6.3 Technology and Assessments

Summative assessments: My understanding of this concept is to measure the learning of each individual student at any point, for example using rubrics that describe what is expected from students to complete a particular assignment. Students use the rubric as a guide to accomplish the desire task given by the teacher. The rubric should follow an easy format easy for students to follow and understand. The vocabulary used on the rubric play also a very important role on this assessment. I started using rubrics this current semester and the results have been more positive, most of my students have been engaged and completing their assignments almost on time. E-portfolio I am planning on having my students on saving their work using their google drive and have their completed assignments shared with the teacher and their parents. My understanding is that Google drive is a powerful web 2.0 tool that can be use as an external USB drive saved somewhere in the sky (cloud computing) a can be accessed from anywhere.

Formative assessments: In order to measure students current understanding of the material for a particular unit I will use Edmodo to create and grade my online quizzes. I can also use Edmodo to share the correct responses and give them a positive feedback of their responses. Students will use the discussion board from Haiku LMS, the same way is used in this course. Students will also write their reflections on Google docs and have them shared with the teacher. So far this semester I have been applying and modifying my instructions from what I have been learning in this course. Students are learning at their own pace and given ample time to complete their work. Some of the technological factors to consider are; students’ computers capability of loading web 2.0 tools, additional technical support to configure and work with web 2.0 tools. Those factors can be solve by creating a site that will provide solutions to frequent Q&A, examples are: video lessons or visual guides.

4.3 Social and Professional Networks

My personal interaction when using a computer and browsing the Internet is mostly on obtaining information for educational purpose, I like to browse and research on new technologies or free web tools and sites to use in my classroom. There are many tools and sites available that it is difficult not to review them. Many times I get distracted from doing what I have in mind for a particular Internet section, and it usually happens when I check my email. It is difficult to stay away from taking a glance in my mail. In general the Internet has help me to teach new computer lessons as well as free resources to share with my students, for example I found a site like Code Academy that offers free tutorial on programming, there are many sites like Code Academy and Khan Academy that are encourage me to search for other similar sites. I try to stay away from social web sites such as Facebook, I do use it momentarily and I try to stay away from it. The first screen shot of my social activity on facebook shows a picture of myself with three of my friend taken back in the 1981. I received about 20 comments within 2 day of my initial post, and I still receiving comments on it. The second screen shot is a post where I encourage my friends to view the video Did you Know and the audience response is almost zero. It seems to me that many facebook users want to socialize and the don’t care on educational sites. I can use this experience and teach my students the negativity of social sites and encourage them to use educational sites by sharing a resource tool such as delicious that will contain many educational sites, and resources to social learning such as Edmodo and Edublogs