IV. Assessment and Evaluation
Teachers apply technology to facilitate a variety of effective assessment and evaluation strategies. Teachers:
A. apply technology in assessing student learning of subject matter using a variety of assessment techniques.
B. use technology resources to collect and analyze data, interpret results, and communicate findings to improve instructional practice and maximize student learning
C. apply multiple methods of evaluation to determine students' appropriate use of technology resources for learning, communication, and productivity
IV.
Artifacts
Artifact #1: Link to documentation of student assessments I use as an ITRT
Artifact #2: Link to a test I have created for student assessment using Quia
Artifact #3: Link to a quiz I created for student assessment using Quia
Artifact #4: 
drippy.ppt Link to a power point game I made as an informal assessment(Note the PowerPoint template is not mine, only the content.)
Artifact #5: Link to my Test Prep Page that I share with teachers. It contains links to several online SOL test prep sites
Artifact #6: 
courageous_deeds_and_explorations.doc Computer Tag Question used as an entrance and exit activity.
Reflection:
Technology is regularly used to gather, analyze, and report student performance data to assess subject matter learning.
Assessment drives instruction. Assessment also needs to be ongoing throughout a unit. And assessment can be in the form of a test, a quiz or simply a question that needs a response. In our county we use several assessment techniques to regularly assess student progress in a formal manner. These assessments are taken through the software products, RiverDeep, Scholastic Reading Inventory, and MClass Pals. RiverDeep is an online service which allows teachers to create lesson plans and activities and tests. Teachers have the option of prescribing tasks after the original task has been completed. Teachers may then pull up reports on the progress of the student. As an ITRT I set up classes at the beginning of the year for the four schools that I serve. I also create the activities for teachers that request this of me. I held staff developments to train teachers in the use of this software. Scholastic Reading Inventory and MClass Pals both assess the reading levels of students. The SRI is used by fourth and fifth grade teachers while MClass Pals is used by K-3 teachers. At the beginning of the year I hold trainings and will set up the classes. Throughout the year I have created tests and quizzes using online programs like Quia and Hot Potatos. I just discovered Hot Potatos at the end of the year and would like more time to play with this service. One of my favorite ways of assessing student readiness for a unit is through entrance or exit cards. A colleague from Kentucky told me about computer tags. I often mailed the tag to the classroom teacher a week ahead for them to load on the classroom computer. Throughout the week students would come to the computer and craft a response. When all the students had responded, the teacher would then send the tag back to me as an email attachment.
Technology skills and implementation strategies are assessed repeatedly over time to track changes in technology competence levels.
I begin each unit with some type of assessment and will end a unit with an assessment. Often the assessment will be a test created by another teacher, JLab, or one that I have put together using Quia . I used RiverDeep during Central Elementary’s MARS (Math and Reading Saturday) program. I would weekly print out reports and give them to the classroom teacher so they would know what areas needed to be remediated. I also used these reports to create further tasks and assignments. Computer tags were used throughout the unit to assess content understandings that needed to be addressed through the technology lessons.
A variety of technology tools and techniques are identified and applied to assess students' learning of subject matter knowledge, skills, and dispositions (i.e., Web-based testing, optical mark readers, and electronic portfolios).
I have submitted various ways that I assess students through the artifacts above. RiverDeep SRI and MClass Pals are used to gather data. Quia quizzes are used regularly used to monitor the student’s learning of subject and content matter. Computer tags are used to access a student’s background knowledge of subject matter.
IV.A was granted a meets expectation on 11/23/06.
IV.B
Artifacts
Artifact 1: Link to documentation of student assessments I use as an ITRT (At the bottom of this page is documentation of shared folders from the schools I serve.)
Artifact 2: Graphs of student progress
Reflections
Technology is consistently used to collect student performance data in more efficient and effective ways than alternative means of data collection.
At the beginning of the school year, I asked teachers if it would be helpful to save student work for portfolio assessments. I wanted a shared folder and was at first refused by the informational technology department because they did not see the need for students to have access to any part of the network. Being a person who doesn’t like to be told no, I decided that I would store student work in other network folders. I crashed the server! The Informational Technology department was not happy with me and decided to provide the shared folders for student use to keep me off their network folders. These shared folders have been invaluable! Students are more willing to put the effort into producing a good piece of work now that they are assured that the work is being kept and reviewed. Teachers began to use the folders to share assignments with other itinerant teachers. Itinerant teachers could pull up a student’s work and check on the student’s progress even if they were at a different school. Work was easier to share with the parents and the principals. At the end of the year, fifth grade students were given a CD of all their work.
I also held staff developments on RiverDeep, MClass Pals, and Scholastic Reading Inventory. At the start of the school year I was asked to set up class lists and assign students. I then trained teachers in using the software. RiverDeep is a software program that allows students to practice reading and math skills in a video game setting. Teachers can create lessons and tests that will allow for differentiated tasks for students. All three of these were used throughout the year and some of the principals actually asked teachers to use the reports during grade level meetings to plan for more specific instruction.
Teachers used tools such as RiverDeep, MClass Pals and SRI during their times in the labs. They would then report to me the goals for the class and my responsibility was to help design technology rich lessons to meet the needs by using project based learning tasks. The student projects were stored in the shared folder as ongoing documentation of student progress. I then had opportunities to analyze test data and compare it to students who did not get the same opportunities to participate in the technology rich lessons. I shared the data with teachers with which I worked.
Technology is consistently used to analyze student performance data in more efficient and effective ways than alternative means of data analysis.
At two of the four schools I served I held weekly technology classes for students which the teachers and I planned together. Work was saved weekly in the shared folder so that teachers had an ongoing student portfolio to share with parents, principals, and other colleagues to better prepare for instruction. Teachers were at first very wary of the benefits of using technology but at the end of the year one teacher commented on how far her students had come over the year as she and I reviewed the student’s portfolio. Then she thanked me. It made the entire year worthwhile.
Technology is consistently used to communicate student performance data in more efficient and effective ways than alternative means of communicating performance data.
Through the use of shared folders teachers were able to contain all student work and used this tool during parent teacher conferences. They also shared the student work during grade level meetings and with the principals. Work could be accessed from any where in the division through the use of the shared folders.
Analysis of data collected using technology is consistently used to make decisions that do one or more of the following
- Improve the quality of learning and instruction
- Improve the quantity of learning and instruction
- Reduce the time required for learning and instruction and to accomplish tasks
I found the combination of technology assessments done by teachers, shared with me, and the technology lessons I panned to be of great benefit to student instruction. Teachers and I would plan together lessons that would target skills students needed to have. At the end of the year after reviewing the pacing guides one teacher discovered that she would not have time to really get into the Soil Unit. I came up with a webquest that covered the entire bank of knowledge that students needed to have. I started the web quest on the day that I was in the building. The teacher finished the web quest the next day. We cut and pasted the questions from the web quest into a word document and put the document into each student’s folder. Students were to type the responses into the word document which was saved in their shared folder. I opened the folder the next day and telephoned the teacher. She and I looked at each student’s work to assess whether or not the students had met the goal. All but three students had been successful at the webquest. The information was communicated to the Title I teacher since these three students were Title I students. The Title I teacher located some books on Soil and reinforced the concepts the students had not mastered.
IV.B was granted a meets expectation on 11/23/06.
IV.C
Artifacts
Artifact #1: Link to one student's web page
Artifact #2: Link to Let's Paint the Town, the lesson plan that accompanies the student project above.
Artifact #3 Link to the Web Page rubric that accompanies the above lesson.
Artifact #4: Graph showing how many students, participating in the Paint the Town lesson, passed the standard on a division test.
Artifact #5: Link to a Keyboarding Practice Website
Artifact #6: 
keyboarding.pdf Keyboarding rubric.
Artifact #7: Link to an image showing one student's keyboarding progress
Reflection
Multiple assessment measures are consistently used to assess student use of technology in learning tasks and to inform instructional decisions.
As a mentor teacher whenever I mention the word assessment, my new teachers immediately think of a test. However as a veteran teacher I understand that assessment means much more than merely a test. Being able to ascertain a student’s progress and understanding of content is essential to maintaining a student centered learning environment. Yes, an assessment may be a test, such as the one I included in my lesson plan, Paint the Town. An assessment may also be a teacher’s observation of a student using a tool to demonstrate knowledge of material. In my lesson, Paint the Town, I had students using Microsoft Paint or KidPix to create a Virginia map that was divided into the five regions of Virginia. An assessment may also be a rubric which will guide students in meeting the requirements of a task. In both my lessons I include rubrics. In Paint the Town, the rubric lists certain criteria for a student created web page. In the Keyboarding lesson, the rubric sets for certain behaviors which will increase the student’s productivity if followed. An assessment may also be just a running record of progress. I held weekly computer lab sessions at two of my schools. For students in grades 3-5, the lab sessions started with a 5 minute keyboarding lesson. The lesson was repeated one to two more times by the school media specialist to provide students with ample time to work toward an increase in words per minute typed. This year I had the students keep a simple graph where they would document their progress. The site the students used, had twenty “boxes”. In each box the students were given letters or words to type. The students were to type two lines in each box. On the graph, students were allowed to color in one box for every box they filled on the site. Boxes in which they had typed at least one line were allowed to be counted as half a box. I used the data gained from the Paint the Town lesson to help me understand whether or not students could complete online research and to use technology to report their findings. I included a graph showing how student understanding of material once they had an opportunity to use technology tools. Although keyboarding is not a content focused standard of learning, it is a technology standard. Too, students who have strong keyboarding skills will be bettered prepared to handle writing assignments in upper grades and in college. I found that one student who was an ADHD student with horrible handwriting, actually loved keyboarding and typing of assignments. He was the top performer in the class in this respect. This actually boosted his self esteem and the teacher said that he began to put more effort into other assignments as well.
Multiple appropriate tools and resources are consistently employed for assessing technology use to improve student learning in the context of lessons and units. Information is used to modify instruction.
As I have stated above, I used the information from the Paint the Town lesson to guide me as I helped their classroom teachers plan future research projects. Students were asked to complete a webquest which would explain differences between the five regions of Virginia. The authors of the webquest had the students print out a map and color it at the end of the quest. Instead of ending the quest there, I asked the students to create a map using Microsoft Paint. Students were asked to have either myself or their classroom teacher check over the printed out activity sheet which documented their understanding of the webquest. Since the Regions of Virginia webquest is a very simple webquest, and was completed at the beginning of the year, we were provided with an understanding of how capable the students were at online research. We used this to target research skills as the year moved on. Using a webquest was a very efficient and engaging means to assess research skills students possessed. The students also enjoyed using the paint program. This is an often overlooked software program that has unlimited assessment potential and students love using it.
Multiple appropriate assessment tools and resources are used to assess student use of technology for communication. Information about student achievement over time is consistently used to inform instruction.
In the lesson Paint the Town, my ultimate goal was to have the students create a web page to communicate knowledge they had acquired throughout a unit. To begin the unit students were asked to complete an online pretest. The link to the pretest is included on the lesson plan provided as an artifact. The pretest is graded immediately so I knew how much students already knew. Students were asked to complete a webquest which would explain differences between the five regions of Virginia. There was one Title I student that worked with a partner so that reading of material would be easier. The authors of the webquest had the students print out a map and color it at the end of the quest. Instead of ending the quest there, I asked the students to create a map using Microsoft Paint. Students were asked to have either myself or their classroom teacher check over the printed out activity sheet which documented their understanding of the webquest. After the webquest was completed and the activity sheet checked, students were given permission to open up the Paint program and draw their map of Virginia. Students uploaded their map to the Poster Project which is part of www.4teachers.org. They then chose their favorite region and wrote a paragraph summarizing the information they obtained from the webquest.
Students' use of technology to improve productivity is consistently assessed using multiple measures. The data are used to inform instruction.
By using the Paint the Town lesson at the beginning of the year I knew what research skills were strong and which were lacking in the students. I used this to help me with future lessons. Too, the map the students created was used ongoing throughout the year as the students built upon it. They added language groups, and Virginian products. The teacher had them mark famous spots during the Civil War. Students referred to the map when completing a class KWL chart at the start of the Civil War until.
IV.C was granted a meets expectation on 11/23/06.
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