Digital Assessment Resources

As I spend a lot of time looking at resources for teachers and practices related to assessment, I have uncovered a few quality resources that not everyone may be using.  This post will discuss digital assessment resources which can be incorporated into your class.

Project-Based Assessment Resources -

• PDE SAS Portal
• Assessing in a PBL Unit
• PBLWorks Gold Standard Project Design (formerly Buck Institute for Education)

Continuous Diagnostic / Check-Ins Based on Standards - 

• IXL
• Edulastic
• Formative

Questioning and Discussion Resources - 

• Cult of Pedagogy's Discussion Techniques
• Teacher.org's Discussion Techniques
• NSRF's Protocols

These resources all are either free or have at least enough free access to make them useful.  Check them out and let me know what you think!

Keep Learners on Task with Focused Browsing

Hapara has recently rolled out great updates designed to “refocus learners on the task at hand.”  Their updated include Open Tabs, Focused Browsing, Scheduled Browsing, and Viewing Browsing in Progress.

This blog post will focus on Focused Browsing.  See what I did there?

Focused browsing allows teachers to focus their students on a specific site for a specific amount of time.  While focused browsing is active, students cannot open new tabs, go to a different tab, or browse new/other URLs.  This helps them stay on task without getting distracted.

This is ideal for online assessments.  If you give quizzes, tests, or other timed exercises online, now you can eliminate the worry of cheating and plagiarism simply with focused browsing.  If you’ve thought about online assessments but weren’t sure how to overcome the worry, focused browsing is the way to go.

There are several options for customization in focused browsing:

• Allow students to go anywhere within a particular site or limit them to only select pages
• Time limits up to 3 hours
• What happens at the end of the session, whether you close the pages or keep them open

If you're intrigued by focused browsing, give it a try in class! And then click here to see the rest of Hapara’s new updates.

Sapphire Test Builder

Sapphire, our new Student Information System (SIS) allows us to do a lot of things.  To name just a few, we can take attendance, manage grades, and see student schedules.  Additionally...

In Sapphire, we can also create, give, and grade tests.*

As Sapphire explains, this tool "enables teachers to create any type of online test, homework or survey; set time limits; shuffle questions; monitor, auto-grade and allow retakes. District, building, grade, subject or common core-level question banks encourage the use of proven standards and districtwide sharing. Images, audio, video, threaded discussions and digital content can be added to course web pages. By combining the capabilities of the Teacher Gradebook and Test Builder, teachers are able to author and deliver virtual courses and classrooms."

You can use Sapphire's Test Builder at ALL LEVELS in ALL CONTENT AREAS.

Getting Started
After logging into Sapphire, choose "Test Builder."

The Test Builder page looks like this.

Click "Create New Test," then start adding questions.

When you're done, you can assign it to your class(es).  Students' tests can be graded immediately, then automatically uploaded to your Gradebook.  Having this Testbuilder directly connected to your Gradebook within Sapphire will make for smooth transitions.

Below, I've included links to incredibly helpful tutorials.  Please use them at your convenience.  If you need help, please just ask!

Helpful Information

Sapphire Test Builder Manual

This comprehensive manual will take you through the process from beginning to end, with "what if" scenarios as well.  (It's also embedded below.)

Videos

Creating a Test

Creating Questions

Assigning a Test

Grading a Test

Test Metrics

You can access the manual and the videos by clicking the HELP button in Sapphire, on the upper right corner of your screen.  Just type "test builder" into the search bar.

*If you were previously using Lightning Grader, please use Sapphire's Test Builder from now on.