Evaluating Students' Use of Technology Tools

Our assignment for class this week called for us to share our opinions on evaluating students’ use of technology tools. When doing so the first thing a teacher needs to determine is what is being evaluated. Is it the technology tool itself, in terms of the student mastery of the tool or is it the actual information that is being presented? (feel free to refer back to my post on teaching technology in isolation). Is the technology simply ‘taking the place’ of another presentation modality or is it giving students access to things they wouldn’t be able to access otherwise?

In the case of evaluating the “tool” there are many rubrics currently available for assessing multimedia projects. Kathy Schrock has an entire page of rubrics to choose from as well as additional links. Learn NC a program within the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill offers up a guide to evaluating multimedia presentations as well. Here's even one more link, just for fun.

If you are evaluating the presentation of information through the use of technology, however, you need to become even more selective. There is an excellent article in Edutopia (which subsequently is the focus of a blog on Evaluating Technology Use in the Classroom ) that breaks down evaluating students’ use of technology into 3 categories:

1. Doing Old things in Old Ways (typing a paper in Word as opposed to writing it out)
2. Doing Old things in New Ways (instead of reading about MLK’s famous speech, students now listen to it or watch a video clip of it)
3. Doing New things in New Ways (does the use of technology allow the students to reach audiences they would not be able to reach without it?)

Within my experience many educators are currently in the old things/old ways and old things/new ways categories. That’s ok. It’s a starting point. Technology is not going to become a permanent teaching tool for these teachers if they are suddenly forced to do new things in new ways. A good starting point is to have them move their students away from the old methods of presenting (be it lecture or powerpoint). To see examples of this see a handout I made for our 8th grade students. I say this because a new way of presenting something may spark an interest in the student. They may then become open to learning other new things as well. One difficulty however is getting teachers and students beyond the oooo and ahhh of the bells and whistles and to evaluate the content of the presentation. Here’s a link to an educator’s guide to evaluating the use of technology in schools.

What is Great Professional Development?

The National Staff Development Council defines professional development as “a comprehensive, sustained, and intensive approach to improving teachers’ and principals’ effectiveness in raising student achievement.” They say professional development should be aligned with student state standards, conducted by educators (or knowledgeable well-prepared individuals), and take place more than a one-and-done session (initially several times a week).

The majority of the professional development sessions I have attended have met some, if not all, of the criteria at one point or another. So does that alone make them great? How does one truly define a *great* professional development?

When I first looked at this blog prompt my first instinct was to write about a great professional development sessions I gave. In the fall as part of my Study Group Coach grant obligations for the Chicago Foundation for Education I presented at their Teachers as Leaders and Learners Conference. This was my third year presenting at this conference. In fact, I was fortunate enough to have a lady approach me and say that she was excited I was presenting since she had seen me present before and would be in any session I taught that day because of her past experience with other sessions I lead. That sure was nice to hear.

I lead a session based on my Study Group, “The Web 2.0 Classroom.” It was well attended in both sessions. There was audience participation. One teacher reached out after the session for additional resources (which I spent my break at the conference researching for him). Why would I think of this session as a great professional development? Maybe it was because I was so energized and into the presentation that the vibe rubbed off on the participants. Maybe it was because I was able to provide them with resources they could immediately use. Maybe it was because they wanted and chose to be there so they were more receptive. In any case, in my opinion it was a great professional development. CFE does a great job of providing feedback to its presenters. I’m anxious to see the comments of the participants to see if their thoughts mirrored mine.

In terms of a professional development session that I’ve attended that I found to be great I would have to say there are two related to the current masters program I am in. These two workshops t have proven to be beneficial to my current position as a Lead Technology Teacher. The Web 2.0 and Digital Storytelling workshops were considered great for the following reasons:

*they provided me with knowledge I did not have (many of the professional development sessions I attend are things that I already know, or could have easily managed without the pd)

*they were relevant to my current teaching assignment (many of the pds I attend relate more to classroom teachers)

*they were presented by knowledgeable people that clearly researched and knew the content, and

*they were easily accessible and immediately transferable