classroom, and I just never took the time to realize and research all that you can do with it! The screencast option on our iPads is SUCH an easy way to create a screencast because you can walk students through tasks on your iPad, which will mimic their iPads as well. You just swipe from the top right corner, and the big circle towards the bottom is a screencast recorder! Only suggestion I would make is to make sure you hold down that button and turn the microphone on! Happy screen casting :)

Refugee by Alan Gratz Book Trailer

My students and I read the book Refugee by Alan Gratz, along with Global Read Aloud. One way to inspire them, was sharing a book trailer that I made! Not only is this something you could use to kick off a novel that you will read with the kids, but also as an example of how to create book trailers! I showed this one to my students, and now they create a book trailer every time they finish a book, share it on Seesaw, and now they have a place to go book shopping :)

Screencast on Flipgrid

Using Flipgrid can be intimidating for teachers if they have never done it before! The first step would be create a free account, and explore a bit! Once you create an assignment, then you are ready to go. Below, I have created a screencast that shows students how to walk through Flipgrid, and create their first video! I never realized screen casting was so easy! With one quick swipe on the iPad, you are given a screencast recording that allows you record your voice over a video of you controlling your iPad. This screencast below will show you all about it!