DIGITAL BLOG POST #I

Chapter 4, which was titled “Designing and Developing Curriculum with Technology” was an informative and interesting chapter.

The first thing I want to talk about is test assessments. Two types of test assessments are Norm-referenced tests and Criterion-referenced tests. Norm-referenced tests compare a student’s performance to other students of the same grade or age. Criterion-referenced tests compare a student’s performance to specific objectives or standards, not to other students. Many of the tests given in school are mostly norm-referenced tests. There are also standards based assessments or standard referenced testing which is a recent variation of standardized testing. These tests start with national, state, or district curriculum frameworks that specify what students are expected to know and be able to do at each grade level. With these tests there is a lot of controversy, a lot of people see problems with this kind of testing. For me and my experience with tests like fcat I can understand. I feel like there is a lot of pressure for students to do well on these tests because if you do badly then you get put in a class that goes at a certain pace, even if you’re actually smart enough to not take the class. Which to me is not a good idea because some students are just bad test takers, they get nervous and mess up. I feel like something like that should not solely  just be based on a test.

The second thing I want to touch on is web resources and apps for lesson planning. The book says that the internet provides vast electronic resources for supporting lesson developments. The book even gives websites and apps for lesson planning some of those being: websites- Annenberg learner (www.learner.org) or PBS Teachers (www.pbs.org/teachers)  Apps- My Lesson Plan, Today in History, and Math Ref Free. Like I have said before, I think the resources that teachers have today are geat and so helpful. To become a teacher in a time where there is so much technology and websites that teachers can utilize is great. For new teachers it can be challenging to put together lessons and its helpful for them to have so many resources that they can use.

The third thing I would like to discuss is using electronic grading software. Many teachers today use electronic grading software as a virtual recordkeeping system. Electronic grading software is a computer program enabling teachers to quickly calculate and record student grades on a computer. There are both pros and cons to using this, pros are that it can efficiently calculate and store multiple forms of student performance data and give students immediate access to their grades. Cons can be not all school activities, particularly at the elementary level, translate into a numerical score equaling a grade of A, B, C, D. Personally I feel the pros outweigh the con. I think that electronic grading software is yet another thing that can make things a lot easier for teachers. Things like this are great for teachers.

Created By Ashlynn Barnes on flipquiz.me

Work Cited

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc. lead to bad things.