Assessment Tools

Kahoot!

Description: Kahoot! is probably one of my favorite assessment tools available with the use of technology and devices. It is available for individuals or teams to participate. It is presented as a game with multiple choice options and true/false. It is colorful and bright which is inviting and engaging. It can be used with any device that can access the internet. When you begin a quiz it gives you a code for participants to join.

Why choose Kahoot!: I chose Kahoot! because I have used it as a student in undergrad. I have also been to a few professional developments that offered this as an activity. It is exciting and fun to participate. 

Benefits: As I mentioned above, it promotes engagement which can motivate students to learn and attend to subject matter.

Challenges: The only challenge I ran into with this was coming up with an idea for subject matter to assess. A lot of my students have a goal to recall basic multiplication facts so I decided to create an assessment for the "3" multiplication fact family. Kahoot! was pretty simple to figure out as far as creating and modifying an assessment as well as adding pictures.

Link: Kahoot! Multiplication - 3

Quizizz

Description: Quizizz is an assessment tool that can also be used via technology in the classroom. It can be used as a quiz or classroom activity for any subject. There are quizzes available or you can create your own. I really liked that you can select the option to have a single correct answer choice or multiple correct answer choices. This can be

Why choose Quizizz: I chose Quizizz because it aligned more to my needs as a special education teacher. Some of the other tools did not offer options that allow me to assess the specific standards that I focus on with my SPED students.

Benefits: The benefits of this tool is the fact that it is user friendly, and again it is similar to a game so it engages the students and motivates them to pay attention and do well.

Challenges: I chose to create an assessment on prefixes because it is something that I am currently working on with my adapted students. The Quizizz tool itself did not pose many challenges, but the ability to come up with questions about prefixes did. It is an intro week to prefixes so we are working on the basics like un-, dis-, and pre-. So that limited me to the words and difficulty of questions I could ask.

Link: Quizizz Prefixes

Nearpod

Information: Nearpod is a really neat tool to use in the world of education. You can create your own lessons or utilize a vast amount of free lessons provided on the site. Lessons can be used for any and all subjects and there are options for quizzes for progress monitoring purposes. 

Benefits: There are many benefits to using a tool like Nearpod in the classroom. The biggest benefit would have to be engagement. Nearpod is appealing to the eye and there are games, field trips, and activities that you can build in to each lesson. There are also ways to incorporate the use of Nearpod through whole group or individual devices.

Challenges: I struggled to come up with an idea for a lesson because most of my classroom lessons revolve around small group lessons and activities. As I have mentioned, I am a special education resource teacher so my students have specific goals that we work on. One of the goals many of my students work on is the 5 Ws (who, what, when, where, and why). So, I decided to do a small Nearpod lesson to introduce the skill. I read a story and included a matching game to demonstrate the skill being applied. Another challenge I faced that had to do with Nearpod directly was adding audio to my slides. I clicked on the microphone but there weren't any boxes or notifications to click on to begin recording, stop recording, or play recording. I tried multiple times on various slides but I was unable to figure it out. 

Introduction Video

This week's assignment proved to be challenging due to my lack of knowledge in creating and blending videos together (as well as not understanding videography lingo such a B-roll). The first time I tried to record I used my phone, and I really struggled with having someone record me (I can public speak for children all day long but putting me in front of a camera held by an adult made me so giggly). So, I had to trash my first product and think about a solution.

I remembered that the technology teacher at my school helps the students record a newscast video every day, so I turned to her for some advice. She allowed me to use the video camera that the students use to record the daily news with (it came with a tripod). That really helped with not having to record on my phone while giggling at the teacher recording me. I was able to record an intro clip, B-roll clip, and an outro clip. Then all I had to do was slide the memory card into my computer!

I used iMovie to crop and blend my clips together. iMovie made it simple to add unique transitions, voiceovers, and music. I was excited and a little bit nervous about this video, but I had a lot of fun creating it. Next time, I will try to be a little more relaxed in front of the camera. I wrote a script for myself but it sounds like I am talking a little too quickly on the videos. I noticed that my voice is so much calmer in the voiceovers so I suppose I need to get over my camera shyness! I would also like to research about how to ensure that the quality of my footage is better (the beginning of my video looks semi-blurry to me, but then it clears itself up).

I hope you enjoy my video!