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Annotated Resources
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Alternative Assessment This article, located on the Teaching Today web site (a website published by Glencoe) provides users with a variety of excellent ideas for alternative assessment at the secondary level. It examines how secondary teachers can create authentic assessment aimed at seeing what students can do instead of how they can perform on the traditional paper-pencil test. An interesting quote from the web site states, "Part of the purpose is to make assessment a more meaningful learning experience. However, ascertaining mastery of a skill or subject is still the key objective of assessment. http://www.glencoe.com/sec/teachingtoday/educationupclose.phtml/32 or visit the home page of Teaching Today at http://www.glencoe.com/sec/teachingtoday/
The Impact of Education Technology on Student Achievement: What the Most Current Research Has to Say Written by John Schacter, this article examines the five largest studies done on the impact of educational technology on student achievement to be done. The purpose of the article is to examine both the benefits and the negatives of educational technology. Readers of the article will appreciate the simplicity of the organization. Each of the studies is broken into the negative and positive findings. http://www.sbceo.k12.ca.us/~ims/techcen/EETT/ImpactofET.pdf
International Society for Technology in Education ISTE is a non-profit organization with the mission of "providing leadership and service to improve teaching and learning by advancing the effective use of technology in education." With that goal, the ISTE web site provides teachers with a great wealth of resources to better incorporate technology in learning at all levels. here teachers will find links to a variety of other avenues: conferences, funding, and teaching ideas. Of particular interest to members of the EDTEC 685 course is the link containing ideas for assessment. www.iste.org
Less Assessment, More Learning Written by Lowell Barrington, this Academe provides an interesting view into assessment in the field of higher education. PreK-12 schools are not the only institutions facing the assessment issue. In face, Barrrington's article criticizes higher education's focus on assessment, just as many teachers in PreK-12 schools have criticized the focus on testing. Barrington writes, " As a result of assessment, instructors spend much time on things like developing course-specific assessment plans, regrading assignments using assessment criteria (and assessment's unique language), and writing assessment reports." Viewers of this article may also follow the link back to the home page for this magazine and read other interesting articles. http://www.aaup.org/publications/Academe/2003/03nd/03ndbarr.htm
NCLB Action Briefs: Standards and Assessment Published by the Public Education Network and the National Coalition of Parent Involvement in Education, this news brief includes important information outlining requirements of the No Child Left Behind legislation as well as the progress made towards achieving the mandate. Important to this particular course (EDTEC 685) is the section which describes the characteristics of assessment as outlined by the federal government. For example, state assessments must produce individual student scores as well as enable itemized score analysis. http://www.ncpie.org/nclbaction/standards_assessment.html
National Assessment of Educational Progress While this is not a "flashy" web site, it certainly provides users with a large amount of information. Since 1969, "the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as 'the Nation's Report Card,' is the only nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America's students know and can do in various subject areas. For example, users can view the new 2006 National Report Card for the Sciences. Visitors to the site can see data for the entire nation or for specific states. http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/
Networked-Based Assessment in EducationThis article by David Gibson with the National Institute of Community Innovations, USA, examines how network-based assessments have changed the way we view assessment of preservice teachers. With the changes technology has brought about, students can now share ideas and enter communities of inquiry. Ultimately, we can use this network as a way to document and track preservice teacher performancese. Of particular interest to professors is the outline for the new model of assessment when Gibson writes "assessments only operate successfully in a context in which learners have been given an opportunity to learn, for example, through curriculum and instruction" (p. 6) http://ali.apple.com/ali_media/Users/1000507/files/others/NetworkBasedAssessment.doc
Student Assessment as Learning at Alverno College as • sess ( The first page of this web site contains the above definition of assess, located by a picture of a professor sitting beside her student in a discussion. While this web site is not aimed at public school teachers, it does provide interesting insight into the philosophy of assessment particularly assessment of college level learning. Not only does Alverno's web site delve into the thought process behind their assessment practices, but it also provides various links to explain the key elements of their assessments. An important link is the Workshop link that provides some crucial ideas for educators. http://depts.alverno.edu/saal/
THE Journal Another non-profit group, THE Institute provides online resources for teachers interested in using technology in their learning environments. One of the important pieces to their work is THE Journal, an online magazine, that provides teachers with teaching ideas as well as research in the field of educational technology. For example, the lead story in the current issue of THE Journal summarizes the finding of a survey that looked at what drives teacher and student performance. They discovered "79 percent of teachers believe technology is a key tool for teaching and engaging students." Visit the web site below to find out more about the survey and to read other interesting articles: http://thejournal.com
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