Assessment
ETS Advice on Automated Scoring
ETS assessment scientist Randy Bennett recently released seven recommendations on automated scoring. Race to the Top funding of state assessment consortia triggered Dr. Bennett's paper.
The old deal, the new deal, and the metrics
I don’t know about you, but I’m not paying much attention to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) debates in Washington. Â NCLB, flawed as it was, represented a bipartisan commitment to equity and an end to the toleration of chronic failure. Â What’s going on now (this weird local…
Automated Essay Scoring in a High Stakes Environment
Dr. Mark Shermis One of our goals here is to begin to create the data abundance mindset in U.S. K-12–prepping for policies and practices informed by big data surrounding anywhere anytime learning. Â To that end, we like to highlight interesting projects and proposals–and we have a good one…
6 Reasons EdLeaders Should Let Kids Bring Devices to School
Bans on student use of mobile devices exist for some good reasons—kids use them inappropriately at school and there are safety and security concerns. So why bother considering a change?  There are six reasons to consider BYOD. Digital natives learn and live with technology. Most have and bring devices…
Staff Picks: Longer School Days, Steve Jobs, & Assessment
This week, Karen picked an article about long school days, Caroline honored Steve Jobs with an article pick and Sarah highlighted an inspiring article by Wesley Fryer. Tom picked assessment as the hot topic of the week.
Good Assessment Key to Strong Accountability
Some #EdReform, #EdEquality, and #EdPolicy colleagues thought my blog Assessment Will Advance When it Moves Into the Background suggested that I didn’t support the idea of summative assessments and their associated use in school accountability systems.  This section may have begged the question: We’ll need to invent our way out of…
States Need to Plan the Shift & Close the Divide
Bob Wise, DLNCo-Chair Over the last ten weeks this blog and video series has featured the Digital Learning Now state policy framework. Â Co-chair Gov. Bob Wise explains in the final video the importance of infrastructure to deliver on the promise of digital learning. Element #10…
Assessment Will Advance When It Moves Into the Background
Digital Learning Now is a framework for state education policy for the digital age.  Key to quality is Element #8, Assessment and Accountability. On assessment, DLN suggests that states should administer testing online: Administering tests digitally has multiple benefits. Tests can be administered and scored quickly and…
Digital Media & Learning Competition Leverages Open Badges
A new game-based strategy called Digital Media and Learning Competition, hosted by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, HASTAC, and Mozilla, plans to leverage badges and badge systems to help people learn and demonstrate skills and knowledge.
SMARTER Reading & Writing?
Fordham's Kathleen Porter-Magee criticized the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium reading assessment strategy