Assessing students' progress is an important part of being a teacher. Assessments help educators know the degree students are learning what is being taught. There are many technology tools that can be used to measure students' learning. If you use rubrics with your students, Rubrician.Com offer a list of educator submitted rubrics and Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators has lists of rubrics and graphic organizers which both are great sources to use when building your own. Qwizdom is an interesting concept where students can participate with their personal clicker to answer questions without interrupting the lecture. The teacher can take the information collected to evaluate the lessons as well as the students' learning. Inspiration software that gives visual learners a variety of strategies to organize and analyze information, but this site works best for older students. For K-5th grade students, Kidspiration would be a more appropriate tool. These sites offer students graphic organizers, outlining, Venn-diagrams, and many more tools that allow students to utilize visual strategies while effectively organizing their thoughts and ideas.
When looking back on this semester, I have learned about many technology tools to help me and my students process, organize and effectively deliver information to others. There is so much to take in and I want to use so much of that information. Of course what I use is dependent upon what I teach. If I am teaching general education K-2, I will be using interactive online story books like Tumblebooks or Story Time by Barnes and Noble, I would use Kid Pix to build their writing confidence and expand their communication abilities, and Symbaloo to organize all of the class websites to make it easy for students to easily access approved on-line tools. For general education 3-6, I would use Kidspiration to enhance organization of students' thoughts before writing, teach and model proper Netiquette, while helping them understand Copyright and Fair Use laws. Now if I am teaching students with severe disabilities in Elementary Special Education, I would want to use Starfall which is a fantastic site filled with games that will enhance my lessons of letter recognition, phonics, and promotes early reading.
This is just a drop in the bucket. I will be using technology to keep track of my students grades, their work, my work, to help my team create newsletters, send personal letters home with my students, keep up to date in the latest in education, and the list goes on and on. I am almost overwhelmed thinking of all the possibilities. I will slowly incorporate what I can when it best suits my students and hope I can effectively guide them toward a successful learning experience.
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