Use Edulastic for Interactive Formative Assessment as Well as PARCC and CMAS Practice

Edulastic is a free website that instantly shows who's on track and who needs help so teachers can
determine which students need further instruction.

Online assessment tools with technology-enhanced items like CMAS and PARCC give you a complete, instant view of student learning and growth.

Edulastic has an Assessment Library with assessments tied to standards for grades K-12. In addition to English Language Arts and Math assessments, this site also includes Science and Social Studies. Teachers can choose Common Core standards for ELA and Math. Although Colorado Science is listed, there are not any assessments available for this one at this time. However, there are some for the NGSS standards. There are also general Social Studies standards by grade level.

Teachers can assign the assessments are they are, or make create a new version in order to add, delete, or edit questions. In addition, it is possible to assign different point values to questions. Teachers can also create their own assessments if they do not find one that fits their needs.

There is a Report Section that allows teachers to view Mastery of Standards, Score, or Percentage

Teachers and students can use sign in with Google so there is not another login to remember. In addition, Edulastic syncs with Google Classroom for easy creation of classes and assignments.




Another good free site for interactive assessments with PARCC practice is EdCite. Click below to read Jan Parker's post:

Edcite.com: Online PARCC Practice, Aligned to CCSS

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Have a Hoot with Learning & Assessment!

I was recently able to use the online tool Kahoot when facilitating some professional learning. I had heard about the tool over a year ago but never tool the chance of using it when leading a session. The feedback I received from the use of the tool was extremely positive. Users were incredibly engaged with the experience and had tons of fun while going through a simple quiz game I had created.  There was laughter and excitement which made the learning fun and interesting.  I found it incredibly easy to use the tool and engage my audience which provided an atmosphere of genuine learning.

Kahoot is a simple and easy to use tool in any learning environment. You can sign up for free and create assessments quickly and easily which is a crucial component to any learning environment. Kahoot works on any device with internet access including all mobile devices. One of my favorite features is the ease of use for participants. There is no need for them to create accounts to participate. Each "game" or activity that you create has a special pin and the only thing your participants need to get started is to enter the game pin and their name.  Another great feature is the ability to override or "veto" any inappropriate or misused names. If any participants enter names that aren't correct or are inappropriate, you can immediate reject them and they are dismissed from the game.

It's incredibly easy to get started with Kahoot. This VIDEO allows you to get started using Kahoot in under 3 minutes so there's no need to worry about spending hours learning a new tool. You'll need to visit getkahoot.com to sign up and create your first game/assessment as well as facilitate it.  Your participants will go to kahoot.com to play and enter the game pin. I created my first interactive experience with Kahoot in about 15 minutes and we were off and running. Participants earn points for correct responses but it doesn't end there.  Points are also awarded for how fast they respond which means the element of competition is very clearly present at all points of the game. The person who responds first gets the most points awarded and so on. I loved watching the looks on participant faces as they worked to respond as quickly as possible with the correct answer.  After each question a summary of the leader board is displayed allowing the competition to grow even stronger. Life involves competition and participants love fun, friendly competition so let's incorporate more opportunities in our learning environments.

Kahoot will provide instant feedback to the participants in terms of right or wrong answers.  It also will provide you a summary of participant responses to each question so you can easily collect great data to reflect on at a later time or when the game is finished. The data can be downloaded as an excel spreadsheet for easy analysis or you can also save it directly to Google Drive if you prefer to utilize your Googliciousness.  Either way, you can have access to instant data and make real-time instructional decisions to support your learners. You can even replay any of your previous Kahoot's at anytime so learners can challenge themselves to beat their previous score(s).

The next time you're thinking about assessing learners or want to have a conversation with them that involves data collection, check out Kahoot and watch the engagement soar.  Learning can be fun and Kahoot is one simple tool to bring the fun and engagement into your learning environment.  If you have questions or would like support with additional strategies for utilizing Kahoot in your instructional practice, contact your APS EdTech Coach.  It will certainly be a hoot!

Using Flubaroo to Give Students Meaningful Feedback

Flubaroo is a google add-on tool for google sheets that will automatically grade submissions based on the criteria that are set by the teacher. It's an extremely popular add-on. In its first iteration, it was a tool that worked best just with multiple choice or single word text/number questions. Recently it has undergone improvements that make it much more student-centered and teacher-friendly.

Save Time With Writing Feedback Using JoeZoo Express

Literacy skills are necessary components of any content area. They are often becoming a focus for students of all ages and all classes in schools. Research has shown that students with strong reading and writing skills are able close achievement gaps and have accelerated learning experiences. One of the essential components to becoming a successful reader/writer is good feedback. When students receive timely, actionable feedback on their writing, they are able to improve dramatically. 

Providing feedback for student writing can be overwhelming and time consuming, however, technology is quickly making it possible to provide students with almost instant feedback when it comes to the foundational skills necessary to become a great writer. JoeZoo Express is a great new tool that can save teachers large amounts of time in providing feedback to students and quickly get them moving forward. Take a look at this video to see an example of how it works.

Formative Assessment Made Easy with Superquiz

Super Quiz is a great new formative assessment tool that has just been released.  Super Quiz is an Add-On for Google Sheets that quickly creates data and statistical displays of any student responses. Flubaroo has been another popular grading tool for Google Forms & Sheets for a long time and now there's another option that teachers can choose from. With Super Quiz, you don't need to wait for data on your students, you can instantly get breakdowns that will allow you to make quick instructional decisions and support struggling students.

Great Professional Learning Opportunity

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is coming to Denver next summer. This event is one of the largest and most popular professional learning experiences in the world when it comes to technology in education.  It's time to start thinking about your registration and plans to attend now so you can get the most out of this experience.  Registration for the 2016 conference in Denver, CO. opened yesterday so you can get set up at anytime.  If you're interested in attending this world class professional learning event, you'll find all the details below.  

Engage Students in Digital Learning with NHL Hockey

In partnership with the Colorado Avalanche, Everfi has released a powerful new tool to engage students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics learning.  This new tool is entirely free and web-based so it can be used on any device.  It involves incredible interactions with the game of hockey from the engineering of skates to the area of the ice to finding angles of puck passes.  It's also perfect for second language learners as it has great audio directions to accompany the text.  If you are interested in using the great new tool to enhance student learning, check out the additional information below.

Using EDpuzzle to Create Interactive Videos

Lately, I have been sharing a great site named EDPuzzle. This site can be used by teachers to turn videos into interactive lessons. Teachers can crop videos, add to them, and embed questions in order to check for understanding.

Create and Manage Accounts

1. Teachers create a class. Here is how your students will be able to identify which class to go to. This is also how you can know where to put the videos and assignments that you create.
2. Once you create a class, this menu will appear. EDpuzzle automatically gives you a class code so your students can easily find your class and complete the assignment you have prepared.
3. Assignment Page is where you can get creative. You can either have your students simply watch a video you created, or write out specifically what you want them to do.
   

Nearpod or Pear Deck?

If you are getting comfortable with your classroom set of  Chromebooks or iPads and are ready for the next step, Nearpod and Peardeck are waiting for you. No longer do you need to present a lesson on your whiteboard and then have students complete the related assignments on their devices. Nearpod and Peardeck allow you to connect with your students in innovative ways. These powerful, web-based tools allow teachers to present information to the whole group or individuals. Then students show their understanding through quizzes, drawings or responses that are sent back to the teacher during the lesson.

iPads as a Teacher Tool

So, you’ve got a brand new iPad...or maybe it’s not brand new, but you’re not sure how you could use it in your classroom. Your iPad can be a transformative tool in your classroom: it can free you from your whiteboard, free you from your laptop during lessons, take pictures of student work and project them instantly and then allow you or a student to annotate the work from anywhere in the room.

iPads a great mobile devices for monitoring notes - not only can you create handwritten notes, but you can add pictures, annotate on the pictures, and quickly send the file to cloud storage such as Evernote, Dropbox, or an email account. The recording features allow you to capture video or audio in your classroom directly, or even create a tutorial video to share with students who are absent. Your iPad combined with a video you’ve created is a great tool to put in front of a group of students that might need to hear a lesson again for reinforcement.

"Got Clickers?"

"Got Clickers?"

We all know formative assessment is important: checking for understanding, on-the-fly adjustments in class, and planning for differentiated and relevant lessons is part and parcel what teachers do day-in and day-out. A few years ago, "clickers" came on the scene and transformed the classrooms lucky enough to have a set. However, having enough money to purchase clickers for every classroom is a huge challenge.

Enter "Plickers." This free tool is an amazing alternative to expensive multiple-choice clickers.  All a teacher needs is an iPhone/iPad or Android device, the cards from the Plickers website, and a few minutes to create the questions.