Technology Tools for Assessment and Evaluation

The combination of technology and the understanding of how the assessment-decision making process works allows for teachers to be extremely successful. While taking SPED 467, I have seen the great importance of effective decision making in the classroom. Good judgement, a quality gathering of assessment materials, and helpful technology will make a teacher's job more efficient and beneficial. As a future teacher, I will undoubtedly need to acquire good technology to supplement in my evaluation process. Before I reach the formative and summative evaluation steps, I will need to do the first steps of the CBE process of inquiry (fact finding, hypothesize, and validating). During these steps I will utilize technology to gather my information and sift through it. Test scores, records, and other sources that can be accessed on the computer will make a teacher's job of making decisions much more effective. After the teacher gathers the data, they will decide what to teach and how to teach it. While writing the lesson plan, technology will make the job more time efficient and effective. I feel that technology can be effectively integrated with assessment and decision making. In fact, technology makes the whole process much more efficient so that teachers can spend more time on interactive face to face with their students rather than spending all of their time contemplating their decisions.

The I-Generation

After reading this article, I feel a sense of distaste towards the way we use technology. As a kid growing up, i always looked at technology as a way for kids who had weak social skills to interact. I know that is a completely unfair generalization, but in many cases it is the truth. I enjoyed what Healy had to say about how using technology at a young age can be more harmful than useful. When I was young, and computers first came out, many of the children that struggled with social interactions were intrigued the most by computers. Many of those children have now grown up, and have horrible posture, are overweight, and lack social skills. I honestly believe that introducing technology, such as a computer, to a child in irresponsible. These are the years where children should be developing and interacting with the world that they know, and want to understand. The should be discovering knew things daily within their own world. By secluding a child to a computer monitor, they run the risk of losing out on these very important social skills. On top of this, these children could develop bad posture, and are at risk for carpal tunnel. I really enjoyed this article because it made me aware of the dilemmas of technology for children. I feel that in this society, technology is so helpful, and so instrumental for our fast pace of living, that we encourage everyone to use it in order to be successful. The problem is that if we start children on this track too early, they will be missing out on the life lessons that will help them with their humanity.

Bill Bigelow

In Bill Bigelow's article concerning the Oregon Trail video game, a sense of awareness is aroused in the reader. Bill calls for us to understand the complex social and ethical practices and non practices that we encounter when we use this game as an educational tool. Bill feels that minority groups are not portrayed effectively in this game, and that their stories are not fully told. Bigelow shows us that we encounter Native Americans and African Americans, but do not get to hear much about them other than a brief stereotypical statement. His whole agenda is to voice his frustration that schools still use this as an educational tool. He believes that all of the social insensitivity included in the game should be enough to make teachers think about not using this game as an educational media.
While I agree tat this game shows insensitivity to other cultures, and fails to develop the story of minority groups, I do believe that this game can be incredibly effective in promoting compassion, understanding, and ethical attitudes towards minority groups. In this game, the player has the mind set of a pioneer. Pioneers that left for the Oregon Trail had a certain mindset towards minority groups that are explored throughout the game. I believe that if the teacher that is using this game stresses the importance of this mindset, the game can be very effective. When a student understands that he has the mindset of a pioneer, he or she can differentiate the pioneer's attitude from the attitude of society today. While playing the game, students will be able to receive a historical perspective, and learn more than just about the Oregon Trail. They can learn about the importance of diversity and respecting other cultures. I believe that Bigelow strives to promote safe thinking and to have teachers really focus on equality. This is admirable, but abolishing the context of the game completely would allow for a loss of opportunity towards promoting the very aspect that Bigelow is concerned with. While I believe that the Oregon Trail should still be used in the educational system, I strongly encourage that teachers instruct the purpose of the game and how it fits into the mind set of Oregon Trail pioneers of old.