Assessment Technology


While technology continues to grow we continue to try and keep up. In education our assessment tools continue to improve and also gear more toward using online assessment tools. This paper will go over some of those tools and how they are used both inside and outside of the classroom. Then what are some of the pros and cons of using this technology to give and manage assessments. It will also go over the different types of assessments, what they are used for, and how they are different. Lastly it will cover the meeting of the ISTE standards. Today most companies won’t meet with a person until they have sent them a resume online and if a person tries to go work at subway they usually have to take an online survey assessment before they even get the job this is partly why using technology is so important in use of teaching assessments.

Technology to Facilitate Ongoing Efforts to Assess Student Learning

There are a number of ways teachers can use technology to assess a student’s learning and in many schools a teacher has to use technology to assess student’s progress. In Mathis, TX at the high school some teachers use TTM or Think Through Math computer program to help teach and assess students learning. The students log on to the program and begin working on math problems, as they go along sometimes the program will give them a math game to play to keep them interested, when they finish a lesson they receive a grade and move on to the next lesson. Then the teacher can keep track of their progress and see what a student or the class may be having a problem with or doing well on and provide feedback. Once a problem has been identified the teacher can then find a way to assist or make modification on how the students can better learn the material.


Socrative is a website where teachers can build assessments for students to see their progress and understanding of lessons. One way to do this is to be to make a quiz for students to take with a number of different ways at looking at a problem and see where the students may be having any difficulties, then work with the students to help in their learning. A teacher can also create a space race to encourage students to become fast and efficient with the material they learn in class. There is also a way for the teacher to ask short questions to the students for immediate feedback.


Another place for teachers to find a good way to assess their students is the math worksheet generator. It is a place teachers can go to create a fast and easy assessment for students to take, many math teachers use it to sometimes give their students a worksheet to see where they are at academically, they can also use it to give the students busy work to keep them distracted. The website can generate a number of different assessments and not all the assessments have to be the same, the time that this website has saved teachers cannot be counted.


Ask3 is an app that helps teachers and students collaborate on lessons and assessments. Teachers can load up short instructional videos for students to watch and students can add their own input by asking questions and making comments. The teacher can also ask the whole class questions to get participation from students who can respond in a number of ways, they can take parts of the video and draw on it and ask a question or they can send their own audio recordings of their findings. This way the teacher can gage the students’ knowledge of the criteria that they may be studying. What also makes this a great assessment tool is that it can be done from anywhere, to make it easier for students to access it and take their assessments.

Formative and Summative Assessments

Well formative assessments usually occur during instruction and provide information to the instructors so that they can possibly adjust to better help their students. Summative assessments usually happen at the end of a year, semester, or lesson to summarize what the student has learned throughout a certain period of time. Socrative can be used to give both formative and summative assessments, a teacher can give students quizzes or space races to get feedback on what the students may have difficulty with or they can use the quiz as a summative assessment to evaluate what the students have learned. like Socrative can be used to both give formative or summative assessments, by printing the assessments out the teacher can decide if they should be given as either a formative or summative assessment. Ask3 will probably be more of a formative assessment because of it being used mainly outside of class. Pros and Cons of using Technology to Facilitate Assessment

Use of technology to facilitate assessments has been growing a great deal in recent years thanks to all the pros that come with it. One of these pros is speed assessments can be created and evaluated a great deal fast than without the use of a lot of the technology out there. There is also the ease of communication between student and teacher, teachers can now call, text, email, or even use an app to talk to or hear from students about the lessons they teach. The technology “helps both the teacher and the students to follow to performance of the students.” Assessments can also be done from just about anywhere as long as students have a device to use to take the assessments, which most have in the form of a computer or mobile device. This high use of technology also helps the student become more comfortable with it and in the future perhaps give them the skills necessary to compete for a higher level job. When it comes to technology there are always drawbacks and one of the drawbacks that people talk about is how it effects the teacher student relationship and “there are also concerns of a pedagogical type—for instance, distractions caused by using networked mobile devices instead of focusing on course content.” Sorry to say but students having so much access to technology can cause a distraction, not just to the person using the technology, but the people who notice what that person is doing with their technology.


The answer is absolutely not. Technology is great, but it is much easier to tamper with than a regular paper assessment where the teacher is keeping a close eye on all the students. Also there will always be a human factor that students should learn to get use to, they should know how not only to use technology to take an assessment, but also how to work it with pen or paper. While computers and mobile devices can be tricked or not ask the right questions, teachers know how to get a feel if their students are not understanding the material.


Assessment technology importance to ISTE standards is that it reaches all of the standards. Technology use facilitates and inspires student learning and creativity, it helps design and develop digital age learning experiences, models digital age work and learning, promotes and models digital citizenship and responsibility, and it helps engage in professional growth and leadership.

Concluding Paragraph for Software to Support Assessment

            While technology has its drawbacks this paper should be a good explanation of why it is so important to use technology to support teacher assessments. Also what kinds of assessments there are and some of the technologies used to help facilitate them. It is also important to remember how assessment technology reaches all of the ISTE standards. So always remember the important role that technology plays in the education system and how it can affect the students.










Myers, Sandra (2015). Formative and Summative Assessments


Assessment Test

Alright go to and type in room code 30IGZCT7. Once you have done that enter your name and you should begin the quiz right away, it should give you feedback right away as soon as you answer a question. The quiz will be over solving one-step linear equations. This is a formative assessment to see where you all are as a class and see what we may need to go over or work on. The questions are all different in some way to see how you answer when things are switched around and moved. They will see how the student solves problems with addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division all in a variety of ways using negative integers and moving numbers across the equal sign. At the end of the assessment you will be shown your score and I will collect the data from everyone who took it and analyze what the class needs to work on the most.

Answers 1. C, 2. D, 3. B, 4. A, 5. A, 6. D, 7. A, 8. D

Student Centered Technology

Section Four: Differentiating Instruction through Technology


In the past every teacher at some point or another has caught a student sleeping while giving instruction. Well it is still happening, but now teachers have more ways than ever to change the way they teach and keep students more interested in what they have to say. Students don’t want the same old lecture with the same teacher over and over again, they want to be challenged and they want something new, something that is fun. These new technologies are what students want, they want the smartboards and EBooks, they want something different and teachers have to use these to meet with the ISTE standards.

Technology to Differentiate Instruction

One way to differentiate instruction is to have a student come up and work problems on the smartboard for the entire class. Students get bored very quickly especially if a teacher is constantly lecturing the class, this can lead to them trying to find distraction elsewhere and it also makes it harder for a teacher to notice if a student is not paying attention because they are trying to work a problem on the board. So by having a student come up and working problems the students get to see a fresh face and fellow student work a problem and so will be more inclined to pay attention. This will also allow the teacher to monitor the classroom and make sure that students aren’t misbehaving.

ISTE Standards

Smartboards can really help in Creativity and Innovation standards because they are so flexible and easy to use. Students can just go up and be themselves and contribute to lessons and discussions in their own way.


There are many ways for teachers to differentiate instruction using EBooks. A teacher could allow students to follow along in a lesson by giving them an EBook to get them more interested in the subject because students like technology and also because some books can be very heavy and difficult to carry around. Also this would give students a tool to continue their instruction at if they forgot their book at school or had to lend it to someone else.

ISTE Standards

EBooks are really good for research and Information Fluency standards because of how convenient they are. Almost everyone has access to the internet to look up and EBook for research or information quickly. Which will in turn help teach them how to look up information for the rest of their lives because of everything being on the internet now.

Speech to Text:

Every student has a different way of learning, for some instead of listening to a person talk they prefer to read what the person has to say. That is why speech to text technology is useful to differentiate instruction, but it doesn’t just do that. For some kids it can be hard for them to put their thoughts into words, so by using speech to text technology they can more easily communicate with their teacher which will then help with their instruction.

ISTE Standards

This type of technology can really improve the Communication and Collaboration in the classroom. For some migrate students from different countries who have not learned to speak English this technology really helps them learn as well as for the teacher to be able to communicate with them.

Pros and Cons

            The pros of using technology are vast, they can be used for all kinds of learning, but with today’s children a teacher has to use technology to keep them interested. That is probably the best thing technology has done for students, it is a constantly changing problem for them to solve and like most people they really enjoy the challenges of using technology. Another pro to technology is it makes things more convenient for everyone, if a teacher wants to move on to a different problem all they have to is make one click and the page is blank to start another problem. One of the main cons that should be mentioned is also the opposite side of the previous statement, students have to have technology. So many of today’s students rely solely on technology to help them with their daily assignments in class and when the technology starts acting up and not working properly the students are lost. Another con for using technology is constantly having to update, once one update happens everything has to be updated otherwise not everyone will be able to keep up.

Concluding Paragraph (4-6 sentences)

So in conclusion a person should be able to see how different types of technology can help teachers differentiate instruction and how that instruction meets with ISTE standards. Which will then encourage students to follow along more closely in class and overall help their learning process. Just because there are many things to like about technology doesn’t mean that it is perfect, by any means, but it has been linked to improved learning. One important thing to also remember is the reason that all these technologies work is because they are fun and not just for students, but for teachers as well.











Redford, Kyle (November 2013). How Speech-to-Text Transformed a student’s Fifth Grade


(March 3, 2014). The Advantages of SMART boards in the classroom

South University (October 7, 2013). How Students Benefit from Learning with Ebooks

RAFT Cards

Raft Task Card

This RAFT Card is designed for 9th grade level.

Row 1 Education Representative Math Teachers Short training video How to properly teach students to solve inequalities word problems and applying it to real world situations
Row 2 Math teacher Students Explanatory PowerPoint Teach students how you would work the problem out
Row 3 Former student/Parent Your future kids Conversation/Paper Why it is important to learn to solve inequalities and how they can be applied


RAFT Row 1

Objective: You will be showing math teachers a new way on how to teach students how to solve inequality word problems and how to relate it to the real world by giving them a training video.

TX State Standard-Algebra I: T. 4 Linear Inequalities: Word Problems

ISTE Standard-1. Creativity and Innovation (a,b,d), 3. Research and Information fluency (a), 4. Critical thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making (a,b,c,d), 6. Technology Applications and Concepts (a,b)

Student Role: Educational Representative

Audience: Math teachers

Format: Short training video

Topic: How to properly teach students to solve inequalities word problems and applying it to real world situations




  1. Figure out how to work inequality word problems if you have not learned already. This may help
  2. Create a video for teachers to watch on a new way to solve inequality word problems. (Just a simple recoding device will do, if any trouble talk to teacher).
  3. Next upload video to youtube, this may help
  4. Show video in class.
  5. Explain why you did what you did.




Create a short video on a new way for teachers to teach inequality word problems and then present to class.

25 points for each of the following criteria: Video, Relevance to target audience, Presentation in class, and ability to work problems correctly.



RAFT Row 2

Objective: To show students a new way on how to solve inequality word problems in an actual school setting using a power point.



Student Role: Teacher

Audience: Students

Format: PowerPoint

Topic: What is the new way to teach students how to work inequality word problems?




  1. If you have not learned how to solve inequalities this will help.
  2. Do a rough draft before you start your powerpoint
  3. Then create your powerpoint to present to students
  4. Once finished create another slide to explain in detail why you may have done what you did.
  5. Next be sure to put your previous video into slide to help show students why they are teaching them this way.
  6. Present to class



Create a PowerPoint from a teachers perspective to present to students on a new way of working inequality word problems.

You will be given 20 points based on the following: PowerPoint, presentation to students, presentation to your class, explanation of your PowerPoint, and ability to work problems correctly.







RAFT Row 3

Objective: You are a former student explaining to future children about why it is important to learn how to solve Inequality word problems.


ISTE Standard-1. Creativity and Innovation (a,b,c,d), 4. Critical thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making (a,c,d), 6. Technology Applications and Concepts (a,b)

Student Role: Former student

Audience: Students/Children

Format: Conversational paper

Topic: How to talk to a child going through a difficult time in solving inequality word problems and explaining why it is important that they learn how to do it.




  1. Figure out how to solve inequality word problems. This may help
  2. Write a rough draft about how a conversation might go between an adult and a child with regards to solving inequalities.
  3. Then with as much detail as possible type that conversation
  4. Next turn in and present to class


Assessment: Type up a paper and present it in front of class

You will be graded on Content, Typed Paper, and Presentation, each is worth 33 points each

Section 2: Communication Plans


Section 2: Communication Plans


Entry 1: Technology to Support Communication


In the past few decades communication in education has changed dramatically, there are more ways to reach out to colleagues, parents, and students than there has ever been. This change has been a result of our massive technological advancements society has had and this change has caused people to become more reliant on it to communicate. These are just a few of the ways teachers and future teachers, like myself, can use it to better communicate with others. As well as teach out young students ways to help them be safe in today’s digital world and to show them proper ways to communicate.

Technology to Enhance Communication

Cellphone texting”:

There are so many ways to communicate effectively with today’s technology and each one has its own unique effectiveness. For example, if a person just wants to inform someone of something small and doesn’t need any feedback on the subject then a text is the perfect way to communicate it not only sends a message it keeps it short and to the point. A teacher can sent texts by setting up a Remind 101 account and having parents and students signing up for it. This helps ensure that everyone involved in a class can stay up to date with the activities that are happening on a daily basis. Many principals have also set up accounts like this to help remind their staff of any upcoming events they may have or to make them away of a situation that may be developing in the school, the same can be done by teachers. Let’s say that there was a bomb threat at a school a principal could simply text all staff members at once of the situation and they could follow the plans in place instead of the principal having to go over the intercom to make the announcement or calling teachers individually.


Email is another way for teachers to communicate effectively with parents, students, and the global community. One of the many things that make email great is it is easy to send attachments via email to whomever a teacher wishes. They could send a parent a notice of a student’s failing grade or let them know that the student has not been doing well that way they will not be blindsided when the report card comes out. So it is a great way to show that a teacher has made parents aware of how their child is doing and to show documentation that they gave them a notice. Documentation is another very important aspect of schools in today’s society where is seems like so many people are always trying to blame student problems on teachers. Another effective way email can be used is by asking a colleague or mentor, who lives in a different time zone, for some advice or just to stay in contact with them. A person might also ask them to send them a template that the teacher might find useful in class. Instead of mailing, which costs money, they could just attach it to an email and send it off.

If a teacher has something urgent or serious to discuss with parents or other members of the community one of the best ways is still a phone call. The other forms of communication will never be quite as person as hearing someone else’s voice and they can also sometimes be misunderstood by the readers. Phone calls offer both people a good sense of where the other stands relating to the topic of the discussion. Also from a teacher’s standpoint if the parent does not answer the phone a voicemail is can be much more easily understood. The telephone is also a good way to get quick information from a teacher or others who work for the school district. Say a student tells a teacher that they need to go to another class to finish a project or assignment and the teacher they have doesn’t have anything important for them to do or the student is already caught up on their work. So they let the student go to the other class and call the other teachers room number to make sure that the student didn’t have any incident going over to the class.

Video Conferences”:

Though probably not one of the most used methods of communication there will always be things that should be done face to face. Admission, Review, Dismissal meetings or the shorter ARD meetings do have to be done with a parent present at the meeting. One of the ways this can be done is by having a video conference because a parent may have to go out of town for something or may not live with the student. Video conferences are much more personal then phone calls and can also allow several more people to join in the meeting. This allows for much more information to be past and presented during a meeting and for more concerns to be addressed. With things becoming more and more global and messages never being able to compare to actual visual and audio communication there has been a rise in video communication. Another thing that this form of communication improves on is spending. People no longer have to drive or use some other form of transportation, which costs money, to communicate face to face.

Communication Internet Security and Safety

Online security has become one of the biggest things people are worried about whenever they log onto a computer. It is also one of the many things that teachers should address when working with their students online. Scammer’s ability and spyware they use to steal information from others has just gotten worse and it is hard for young children to understand what not being internet safe can do to their lives. When a person become a teacher they should hope to be able to instill some knowledge of what can happen if the students do not take online safety seriously. They should also try to make it a simple and quick, but effective, review of the things that can happen when one’s identity or information is stolen.
Concluding Paragraph

Since working for a school district many people have mentioned how fast meetings can be set up and how quickly things get sent out to address any issues that a school may be having. The other day a principal sent all teachers and staff a text that no phones should be allowed to be used in classrooms because of an issue that was occurring on Facebook. This speed of information has also cause dealing with issues quickly that much more urgent. There is also the manner of security, many people have already seen what happens when a student does not stay safe online. The incident at the school happened a few days ago when they had heard that a boy from the school had gotten ahold of a girl’s phone and uploaded private pictures of her onto her own Facebook account and many of the other students had shared them as a way of humiliating the girl.





N Nayab. (10/24/2014). How Communication has evolved with new technologies.

Laura McMullen. (January 25, 2012). 3 Tips on Integrating Technology in the Classroom.

PC Plus. (November 11, 2010). 25 Internet Security Tips.

Presentation Technology

Blake Walsh
















Entry 2: Technology to Enhance Instruction

Integrating Instructional Technology

You all see how important technology is to children, everywhere people go there is a child playing a game or watching a video on some sort of technological device and it seems to only get worse as they get older. Teens in today’s world can barely function without their cellphones, if they could they would spend most of their time on it. In today’s society it would be harder to teach a child not to use technology than to teach them how to use it. That is why teachers have had to learn and adapt in order to accommodate the students they teach. However, these things are not without drawbacks, this paper will go through some of the technology used in today’s classes to help instruction as well as some of the drawbacks or using them.


The TI-Nspire is one of the best things to happen to math and science classes, it is a graphing calculator with so much to offer students and teachers. Students in these classes today have come to rely on calculating devices for not just help with complex math but for some even basic math. One of the many things that makes the Nspire so helpful to teachers is the ability to upload data to it and have the students do the work. Its design and easy use give students confidence when using it, it also has different color displays to help make it more personal and interesting to the student.


Smartboards in classrooms have become the new norm and what is not to like about them? It has everything a white board has except its better because a person doesn’t need to grab an eraser to clean it off and there won’t be any stains after frequent use. So not only does it act as a better version as a white board it is also like having a very large computer screen for the entire class to look at. The teacher can play videos for the students, show them what websites to get answers, play PowerPoints for them, and a number of other things. Students also usually enjoy getting up to play with it, they don’t have a limited choice of makers to use, now they have hundreds of different choice colors.


While some people may say that computers are going out of style they are still a tremendous part of technology used in just about every classroom. Students love to play on computers, if you were to go into a classroom and the teacher said ok let’s go to the computer lab you would probably see a lot of happy faces. Many teachers like how the computer does a lot of the work for them, that way they can key in on students that really need help. For students many programs that the computers run have games for them to play and that is just one of the things students like about them.

Pros and Cons of using Technology to Facilitate Learning

For the pros side of using technology it’s very easy, students love technology, a lot of kids are addicted to it. Attitude among students always gets better when technology is involved, it’s like a puzzle they try to figure out because they know it is a tool that will help them in the future. From a teaching standpoint it gives students something to help them along while the teacher can give more attention to students who need it. There has been many debates over the cons of using technology in the classroom. One of the arguments is “the computer takes more of the thinking processes out of the student” while this may be true the world is now run by computers and digital devices and students learning how to handle these devices will help them throughout their life. Some people also say that kids are already too dependent on technology and this only makes things worse for those who may not be getting the emotion support that they need from an actual person. Technology should play a part in every classroom I definitely plan to use technology to my advantage, but with that being said I still think there is an importance of working with students without the use of technology. Learning in a classroom is not just about getting grades it is about gaining emotionally as well as intellectually.

Wired and Wireless Classrooms

Wired classrooms use wire to connect to things online. While wireless classrooms use wireless connections to connect online. Pros for wired are strong connection, cheap, faster, and not easily disrupted. Cons are they have a limited reach or extension and can be disrupted by weather. The pros for wireless classrooms are convenience and range, while the cons are connectivity, speed, and price. For teachers it is probably better to have a wired classroom because of the speed, connectivity, and cost. The limited range shouldn’t mean much because most instruction takes place in class. Having a wireless connection may be more fun because of the freedom of movement, but speed and connectivity would defiantly be issues if one is trying to go through something quickly.


So these were some of the technologies that teachers and schools use to help facilitate and improve instruction in classrooms along with some pros and cons of technology. It seems a little crazy how far people have come in regards to technology. Many people still consider desktop computers to be new, when it seems like they are getting replaced with mobile computers like laptops or IPads in today’s society. Did you ever have a teacher that told you that you wouldn’t have a calculator to do your work in the real world? She must have thought that today would never come.


Buyer, Lise (Feb 11, 2008). Smartboard Changes Classroom.

Flatley, Joseph (Feb 28, 2011). TI-Nspire graphing calcs get full color displays, 3D, WiFi, and new OS.

Gulley Kathleen (Spring 2003). Pros and Cons of Computer Technology in the Classroom.