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Justin Henderson
EDU-225
July 12, 2015
Professor Randal Yard

Section 5: Technology to Support Assessment

Class Website: http://jhendersonclass.weebly.com

. Technology has allowed teachers to branch out and invent new or creative ways to
monitor student growth throughout the course of the school year. It is important to be able to
monitor the development of our classroom and use that data to tweak the lessons to ensure an
educational environment to promote success. There are two types assessments that could be used
to determine how the class is doing in a particular subject or in the class in general; they are
defined as Formative assessments and Summative Assessments. Each type of assessment is used
to gauge the development of the classroom, formative is used for gauging particular times while
summative is used to gauge the program as a whole. Technology can facilitate these assessments
by using existing web tools such as Socrative.com. Or Quizlet.com. These sites allow teachers to
create quizzes, games, voting systems, or surveys that can be accessed by students online. Once
the assessments are completed the data is stored on the sites and can be reviewed by the teacher in
formats such as graphs, charts, or excel sheets. This allows teachers to analyze real time data on
how much each students is developing either in the current course or in the class in general. The
advantage to having this data is being able to pinpoint areas students need support in or areas the

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class has mastered, this gives the teacher the opportunity to adjust their teaching practices to
better engage students or pinpoint areas they struggle in and come up with an action plan to help
the class develop that area. One disadvantage in using technology to conduct these assessments is
that it can be difficult to ensure the students did not get outside help or cheat, also it takes time to
analyze this data which could lead to some delay in providing students the support they need. By
conducting these assessments in the classroom it allows for a more personalized develop between
the student and the teacher instead of just looking at lumps of data with names.
In conclusion using technology can yield huge advantages in the overall development of
the classroom or program by allowing for real time data to be reviewed and calculated.
Incorporating this data into the practicum can increase the overall success of the academic
program but does not allow the teacher to make an immediate impact or change to the areas of
difficulty. As technology continues to evolve teachers will be able to continue to find creative
ways to track the development of their class and even school districts will continue to monitor the
professional growth of their educators. It can be a great tool to ensure academic and professional
growth on any level.

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References
Landauer, T. K., Lochbaum, K. E., & Dooley, S. (2009). A New Formative Assessment
Technology for Reading and Writing. Theory Into Practice, 48(1), 44-52.
doi:10.1080/00405840802577593
Salend, S. J. (2009). Technology-Based Classroom Assessments. Teaching Exceptional
Children, 41(6), 48-58.
Tomlinson, C. A. (2007). Learning to Love Assessment. Educational Leadership, 65(4), 8-13.