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Instruction

Creating Personalized Assessments

ISTE 2.5.a. Use technology to create, adapt and personalize learning experiences that foster independent learning and accommodate learner differences and needs.

Within the ED483 Educational Media Technology course, I have had the opportunity to explore and become familiar with Edulastic. Edulastic is a tool for teachers used to create assessments. One neat feature of Edulastic is the ability to assign specific standards to each individual student. Having the ability to create assessments that are specific to the learning levels and needs of each student changes the world of assessment.

Designing Authentic Learning Activities

ISTE 2.5.b. Design authentic learning activities that align with content area standards and use digital tools and resources to maximize active, deep learning.

Incorporating technology into learning activities is a great way to promote creativity in our students. In this lesson I created for an eleventh grade history class, I included the use of Canva to create campaign posters. Originally, I had planned to provide poster boards and markers for the students. I adapted the lesson to include Canva because this digital tool provides students with more authenticity and resources. This lesson aligns with the NHS and NCSS standards while simultaneously teaching students an authentic lesson about United States history and politics.

Creative Expression of Knowledge

ISTE 2.6.d. Model and nurture creativity and creative expression to communicate ideas, knowledge or connections.

Why have your students write a five-body essay when they could use technology to create expressive projects to display their learning? Assignments that allow students to be creative and expressive tend to be more effective for the learner. If the student has a choice of how they communicate their knowledge, it is more likely they will be engaged in their learning. Canva is an excellent technological tool we can use to create expressive, interesting projects. Here is an infographic I made on Canva about cognitive impairments. Creating this infographic was significantly more enjoyable for me than if I were to write a paper on the topic, and in turn I learned more simply because I found the actual assignment interesting.

Assessing for Understanding

ISTE 2.7.b. Use technology to design and implement a variety of formative and summative assessments that accommodate learner needs, provide timely feedback to students and inform instruction.

Checking for understanding is one of the most important steps of instruction. Before moving on to another topic, teachers should create assessments to ensure all students have learned what they need to know in order to move forward. Teachers do not have a ton of time to spare, and it can be tempting to skip this step in order to fit everything they wanted into a lesson. This step cannot be skipped. An easy way to create quick and effective assessments is to use Padlet. Padlet is an online tool that has proven to be useful for quick assessments, in which it allows students to respond to questions or post examples of their learning. Here is a Padlet I participated in where we were asked to post an example of different verb tenses in a sentence. Our instructor had the entire class post their learning in the Padlet to check that we all have developed an understanding, and since answers are public, students who may have been struggling before now have plenty of examples to push their learning.