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Educational Technology 

Formative Assessments

Formative Assessments is a way to check the understanding of students and thus reflecting and adjusting future lesson plans due to the results. There are a variety of educational technology tools that allow students to be assessed on their learning, many of these tools engaging students in a variety of interactive games, videos, and questions. This allows the pressure that formative and summative assessments can put on students to be lower. Some of the formative assessment educational technology tools listed below include: Flip, Ed Puzzle, Google Forms, and GIMKIT.

Some Uses:

  • Check in for Virtual Learning Days

  • Question to start the day (entrance ticket)

  • Learn about me videos (for the beginning of the school year)

  • Parent Teacher Conferences (messages of students speaking to their around the classroom in QR Code Format)

  • Questions about the Lesson Plan

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4/5 Stars 

 

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Flip

Flip is a great interactive platform that can be used to assess students. It includes allowing students to answer a question (created by the teacher) through three different creative responses: video, audio, or creatively designing a page about the question. Then through these different responses, a variety of resources are available such as GIFs, photos, filters, backgrounds, text, different ways to draw, and more.

Benefits:

  • Engaging

  • Easy to use

  • No adds

  • Can be used at most grade levels

  • Allows students more flexibility in the form of their answers

  • Allows for student creativity 

  • Can be used out of class (Homework/Assignments)

  • Allows more personable responses 

  • Uses all three learning styles: visual, audio, and tactile

  • Useful for online learning

  • Students can interact with each other by responding to each others answers

Drawbacks

  • Media can be distracting (Filters/Backgrounds)

  • Difficult to use on students who don't understand how to work a computer/the website (really young learners) 

  • Not every student likes to have their voice or face recorded 

  • It can be complicated for students to handle on their own

 

Ed Puzzle

Ed Puzzle is a great video assessment platform that can be used as a way to use assess students on content learned in class and the video. Ed Puzzle contains a variety of videos that include built in questions (and these videos can be edited to include your own questions as well). Since the student cannot skip forward in the video, it guarantees that they are fully watching the video which can help improve their learning and reinforce it through the various assessment questions. 

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3/5 Stars 

 

Benefits

  • Pause and reflect by responding to questions

  • Interactive for students

  • Ensures students are focusing on the content through assessment (can't skip through videos and are assessed through questions)

  • Easy to create for teachers (lots of resources and videos with assessments already available)

  • Reinforces lessons learned in the class

  • Used in and out of class

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Drawbacks 

  • You can't skip the video forward which makes it hard when you are in the last few minutes of watching and need to go back to the beginning

  • Can be challenging to transition from listening and typing for some learners

  • Parts were students aren't questioned, they may not pay full attention

  • No add blocker (this is a huge drawback)

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2/5 Stars 

 

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Google Forms

Google Forms is a good platform to assess students. It is very similar to a written test/quiz except that it is digital. A variety of questions can be asked such as multiple choice, open answer, and more. It also allows for pictures to be included in the assessment. 

Benefits​

  • Easy to create for teachers 

  • Easy to manage for students (simple)

  • Puts the results of responses into charts, helps with reflection/grading

  • If multiple choice questions, then it allows students to see their grade immediately after taking the assessment

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Drawbacks​

  • Isn't very engaging/interactive for students

  • Doesn't always record students names (can be confusing figuring out whose email is whose)

  • Can put students in high pressure situations, just as normal tests can

  • Doesn't stop students from cheating (using multiple tabs for answers)

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GIMKIT

GIMKIT is an interactive assessment platform that allows students to play in competitive games against each other all while answering questions to assess their understanding of a topic. GIMKIT is a lot of fun for students because it is a video game that also includes questions created by the teacher that must be answered to receive certain powerful. 

Benefits​

  • Easy to create for teachers 

  • Super fun and interactive for students 

  • Can be played live

  • Can be assigned for homework

  • Gives overview of student understanding  

  • Allows for a downtime type of learning for students 

  • Good for test or quiz for review

Drawbacks​

  • Students could rush through questions because there is not a penalty for getting questions wrong,

  • Cannot see individual student names

  • Not every game is free

  • Can take a long time before questions are asked and reinforced

  • Can't see each individual scores of everyone and how well they did

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4/5 Stars

 

Formative Assessments and Danielson Framework

1d Using Resources Effectively

By using free online resources that are engaging for students, formative assessments can be more fun for students and promote greater learning. There are so many formative assessment resources that are available for free online, the above resources are examples of such. (Some additional examples include "Blooket" and "Kahoot."

1f Designing and Analyzing Assessments

The platforms above allow teaching to design (create their own questions) by using various technology tools. Some of them make analyzing assessments easier for teachers by putting answers into graphs and charts to explain the individual and class results. 

2b Fostering a Culture of Learning

These interactive formative assessment educational technology tools, can allow for individual work but also student collaboration which can foster a culture for learning, and motivate students. 

3b Using Questioning and Discussion Techniques

By questioning and having students discuss through the different games, videos, and more formative assessments can help create a great learning environment where students are engaged in and out of the classroom. 

3c Engaging Students in Learning 

Questions embedded in the video or even video games that involve questions can really help the students to be engaged in class, and can be a great downtime or choice activity for them. 

3d Using Assessment for Learning

The whole purpose of formative assessments is to see where students are at in their understanding of a topic. This allows the teacher to better tailor future lessons to students thus allowing the students to learn in and after the assessments. 

4b Documenting Student Progress

Majority of the platforms listed above document progress individually or as a whole class. This can help the teacher to reflect on the results and improve on teaching tactics in the future. 

4e Growing and Developing Professionally

In the twenty-first century as technology increases, more and more resources are available to students online. It is important for teachers to grow and develop professionally by taking advantage of such resources to promote leaning in the classroom.

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