Taking A Good Look at Instructional Technology (TAGLIT) is a suite of online assessment tools designed to provide educational institutions effective data to evaluate technology use and integration in the teaching and learning environment. The suite includes assessments for School Leaders, Teachers, and Students.
The Enhancing Education Through Technology Act of 2001, issued by the U.S. Department of Education (US DoE), has established requirements by which states must report the technology literacy of all 8th grade students. (SETDA document regarding this requirement) TAGLIT is an established, quick and inexpensive tool to assess 8th grade students and provide information to meet the reporting requirements under this mandate.
Curriculum and assessment are at the center of education. There are many ways that technology and large-scale change impact on these areas. This module provides an overview of emerging models for curriculum and assessment and links to many resources with related information and tools.
The School Technology Needs Assessment (STNA, say "Stenna") was originally developed by SEIR*TEC at SERVE in collaboration with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction's Educational Technology Division, as part of the LANCET project (Looking at North Carolina Educational Technology).
The STNA was created to help building-level planners collect and analyze needs data related to implementation of the NC IMPACT technology integration model, as well as other contemporary frameworks for examining technology use in teaching and learning.
The STNA is typically accessed through a web address unique to each school, using a free online surveying system provided by SERVE. After a the survey has been completed by all staff members, it is closed and the address of a web-based report is provided to the individual responsible for coordinating the needs assessment. For schools preferring other options, a paper-and-pencil copy of the STNA may also be downloaded and freely reproduced for use, or items may be adapted to any other surveying method (e.g., telephone, email, or other web-based system).
Check out the CEO Forum's final report, the Year 4 Report: Key Building Blocks for Student Achievement in the 21st Century or take the K-12 interactive STaR assessment.
After four years of work, this Wisconsin district's effort in creating its own online assessment program is paying off for teachers, students and the bottom line.
Plan, teach, and report on student technology literacy in an integrated, 21st century context. techSteps includes a district technology literacy framework, a sequential, project-based curriculum for K-8 technology literacy development and authentic assessment and reporting tools. For information go to www.techsteps.com
Preparing, implementing and proving the value of L&D programs require a bit of research to perfect. Whether it is identifying the skill gaps or marketing the programs effectively, L&D professionals need to consider the various stakeholders and decision-makers to decide bottomlines of learning programs.
For Steven L. Paine, state superintendent of schools for West Virginia, 21st century learning is not an option; it's a necessity for students who must go out and compete on a global level. "Students deserve it. The world demands it," he told an audience at the FETC Virtual Conference & Expo, held Thursday. And to make it happen, he said, changes need to be made in the way we assess students and in the way we develop teachers.
The future is now at Boston's Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School. In last week's most-clicked ASCD SmartBrief story, we learned about this school with no textbooks, one laptop per student, parent-teacher IM conferences, and online drop boxes for homework assignments. Leveled software is used to differentiate learning experiences, and built-in automatic assessments help teachers pinpoint students' instructional needs. Advances in technology have also expanded the role of online courses in shaping schools-digital curriculum is going global and, some say, decreasing the number of teachers needed in a classroom.
Replacing outdated textbooks with laptops, increasing student engagement, and more focused one-on-one instructional time-is there a downside to increasingly automated learning?
During the past decade, 21st Century Skills have been described, debated, and, unfortunately, downplayed when one considers their overall impact on instruction and assessment practices in our public schools. Organizations such as the Partnership of the 21st Century and the former North Central Regional Laboratory have successfully articulated a set of well-defined skill sets targeting needed student outcomes for the 21st Century workplace; yet, a careful scrutiny of district curriculum manuals, pacing guides, and scope & sequence charts reveals little evidence of their existence.
What is a Data Warehouse?
A data warehouse is a storage and analysis application that allows schools to collect and store student and school data from a number of sources and from multiple years. A data warehouse application allows data to be viewed in a multidimensional manner through numerous filters, slices and attributes. A data warehouse is intended to be an analytical system to view and compare current data with longitudinal data, to identify trends and to help develop educational improvements.
A data warehouse does not replace a student information system or finance/HR application. Rather, a data warehouse brings together key data elements from numerous systems, including assessment results and demographic data, to allow for in-depth analysis and data-driven decision making.
There are many theories comprising the concept of motivation, each providing insight into the begging question that many educators have: "How can I get students to remain interested, take ownership, forgo procrastination, and ultimately become a self-regulated learner?" In this short blog we will briefly examine the concept of motivation and assess how we as educators can foster a climate conducive to motivated learners who actually enjoy classroom instruction, are empowered education recipients, and don't require nagging to complete assignments.
Millions of students regularly experience curricula and lessons that address content and concepts with which they're already familiar. It's not just the 'talented and gifted' kids; there are plenty of students who know the material in a particular learning unit before they even start. They're just never given the chance to demonstrate their knowledge ahead of time. Nor do they have the opportunity to request to be pre-tested.
The ISTE Classroom Observation Tool (ICOT) is a FREE online tool that provides a set of questions to guide classroom observations of a number of key components of technology integration.
This profile tool will help you to compare your current instructional practices with a set of indicators for engaged learning and high-performance technology. For each category, there is a description of the indicators and examples that fall along a continuum. There are three examples for each indicator.
Select the example that best describes your current practice, even though it may not represent your instructional goals. You may select only one example for each indicator.
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