Journal 11

Focus question: How can teachers use student participation systems as effective assessment methods?

A popular technology device used in classrooms today is the clicker. The clickers get students actively engaged in the subject area. Clickers are easily accessible and make students more involved in the lesson of the day. Teachers can use clickers throughout a lesson to engage students and have them respond collectively with their individual clickers. This device helps teachers evaluate and assess their students individually with the answers they have clocked corresponding to the questions asked. In college I used clickers for attendance and occasionally to answer questions or polls in class. I think that they are extremely helpful when it comes to communicating between students and teachers, especially in a bigger setting where it is harder to assess and acknowledge everyone.

Photo credit to Travis Goodspeed on Flickr

Tech tool: Digital Portfolio Building Resources

Teachers at school are now lined to their own website with their profile or an online portfolio. Technology is helping teachers get more to their students outside the classroom, or even before meeting the teacher. You can check up on teacher pages or portfolios to get their curriculum or any information pertaining to your upcoming class. For teachers to build their sites, they have different options. There are multiple sites that have templates and structures to build upon one being TaskStream. “TaskStream is an archiving tool used for web design and portfolio building.” On this website teachers are able to create lesson plans, customize measurement tools, and a time manager. These all help letting students know what is expected of them. EduTools is a cool website that students may use before entering into colleges. It gives great advice when students are ready to choose schools and teachers. It provides different reviews for students as guidelines on teachers, advance placement, and high school courses.

Summary

My favorite part about this chapter is the talk about clickers and the tech tools. Clickers were such a neat a fun thing to use as a college student in big stadium classes. Even if it was to just take attendance it makes kids feel important and involved in the room. Clickers can be used in many different ways which is a great tool when it comes to teachers assessing what each individual students has learned. The tech tools information about different builder sites for teachers and building portfolios is very helpful and a good thing to know for the future. I am not very tech-say or up to date on the different things teachers use to communicate. I think that ePortfolios are an awesome way to introduce parents and students to a teacher’s class and the standards they have set for the students. It is accessible from home, outside of school. It also provides a way to contact the teacher, as well as hidden answers to more popular questions.  This is a great upcoming technology for all ages in the educational field, people like knowing they can retrieve background information on teachers to get to know them better.