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Using technology for assessing a student's growth and deficits has a lot of benefits. When I was a classroom teacher, I found myself so incredibly frustrated with the amount of assessing going on in public school. Pre-tests, post-tests, re-tests, benchmark tests, state tests and the list goes on! Don't get me wrong. I think assessments are needed in order to document growth and determine a child's learning level; however, the amount of testing going on in our schools is absolutely absurd. It makes me so sad to see students AND teachers constantly stressed and the main reason is attributed to test scores. Therefore, using interactive ways to assess a student's learning level so it is meaningful and effective is something I want to dig deeper into this new year🎉

What makes an effective assessment?

Effective assessments are able to tell us A LOT about a child and his/her academic needs whether that be where they struggle or where they need to be challenged. They should promote student learning. I really like the idea of alternative assessments since they focus on what students can do rather than placing too much emphasis on what they can't do. What makes an assessment effective?

In my mind I believe the best kind of assessment should involve 3 components:

Open-ended: Not all children (even adults) test well. Multiple choice and true/false questions can be misleading from time to time. A child who has a solid understanding of a certain topic can easily bomb a test if he/she has challenges reading the words on the assessment (ie. dyslexia, vision impairment, etc.). Therefore, giving a child flexibility and ownership to explain their thinking is important to me. Yes, it can make grading a bit more challenging and can be somewhat subjective; however, it is effective for the child. Techhub has a huge list of open-ended/alternative assessments that you can read about HERE.

Interactive: Regardless of age, most people cringe when they hear to words test, quiz, and assessment. They can be boring, tedious and knowing you are being judged on your knowledge can be extremely daunting. How can we alleviate these feelings for our students? Making assessments interactive where the child doesn't even know they are being tested is a true passion of mine.

Ability to Voice Record Student in Action: Being able to voice record a child demonstrating their thinking process is invaluable. Not only does it speak volumes about a child's academic and verbal capabilities, you also have a solid piece of evidence for eligibility meetings whether that is special education, a gifted program, etc.. So many times I had a struggling student who I KNEW needed services but took over half a year to be found eligible. One of the big elements to an eligibility is trying to prove the child's strength and weaknesses through assessment results. You also are able to show parents exactly how their child is performing in school. Having recordings of students in action could be very powerful for situations like these. Do I think we have to record students all of the time? No. But it can be very beneficial when you have a few recordings to compare throughout the year! Store them in an online portfolio program like SeeSaw or make your own in Google Drive!

Using Technology as an Alternative Assessment

Today I want to share with you how you can use the free educational app, Shadow Puppet Edu, for an alternative assessment. I remember blogging about this highly versatile app three years ago. THIS BLOG POST shows you how excited I was to discover this technology tool. Since then I have done a countless number of projects with teachers and students using Shadow Puppet EDU and it is one of those apps that just never fails. We all know how important that can be 😄

Why use Shadow Puppet EDU for assessment?

I think Shadow Puppet EDU is very effective for assessing students. The child is not video recorded, just audio recorded with this app. As powerful as video taping can be, having a video camera in your face while you are trying to perform can be incredibly intimidating. I'm not sure if I always capture a child's true capabilities when the video camera is rolling. However, audio recordings seem to take away an element of raw exposure and make us feel more comfortable when completing a task.

What does it look like?

Here is an example of a Shadow Puppet piece that was used to assess a five year old's understanding of one-to-one correspondence when counting EM😎JIS on several different slides. Notice how a star pops up and disappears when he is counting. This visually shows when and where the child was tapping as he counted. Shadow Puppet has several different pointer tools students can select when recording. The pointer tool will quickly appear and disappear in the exact location each time the student touches the screen.

This quick little activity is very telling! Seth was able to count the objects correctly on the first and last slide. He failed to correctly count all ten soccer balls on the middle slide. This slide had the objects arranged in an array instead of a straight line. Did that throw him off? He knows how to orally count his numbers (FAST too!) but he needed to slow down so he could accurately track the objects. Having this piece of evidence to send home to parents, share with the other teachers Seth works with or even review with the Seth himself can be very meaningful.

If you are a teacher, interventionist or even a parent who is interested in step-by-step directions and the numbers 1-25 EM😎JI slides, check out my Shadow Puppet EDU Counting One-to-One Correspondence product in my TeachersPayTeachers store. Everything you need is provided:

Another kind of assessment that could be used with Shadow Puppet EDU is for reading. In the example below I demonstrate how students can sound out phonemes of words. 😋

Currently I have a long & short vowel Shadow Puppet product in my store. It comes with step-by-step directions and 21 different jpeg images. Click the image below to learn more:

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Make Assessments Meaningful with Shadow Puppet EDU

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Using technology for assessing a student's growth and deficits has a lot of benefits. When I was a classroom teacher, I found myself so incredibly frustrated with the amount of assessing going on in public school. Pre-tests, post-tests, re-tests, benchmark tests, state tests and the list goes on! Don't get me wrong.

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Padlet is one of my favorite collaborative web tools to use with students that I have used for years. I love how versatile it is and how one can access a Padlet wall on laptops, Chromebooks, iPads and Android devices! If you are not familiar with Padlet then click HERE.

This week I helped a 5th grade class incorporate technology into their novel study groups. The teacher wanted to use Padlet for each team to gather ideas and brainstorm the events that they read about each day. I mentioned how anyone can MAKE a background for a Padlet wall to help students organize their digital sticky notes. She was so excited about this possibility! I whipped up these graphic organizers for the teacher to choose from each week and I wanted to share them with YOU:

We ended up making four different Padlet walls--one for each novel study group. Thank goodness for the remake feature that allowed us to quickly and easily make four different walls! Press the button once and BOOM the new board pops up in your dashboard.

Once the students worked together on their individual devices to add their ideas to the graphic organizer, the teacher printed the wall, deleted the post-its and uploaded a different graphic organizer for the next assignment. That way she didn't have to keep recreating 4 different walls each time. Honestly, creating a wall takes NO time and she may have spent more time deleting the post-its. However, this worked for her because she didn't have to print out different QR Codes to get to the new Padlet walls (for those who were using iPads) and didn't have to post new urls in her Google Classroom.

Note: We learned the hard way. The sticky notes will appear in different locations on the graphic organizers IF the students use different devices but work on the same board. Therefore, we had one group use iPads while the other three groups used their Chromebooks.

Here is a quick video tutorial I created to show how you can upload these graphic organizers to be the background of a Padlet wall:

Note: As I indicate in the video, you will most likely need to expand your browser window so the graphic organizer doesn't appear cut off.

I created these graphic organizers in PowerPoint and saved them as a jpeg. I did have to play with the formatting a bit. After a little trial and error, I finally had the size that fit perfectly on the Padlet wall. Give it a try!

Other ideas for customized Padlet wall activities include:

Having students label a diagram (parts of a cell, parts of a plant, layers of the Earth, maps, etc.)

Digital Board Game

Sorts (words, shapes, math sentences, etc.)

Exit Cards

Graphing

What are some other ways we could customize Padlet activities for our students? Leave your ideas in the comments!

UPDATE: Since this post was written, Padlet has had a major facelift! If you are having trouble moving your sticky notes, go to the three dotted icon in the upper right hand corner and click Change Format. Select the green Canvas option. This will allow you to move the stickies anywhere on your screen.

If the graphic organizers are not fitting to your screen then you can try zooming out of your browser or dragging the corner of your browser until it comes through. Several people have contacted me about this issue and I have passed on the information to Padlet and hoping to hear back soon!

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How to Customize Padlet Walls: Plus FREE Graphic Organizers!

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Padlet is one of my favorite collaborative web tools to use with students that I have used for years. I love how versatile it is and how one can access a Padlet wall on laptops, Chromebooks, iPads and Android devices! If you are not familiar with Padlet then click HERE.

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I'm back again for another tech tool to share! But, let's me honest...

Well...Have I got the perfect starter tool for you!

In all honesty, I can only juggle about 3 tools at a time. Any more than that, the kids forget how to use it (time wasting). Symbaloo and Padlet are the biggies for me. Once my kids are proficient in those, I can bring in something else.

It is available in both web-based and for iPads. ANY classroom with digital access can benefit!
Ready to be convinced? Here goes!

I promise you...there is nothing SIMPLER than Popplet! Double tap anywhere and POP! You have your first popple. Tap on any of the settings below to create the popple of your choice.
See the little white circles? Simply press and drag to create an ATTACHED popple.
BAM! Instant graphic organizer!

This graphic organizing tool can easily be used across the curriculum!

This week, we located examples of text features. They took pictures using their iPads and added text to label & explain the feature. Talk about actively engaged!

One of my little buddies asked to make a popplet about our reading. Can't you see kids working in groups making different presentations for the class to EXPLAIN what they researched??

In math this week, we were working on place value.
How perfect it is to start with a number:

Create a base 10 model and snap a picture

Write the number in expanded form

Write the number in word form

This could also be used to show different parts to create wholes, different expressions to express a number--the number of digits will depend on your needs!
For science & s ocial studies, students can respond in so many ways to show understanding!
Learning about animal groups?
Learning about types of rocks?
Name the group-the popples will describe the attributes

This is all fun, but it is important that the students are focused on the task. I give my kids an easy rubric so that they stay on track. Since this is one of those tasks that the parents DON'T see, I add two places to check off. One is for the students--this is their promise to have double checked what is expected.

The right side is for me to do the final check. Kids on iPads can take screen shots or you could check them off personally. I like the chance to discuss and help them make improvements-clarify their thoughts. When I can, that is!

Despite the fact little buddy has HORRIBLE handwriting...yes, I WILL be using some of Melissa's tips for this guy, but...He had done an AMAZING job! Do you give your kids feedback when they do an amazing job? I like to give them hearts. Love hearing when they look over their papers and are excited when they earn a COVETED heart!

I'd sure love to hear how YOU use Popplet...or if you TRY it!

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I'm back again for another tech tool to share! But, let's me honest... Well...Have I got the perfect starter tool for you! In all honesty, I can only juggle about 3 tools at a time. Any more than that, the kids forget how to use it (time wasting).