Technology For Assessment
Technology can not only be used during instruction or as part of the curriculum, it can also be used to help assess how well the lesson is going. Some of the following websites are in other sections of this site in part because of their myriad of uses but there will also be technology listed that is for the educator's use only in assessing the completion of short term and long term educational goals.
Arcademic Skill Builders
As discussed in the "In The Classroom" technology section of this site, ARB can be a very useful tool for teachers to assess how their students are doing as far as accuracy and response time are concerned. ARB is a free tool for teachers and students. I hope to see the website increase its offerings to students of higher grade levels, but currently the website is utilized for 5th grade and under.
Math Reasoning Inventory
Math Reasoning Inventory, also called MRI, is a free website to help math teachers assess what their students really know, and what their thought process are when finding the answers to equations. MRI is a formative assessment tool teachers can use use that will give them an end result of data in the form of reports and charts to assess their students learning in decimals, fractions, and whole numbers. Teachers can sign up to do assessments on their own students or an individual can sign up to be a manager to handle several different teachers. MRI follows the common core standards and its mathematics assessments are designed for students 6th grade and under. It is important to note, that students above 6th grade who struggle in math may also benefit from this type of assessment. This can help a teacher to pinpoint an area of weakness for students to work on to become more proficient.
Pro Grade Book
Pro Grade Book is a free assessment tool for educators that gives access to tools such as graphs, student and parent access, and the ability to use standards based grading. For teachers who do not like traditional grading, this piece of software is ideal because it is easily customizable for proficiency levels. One really great feature is that state standards can be imported for those who use standards based grading. There are so many features to this site it is a must try for any educator.
Rubistar
I discussed Rubistar on the technology for the classroom page because rubrics can also be utilized by students as a checklist for their learning paths and goals. As a teacher they help to ensure that bias doesn't enter the grading process especially where written assignments and product producing assignments are concerned. As a free service, rubistar can help keep the teacher on track with the learning goas and assure that when followed correctly grading is fair.