Back in 2001, when I started as a teacher, the technology boom was in its nascent stage. I remember toting a large bag filled with papers home most nights and going to sleep drowning under a vast sea of student homework that needed grading. My classroom was even worse, cluttered with books, manipulatives, globes, maps, and learning stations that left little room for anything else. However, as I write this in 2018, things have changed dramatically. Today’s teachers have edtech in their corners.
Digital teaching and learning tools have streamlined education processes and provide learning experiences that stretch far beyond the materials that were available for me back in 2001. I remember creating and administering assessments to students by hand, and then taking them all back home to grade at night.
Fast forward to today, and teachers can use assessment apps to create, deliver and grade their student’s learning activities. All they have to do is enter the questions or in some instances choose the questions that they want to use, and the app delivers the assessment, grades its, and alerts the student when their score has been posted. If I were still in the classroom today, I’d use these assessment apps, tools and resources:
Socrative: Socrative is an easy-to-use program for educators who need to design several types of assessments. You can save and edit them all on your library. The student answers pop up onto the teacher’s screen in real time to ensure that there is time for instant feedback.
LightSail Education – Teachers can use LightSail Education to monitor their students’ reading in real-time and in great detail. Teachers and students can monitor students’ per-page progress through books in addition to their performance on Common Core-aligned assessment tasks. This tool also provides students with access to books in the school’s digital library, which can be downloaded for later use. Teachers can also make use of testing results to track student progress over time.
Edulastic: This platform is filled with thirty different question types so that not all formative assessments have to be the same. You can choose from premade questions and answers in their 20,000-question certified item bank. The highlights are the reports that can be generated to show real-time data, student growth, and standards mastery.
EDaura – It is a mobile skill-based learning environment focused on improving learners’ skills through robust formative and summative assessments. EDaura allows educators to measure learning outcomes and abilities to help learners develop and improve throughout the course. It provides complete assignment management from the creation process to the correction and results publishing final stage.
FlinnPREP– Using a blended learning approach, The FlinnPREP allows science teachers to personalize learning and empower students to learn critical concepts and skills. Each course features content that is easy to understand, curated OER, videos, games, formative and summative assessments as well as full-length practice exams aligned with the learning objectives. Students also have access to practice and review exercises, and they can prepare for AP exams without anyone’s help and at their pace.
Smart Sparrow: This platform was designed as a tool for teachers to create materials and give assessments. The learning experience is highly individualized, and as such, it is different for everybody since no two individuals are the same.
Quizalize: Turn your formative assessments into a fun game to play as a class or for homework. Teachers can get instant insights into who needs help and who is doing well. Quizalize is a great way to get kids excited to take these assessments and give you the best results.
Did we miss any?
