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Corey Madison
EDU 225
April 3, 2016
Mr. M
Technology and Assessments
Through the use of technology, teachers can easily view the progress of
their students as well as the usefulness of their own curriculum. Even making
a quiz for a class can become quite simple and useful administration options
provide flexibility in how they are presented (Deichman, 2014). There are
advantages to using technology for giving assessments and many software
programs that are available to help teachers and students. Using technology
to assess students with the appropriate software will continue to advance
education and help students and teachers everywhere.
Technology to Facilitate Ongoing Efforts to Assess Student
Learning
Technology can be used to assess student learning in the classroom in
many ways. A very quick and confidential method of making a survey can be
done using Poll Everywhere. Most programs allow for cell phones or mobile
devices to be used as the method of response. This allows for even the more
poverty stricken school districts access to these resources. Whether a
teacher is getting to know where their students are in particular subjects or
giving a final exam there are programs that can be used to facilitate their

needs. Data from the results of these assessments can be used to determine
the students and the teachers success. A teacher no longer has to take the
time to calculate and grade endless amounts of papers, allowing more time
to be spent on improving their teaching methods and spending time with
students.
Socrative
The quick question and answer function not only allows for students to
answer the question with something as simple as their cell phone but it also
polls the results for the teacher. The student can see if they got the answer
wrong without the worry of being embarrassed in front of the class
(Deichman, 2014). There is even a space race that allows for a fun,
interactive and collaborative way for the students to take quizzes. This
website seems to be very useful for quick quizzes during a lecture, getting
quick and real time results for tests, and the space race allows for a nice, fun
but still educational way to unwind at the end of the day.
Poll Everywhere
Many of the assessment software are initially created to poll opinions
of an audience. Although it seems that Poll Everywhere might have been
created for a more adult or business type use it has many useful features
that could be used in a classroom setting. The polls can be responded to with
a cell phone or any mobile devise and the results are immediately displayed
with a delay as short as 5 seconds (Grandgenett, 2012). Using this software
in a class is a little difficult since the students would have to be identified by

their cell phone or device number, but would work great as a way to get an
overall opinion of the class. This software is very useful if the teacher is
looking for very rapid results that can be displayed and saved in a excel
format.
Moodle
If a teacher is looking for a very dynamic and widely used software,
Moodle or modular object oriented dynamic learning environment might be
the one to use. Moodle is used in about 190 countries and can be used in
more than 70 languages (Jurne-Brmane, 2014). This software is great
because it allows for comments to be displayed to the student whether the
guess the right or wrong answer. This feature is really nice because
encouragement is very important whether or not the student guessed the
right answer. This software would be very useful for younger students in the
elementary level since they might need a little more encouragement.
(Formative and Summative Assessments)
The difference between formative and summative assessments is
formative is developing and summative is finalizing. Formative assessments
are meant to monitor student learning and show the strengths, weaknesses
and needs of the particular student (Carnegie Mellon University, n.d.).
Summative assessments are more of a way for students to prove what they
have learned at the end or mid way through a class. Summative
assessments are usually high stakes and are compared against a standard or
benchmark.

Pros and Cons of using Technology to Facilitate Assessment

When using technology to facilitate giving students an assessment
there are many great advantages but also a few disadvantages. One of the
great advantages of using technology to assess students is the immediate
feedback to students, allowing for teachers to encourage the students and
provide for their needs (Jurne-Brmane, 2014). The ability to save tests,
quizzes and their results in the cloud helps to not lose previous work or even
pull from material that might have worked in the past. The ability to add
pictures or interactive material to the tests help students that might have
different learning styles to succeed. Although, technology does has a
potential to fail and has a chance of functioning incorrectly and giving grades
incorrectly. There is something about the human touch on things that is lost
when technology takes control. Overall though, using technology for
assessments is advantageous not only for the student but also for the
teacher in more ways than not.

Concluding Paragraph for Software to Support Assessment

There are many great things about using software to help with
assessing students. Immediate feedback can be used especially when giving
a formative assessment. The ability to save and share information though
can help with both formative and summative assessments. Teachers are able
to save, edit and share tests with each other which constantly evolve tests
into more effective and efficient ways of testing students. Using technology

to assess students with the appropriate software will continue to advance

education and help students and teachers everywhere.

References
Deichman, J. (2014). Socrative 2.0. Knowledge Quest, 43(2), 72-73.
Grandgenett, N. (2012). POLL EVERYWHERE. Mathematics & Computer
Education, 46(1), 79-80.
Jurne-Brmane, A. (2014). FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT ON THE MOODLE
PLATFORM. Vocational Education: Research & Reality, (25), 226-230.
Carnegie Mellon University. (n.d.). Formative vs Summative Assessment Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation, Retrieved March 29,
2016, from http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/assessment/basics/formativesummative.html