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Assessment is arguably the piece of the learning cycle we get most wrong. Whether looked at from the perspective of the learner, the teacher, the school administrator, the politician or the parent, assessment is misunderstood and poorly utilised as a tool for learning. The importance of changing this situation is only made more salient in light of the countless research studies from the likes of Jon Hattie & Dylan Wiliam that points to the power of effective assessment. So, what are the common mistakes and how might we avoid them?

This site offers an interactive way to assess your class by connecting your students to your lessons and response to every question on a range of devices, including mobiles. Make a virtual room and set up assessment quizzes, share links instantly and even get students to draw a response to your questions in real time. The data is collated so you can see where your students need more input. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Planning+%26+Assessment

Good basic article on some steps to fair assessment

Nairobi 2010 Conference Reoprt  Climate Change and Natural Resource Use in Eastern Africa: Impacts, Adaptation and Mitigation Report of the 3rd Scientific Conference of the Ecological Society for Eastern Africa (ESEA) and co-hosted with the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) at Multimedia University College, Nairobi, 19 - 21 May 2010 By Nicholas Oguge, Caroline Lumosi, Teddy Odindo, Joseph Ngondi and Philista Malaki October 4, 2010 Summary While the Earth's climate has changed throughout history, the current warming trend has been of particular concern because most of it is human-induced and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented.  One of the greatest concerns of this global warming is climate variability and change.  The risks associated with climate change add to development challenges such as food and water insecurity. Although climate change is only one of the many drivers negatively affecting biodiversity and ecosystem services, it certainly exacerbates the other factors such as land degradation and unsustainable natural resource use. There is general concern on the accelerating deterioration of the human environment and natural resources. This would widen poverty levels confronting eastern African countries and threaten gains made towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Thus, the Ecological Society for Eastern African organised its 3rd annual scientific conference with a theme addressing this global challenge.  The idea was to bring together researchers, policy makers and the general public together to discuss the climate change phenomena, its impacts, mitigation strategies and adaptation measures with regard to natural resource use in Eastern Africa. In order to address above issues and to reach out to a wider audience, we designed the conference strategically on three tiers:   1. Plenary talks: to provide policy information and direction, science on climate change, ecological and socio-economic effects, how to commun

Assessment is an essential component of the teaching and learning cycle but sadly it is one that is often misunderstood. If we are to have any hope of getting it right we must begin with a sound understanding of what we hope to achieve, what is being assessed, who is being assessed and what will be done once the results are available.

How can we use ePortfolio for assessment without losing the flavor and the creativity that brought many of us into the movement?

http://www.wyoaac.org/Lit/assessment%20for%20learning%20of%20learning%20as%20learning%20-%20Earl.pdf.

Wind back 12 months, Year 6 SATs, in their old form, were over and we were beginning to plan for a whole new world….assessing without levels. Every discussion threw up problems and positivity about how we moved forward was severely lacking...

 The role of assessment has always played its part but it is a role that is changing in the present global climate and understanding this shift is important for educators.

Use your smart phone to digitise your student's work and make an online assessment record. Use images, files or Videos from YouTube. Add comments and much more. You can also upload images of work through the website. Why not get your class to upload their own? Really excited about this! http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Planning+%26+Assessment

Online assessments become more and more popular not only among distance learning institutions but also among blended and traditional schools. However, when it comes to the online environment, it seems that multiple choice tests are used by the majority of distance learning programs…

Formative e-assessment (Yishav Mor)

We rely on an assessment measure without taking a close look at what it is measuring and we obfuscate the information we need to evaluate the utility of these measures by reducing the results to numerical values.

A significant shift continues to occur within global education markets. It is signified by the manner in which it makes sense to speak of a global education market. It is driven by neo-liberalism and the expansion of markets into all aspects of our lives and it is made possible by manipulation of the third messaging system within the educational triad of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. It is a drive towards accountable, comparable and productive education systems fine-tuned to maximise the return on investment and provide industry with the workforce it desires. What must be asked is how does this trend impact students and are these the forces that should be driving change in our education systems?

Evaluating Internet Information The Internet offers a virtually unlimited supply of information, but there is no-one who registers, describes or checks the quality of the material. One of the consequences is that you must yourself both search out the information and evaluate it - much more carefully than in the case of traditional, printed material. The problem of assessing sources calls for a sceptical attitude towards this kind of information. Who is in fact the originator? Can I be sure that it is correct? these kind of questions must always be present when browsing the Internet. Fortunately, the web also offers many useful tools, which can be of service when evaluating the quality of different information resources. Links http://servercc.oakton.edu/~wittman/find/eval.htm Here you find a good and lucid list, outlining what to consider when evaluating information resouces on the net. Recommended as a starting-point for evaluating sources. http://milton.mse.jhu.edu:8001/research/education/net.html This is a similar and complementing site, but it contains more thorough information about evaluation criteria. Recommended for the more experienced user. http://www.vuw.ac.nz/~agsmith/evaln/evaln.htm Contains a large number of links to material about evaluation of information resources, including a list of evaluation criteria at: http://www.vuw.ac.nz/~agsmith/evaln/index.htm The ultimate site on quality evaluation of information on the net. Always remember that it is finally you who are responsible for quality assessment efforts. That is in fact part and parcel of any research effort. [End of document]

Pearson has created an 'Efficacy Framework', which is a set of tools for assessing if the conditions are in place for an education program to deliver its promised learning outcomes, which it plans to share publicly.

Using Technology to Support Alternative Assessment and Electronic Portfolios