EEND679 Artifact 2- Tech-based Assessment

Click here to take the Socrative assessment.

The next artifact that I chose was my tech-based assessment using Socrative. I have heard of Socrative before but have never used it. I decided to take a math quiz that I give to my students during our first unit on place value and modify it so I could be given using Socrative. I was able to take the images and place them in the questions very easily. I also loved the fact that I could provide an explanation of why each answer was correct. Even though this feature was optional, I felt that it would really help my students learn the content so they could understand why their mistakes were incorrect.

I felt that I learned the most from finding an assistive technology tool that would help my students. I quickly discover the application Speakit! and I was amazed by how easy it was to use. It is a free Google Extension where students are able to highlight any text that is on their screen and then click the icon and have the text read aloud to them. This extension would help so many students and it would prevent their reading ability from affecting them showing their understanding of the content. The only difficulty that students may encounter is being able to highlight the text. Therefore this skill would have to be taught and practiced before students could use the extension.

I plan on using both Socrative and Speakit! in my classroom this year and I feel that other teachers from my school would enjoy using these tools as well so I am excited to share this with them!

References
Socrative (2017). Retrieved from https://www.socrative.com/
Origo Slate (2017). Retrieved from https://www2.origoslate.com/ 

EEND679 Artifact 1- PARCC Blog Post

Click here to view the Google Doc.

One of the artifacts that I chose to reflect on was my blog post about computer skills for PARCC. This assignment stood out to me because I teach second grade and my students do not have to take PARCC however, they are required to take it the following year in third grade so I feel that it is my job to help prepare them for the test. I began to research to find out technology issues students encounter while testing so that I could know how to best prepare my students and what I needed to share out to other primary teachers. While I found the practice tests to be extremely beneficial to students in third grade and higher, I realized there were many things I could do in my classroom. My students will be better prepared for PARCC if I can give them frequent computer based assignments where they are expected to drag and drop, highlight text, and select multiple answers.

I created this post on a Google Doc and found images using Creative Commons. By using Creative Commons images, I knew I wasn’t infringing on any copyright laws but it was time consuming. I found that this process took longer to search through the images than using Google Images but I would suggest that other teachers use Creative Commons as well in order to set a good example for our students. Therefore, this year when I have my students create Google Docs, I plan on teaching them how to insert images by finding them through the Creative Commons.

References

(2016, Nov 20). Writing_boy_e-citizen [digital image]. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAz-Writing_boy_e-citizen.jpg
(2017, Oct 07). Keyboard Typing [digital image]. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AKeyboard_typing.png
Murray, J. (2016, May 06). How to Prepare Students for PARCC/SBACC Tests. Retrieved July 05, 2017, from http://askatechteacher.com/2015/09/03/how-to-prepare-students-for-sbac-parcc-tests/
PARCC. (2017). Retrieved July 05, 2017, from https://parcc.pearson.com/
PARCC Tips: Five Ways To Supercharge Student Performance. (2017). Retrieved July 05, 2017, from http://teachargument.com/parcctips/