EDLD5364+Week+Five

Students can benefit from new technology in more ways than just by being able to create better products. A great advantage for students using technology can be the ability to see the connection between their level of effort and their corresponding level of achievement. Students do not always see this correlation on their own. Giving them the opportunity to be data collectors is a great way to help them to make this connection on their own. They can use a tool like Microsoft Office's Excel spreadsheet to track data on their effort expended at school in different ways. These can include: note taking, paying attention, participation, homework completion, and studying. After tracking these items for a given amount of time, students can then track their grades and compare the results to their baseline of what grades were like before they started their data collection. Results can be graphed to give powerful visual representations of the data gleaned by students. Data can also be collected and viewed on larger pools of students, such as classes, grade levels, etc. This information can be seen by students, but can also be posted on school web sites to share with parents and other interested community members. This process can also have the added benefit of revealing some "common success factors" that are unique to a given school.

The data that teachers use also can be improved upon. Solomon and Schrum write that, "the 'new school' model and high-stakes testing seem in conflict with one another." We need to find alternate ways of assessing student achievement. Students need to be assessed in a more on-going manner--what we call formative assessment. They also need to be able to demonstrate their learning in a wide variety of media, rather than only in a traditional pen and paper, summative assessment. Students can use web 2.0 technologies such as podcasts, wikis, blogs, videoconferences, social bookmarking, and others to experience more authentic assessment. This new assessment model lends itself very well to group activities for students. They can also be assessed by their creation of an electronic portfolio of their work. This model is more learner-centered.