Whatever is in the water up there in Saskatchewan, I wish we had some down here. Dean Shareski is one of the bloggers in my ‘gator and he has this thought provoking idea that assessing technology use is a lot like assessing pencil use.
Why Technology Assessments Suck
I’ve been asked to try and develop and build something that could measure student achievement in technology. Here’s my issue: First this idea of separating technology from everything is not ideal. We know technology isn’t “integrated” it’s just used. We know the real skills aren’t “the student can save a document” just as we don’t measure, “the student will keep their pencils in a pencil case”. We want to measure learning in deeper ways and to break it down to this, misses the boat.
This hits the nail pretty directly on the head and underscores some of the issues that I’ve long had with the way we think about technology and the classroom. When teaching reading, we we assess whether or not the student can use a bookmark? Find something in an index? Locate a chapter in a table of contents? No. We *do* occasionally have these skills as a lesson in some other context — one relating to the organization and construction of books — but not when we’re addressing the issues of reading — that is, the decoding of meaning from a systematically coded represention of ideas.
I’ve said it before and I seem to be saying it again.
- The mere presence (or absence) of a technology in a classroom is not related to the level of outcome.
- Technology is neither the problem nor the solution.
September 16th, 2007 at 9:58 am
I think about assessment quite a bit and try to design evaluations that target the different learning styles. When considering the matter of assessment in the realm of technology use, I keep returning to the thought that students enjoy surfing the web and hanging out with their friends on Facebook and MySpace it’s entertaining and interesting to them. There is no formal accountablity. Sometimes they do face personal issues over what someone has said or done and their reactions build or dissolve character in the much the same way playground conflicts do. But, on to my point, I wonder if teaching in cyberspace will become as monotonous and disengaging as regular classrooms if we institute an accountablity system for what they are learning. The real task is how to keep them learning without letting them know that we are trying to teach them.
September 16th, 2007 at 10:46 am
It is interesting how in this day in age of more technology than was in our society a decade that there is no accountability for it with students. Teachers now have accountability for using technology with the addition of Standard IX to the Professional Standards. So, why only one side of the fence? Why not hold students accountable? A lot of professions include at least some aspect of technology and we should want students to master that content as much as the other courses we teach.
September 16th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
As Remona said, students are very knowledgeable in the use of technology because they use it for their own enjoyment and to communicate on sites such as Facebook and Myspace among other things. Therefore when we are trying to incorporate the use of technology due to Standard IX, as dancingnancy says. When students are assigned projects which include research and presentations that require the use of technology in not only the preparation of the project but also in the presentaion, then we are assessing them using technology to a point aren’t we?
September 16th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Well I think accountability is coming for technology, I think that next year’s freshmen will be accountable for some technology skills, but I believe that each district will be the one who measures it. Now I may be wrong, but accountability is coming to Kentucky in technology, but how is another question still up in the air.