Assessment & Evaluation Tools

Throughout my PD experiences, and through interactions with others in my school as well as students within my AQ educational technology courses, I have had the opportunity to examine and explore a variety of different web 2.0 tools. I have used several of the tools listed below, but also wish to dabble in a few of them too. I think that each of them has their own unique use when considering assessment and evaluation in the classroom!

Glogster: Glogster allows for students to create an online digital poster that can include key points of learning, vocabulary, and personal reflections. It is useful for the end of a unit or semester to allow for a student to self-assess for the unit. Further, other students can interact with the poster creator by leaving comments. Peer assessment using Glogster (especially using strength/next step styled comments) becomes an effective ways for students to assess each other. Further, teachers can use the students digital posters to determine if any extra teacher intervention is necessary to ensure concept mastery.


Schoology: Schoology is an online learning management system similar to Edmodo. It allows users to create, manage, and share academic content. I like using Schoology as an assessment tool for a variety of reasons:

• Schoology has the ability to measure student mastery of learning objectives and standards, which lets teachers measure student learning over time
• Schoology has its own submission system (essentially, a Dropbox) which allows students to submit directly via their system
• Schoology also allows for annotation and marking of assessments directly through the Schoology interface, which is extremely convenient.

In general, Schoology allows teachers to see an ongoing picture of how students are progressing in their classes, and lets teachers determine whether content mastery has taken place.

NoteApp: This is a tool that I have presented previously, however I think that it is useful for peer-evaluation of students as well as descriptive feedback. Their motto is “Team Collaboration, Simplified.” They say simplified because, once a sticky note is shared, all students can participate and see changes in real time. This allows for collaboration in both a classroom setting as well as from home. Students can answer problems, and then provide anonymous descriptive feedback to others via sticky notes. I find this a neat program because sometimes students don't mind providing feedback, but would prefer to do so anonymously.

eClicker Presenter: eClicker presenter allows teachers to determine whether their audience (the students) are grasping a concept on the spot. The teacher can create and send questions to any device (good for BYOD classrooms) and determine if the message/concept is being received. eClicker allows for a variety of different question types, and provides instant reports on each session. You can use the results to track students over time, which is a good way to keep track of formative assessments in the classroom

iRubric: iRubric is an online tool used to create and score rubrics. Rubrics make success criteria more clear to both teachers and students. In turn, students will turn in better quality work, and feedback on the work is more objective and consistent. Specifically, iRubric offers rubric building tools, as well as the ability to search for pre-existing rubrics from other teachers. Further, it allows you to grade via the rubric right on the website. Rubrics can be adjusted per your grading scale, and you can even send a copy of the graded rubric to the students securely. I have used iRubric to find and create a variety of rubrics for my history class, and have found it to be invaluable.



Showbie: Showbie allows teachers to distribute assignments, instructions, and resources to students in a few taps (similar to Nearpod). As students submit work, their work is kept in a single location, which is convenient for educators. Teachers can then collect and review student work on their tablet. Showbie also has the ability to open documents from a variety of different apps and annotate directly on student work (as well as with voice notes). It is an excellent use of an web 2.0 tool and would be a benefit to anyone attempting the 'paperless classroom' route.

Here is an example of annotating a showbie file.

Google Sheets: The Google Docs suite is a pretty basic productivity suite. However, the ability to
create a google docs spreadsheet is an excellent way to do your classroom housekeeping via your phone or tablet. Using a google docs spreadsheet, you can document a variety of information

·         Done/Not Done – keep a checklist of assignment completion

·         Forms – keep track of whether permission forms/fees have been handed in or not

·         Parent Contact – keep track of communication with parents.

An example of how to set up a google checklist can be found here: http://glearningblog.blogspot.ca/2014/06/using-google-forms-to-enter-checklists.html

Once your spreadsheet is complete, you can post it publicly so students can self-track and parents can remain in the loop.

Explain Everything: I have had my students use Explain Everything to self/peer assess. An example could be having them create an Explain Everything movie that covers a specific concept. I had students create a video where they needed to explain a review concept in 60 seconds or less that other students would be able to follow logically. I then had other students watch the videos and peer assess the video - writing feedback/comments about the content.

Here is an example of formative assessment with Explain Everything. It involves student working on explaining a problem in math using integers to another student.

Evernote: Several teachers in my schoolboard have started using Evernote when considering assessment and evaluation. Evernote allows them to create notebooks for each individual student. Further, the PC/Mac versions of Evernote help keep data organized by course or subject. Evernote has several features that can be useful for teachers, including:

·         Collecting evidence by taking pictures

·         Importing previous photographs from the camera roll/saved images to record evidence

·         Recording anecdotal evidence and descriptive feedback on photos or in notebooks

·         Recording audio of the student communicating their understanding or a teacher giving audio feedback

·         Inviting parents and teachers using the Share feature to share notebooks with students, parents, and teachers

App-Smashing Formative Assessment: I found a neat version of an app-smash online for use with formative assessment. Students used a photo from their camera roll, created a collage in Piccollage, used Buddy Poke to create a video, and opened it all in Thinglink which created targeted hotspots for students to be able to see.

Here is an example which was created by an elementary school student in Hawaii and is about climate change.

The idea of the App-Smash is pretty neat, and as a whole - a pretty cool way to formatively assess students.