standard print-based assessments. Designing assessments to work with assistive technologies is much more cost-effective than trying to retrofit the assessments after they have been developed.
Technology Speeds Development and Testing of New Assessments One challenge associated with new technology-based assessments is the time and cost of development, testing for validity and reliability, and implementation. Here, too, technology can help. When an assessment item is developed, it can be field-tested automatically by putting it into a Web-based learning environment with thousands of students responding to it in the course of their online learning. Data collected in this way can help clarify the inferences derived from student performance and can be used to improve features of the assessment task before its large-scale use.
Technology Enables Broader Involvement in Providing Feedback Some performances are so complex and varied that we do not have automated scoring options at present. In such cases, technology makes it possible for experts located thousands of miles away to provide students with authentic feedback. This is especially useful as educators work to incorporate authentic problems and access to experts into their instruction. The expectation of having an audience outside the classroom is highly motivating for many students. Students can post their poems to a social networking site or make videotaped public service announcements for posting on video-sharing sites and get comments and critiques. Students who are developing design skills by writing mobile device applications can share their code with others, creating communities of application developers who provide feedback on each other’s applications. The number of downloads of their finished applications provides one way of measuring success. For many academic efforts, the free-for-all of the Internet would not provide a meaningful assessment of student work, but technology can support connections with online communities of individuals who do have the expertise and interest to be judges of students’ work. Practicing scientists can respond to student projects in online science fairs. Readers of online literary magazines can review student writing. Professional animators can judge online filmmaking competitions. Especially in contests and competitions, rubrics are useful in communicating expectations to participants and external judges and in helping promote judgment consistency. Technology also has the potential to make both the assessment process itself and the data resulting from that process more transparent and inclusive. Currently, only average scores and proficiency levels on state assessments are widely available through both public and private systems. Still, parents, policymakers, and the public at large can see schools’ and districts’ test scores and in some instances test items. This transparency increases public understanding of the current assessment system.
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Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology