The classic image of a teacher is one were she is surrounded by stacks of paper to be graded, painstakingly marked for spelling, grammar, the use of statistics, a null hypothesis (those last two are for the science teachers out there). That image does not have to be the case any more. There are many different types of assessment Web 2.0 tools out there, but I find myself partial to Socrative. This is a free, web based service that has functionality in both tablet and phone with free student and teacher apps as well as browser functionality for laptops and desktops. Teachers make quizzes and tests that are presented in the Socrative window. One really nice feature is students do not have to remember a login for themselves. They can type in the name of the teacher’s “room” something that the teacher can post on the board or name simply. Once students are in the room the teacher can start the assessment. Teachers can randomize the questions and the answer choices, which as a high school teacher I appreciated. Once the test is started you can see the students responses in real time. Correct answers are green and wrong answers are red. Even if you have enabled the randomization options, teachers can see the questions in the same order for all students without any difficulties. Another advantage of Socrative is the ability to easily add test images and links to other passages. With constructed responses becoming more and more important in assessment being able to attach images is a critical factor in reducing the amount of paper that teachers have to use, as well as relieving them from the burden of grading each quiz. Teachers can also create short answer and even essay questions to go along with their multiple-choice questions. These will have to be read and graded by the teacher, but they do not have to be printed. Since the answers are typed, unclear handwriting will also not be a problem. Teachers can grade these anywhere they have access to the Internet or their tablets allowing teachers to use waiting time wisely. In order to use this teachers would need to be in a situation with BYOD policies in place or computers and tablets available and functional on test day. If a teacher is working in a 1:1 school there are some other functionalities like exit slips and quick questions that could allow the app to work more like a classic student response system. There are some issues with Socrative of course. One of the problems is that there is no test security in the software, so students can change the window or app and goggle answers. In order to combat the temptation to cheat I have put a policy in place that if students are caught during a test looking at a non-Socrative page and have not finished their test students will receive a zero and a referral for cheating. In order to make this work the teacher needs to be moving through the room watching student’s screens. One benefit to this is that if you have a teacher tablet you can see if students have skipped questions or help them solve testing issues without leaving their side. If students close out the app or it crashes teachers can see the problem and correct it before the student can experience any anxiety. Another issue is that occasionally the software does not remember your changes from edit to edit, especially if you are on heavily filtered Internet. Working on the tests only on one computer can solve this problem, but that was never an option for me. I did start typing the questions into a document first and then copying and pasting them back into the app so that I didn’t lose the questions completely. I usually had a back up, and any time you are dependent on the Internet for a lesson you should plan on at least one problem coming up. At the end of the day if you have to rely on paper and pencil tests it’s not the end of the world, you can print tests from the site and you can grade them like any other test. I’ve been using this platform for tests and analysis for several years, it can be difficult to use if the resources are not available, but as more schools are coming to the conclusion that students need access to personal technology in the classroom.
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One of my first experiences with creating lectures and recording them for my students lead me to find the Creative Commons Licensing. Here I found a way to search for free images that I could use in many different media without worrying that the publishing companies were coming for me. I will never forget learning of Paul Andersen of Bozeman Biology fame having to take down several of his wonderful lectures because he used images from the Campbell Biology book without permission. If you look at his videos now, not only does he use Creative Common’s licenses and cite them appropriately. This is one of my favorite ways to introduce the Creative commons license to my students. Mr. Andersen did not intentionally “steal” these images, but because of Pearson’s copyright, he was on the wrong side of fair use. I take this opportunity to show students that just because something shows up on Google image search, does not mean that thy have permission to use that image or file without the creator’s permission. This is typically one of my first lessons that I teach in the media center. I have been very fortunate in that all of the librarians at the schools I have worked with have been very knowledgeable about the creative commons and teach my students how to use and cite the images and files as well as how to search for them effectively. Usually, these conversations move into a discussion of illegally downloading movies or television shows and how it is not the Brad Pitt’s of entertainment industry that are harmed by that action. Most of my students arrive at the conclusion that using someone else’s artistic work is a very similar process and hurts the unknown individuals in the same fashion. Once we start moving through content again after coming back from out first visit to the media center I show my students several of David Knuffke’s presentations. Students will eventually point out that he is using the same licensing structure that we were working with in the Media center and I point out how helpful his work is for many teachers in my subject area. He has become quite the content area leader and has shaped many classrooms around the country by graciously sharing his work under a Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-Alike 3.0 Unported License. I use a similar license when I post things outside of my Edmodo space for classroom use, but I haven’t published anything like that in a long time. I appreciate the Edmodo space sharing because it allows me to blend information from all of my various sources without worrying about infringing someone’s copyright. When my senior students post their final projects it is part of their rubric to only include materials they have permission to use and to attribute the works correctly. This actually has lead to many students taking and making many of their own resources more often because they cannot simply Google something to find their image. I have found much fewer instances of plagiarism from external sources and higher rates of attributed collaboration when I include that element in the rubric. Quite possibly the most frustrating thing about Creative Commons and teaching appropriate use is that many school systems consider flickr to be outside of the suitable realm of websites students can visit while on campus. There are unequivocally inappropriate images on flickr, but there are also inappropriate images on Google. Every year I have to ask for it to be unblocked at school, sometimes it is sometime it isn’t. The Internet is a huge resource that students need to learn how to navigate. As cell phones are becoming more of an everyday, every student thing, blocking flickr is not going to keep students from viewing materials they shouldn’t. Teaching students how to look for, correctly cite, and independently determine the value of the works they are using is a huge step in the teaching process that many students are not allowed to learn in high school. Under the premise that a filter is protecting them, one many of them run into once and switch to their cellular Internet. I have included a few pretty purple flowers here from flickr. the first one was taken by Lars Hammar and is titled flowers. the other images I have included are a part of a Google slide show that I have embedded below.
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