1. Not Another Paper!
Alternative Assessments
using Technology
Justin Reich
Harvard Graduate School of Education
EdTechTeacher
www.besthistorysites.net
www.edtechteacher.org

2. Goals for Today
• Consider the role of assessment in our
courses
• Examine technology-based assessment
projects in our courses, from both the
shallow-end and the deep-end
• Consider how we would assess those
projects

3. Why do we assign papers?
• Think and then • Making connection
communicate their among course
take on the material material, resources
• Do additional • Evaluate sources
research, bring in • Communicate
additional materials effectively, sentence
• Select a question, structure, handwriting,
investigate a question typing skills,
• Synthesis • Incorporating
evidence

4. Why do we assign papers?
Demonstrate command of the material
Demonstrate the ability to craft and defend
an argument
Give students the opportunity to decide and
express their point of view
Demonstrate the ability to communicate
effectively
WE CAN DO ALL THESE THINGS
WITHOUT ASSIGNING PAPERS

5. Backwards Planning
Select learning goals
What do you want students to learn by the end of the lesson or unit?
Design assessment tasks
How will students demonstrate their developing mastery of those goals?
Develop lesson activities
How will you prepare students to master the goals and succeed on the
assessment task?
See Wiggins and McTighe, Understanding by Design

6. Why Teach History with
Technology?
1. Whoever is doing most of the talking, or
most of the typing, is doing most of the
learning (and the more people listening the
better)
2. The more ways we put ideas in our head,
the more likely they are to stay there
3. Learners need to be both independent and
effective collaborators- technology can
scaffold both
4. Learners can access the sources that made
us fall in love with history

7. Teaching with Old and
Established Technologies:
Word Processors
• Editing with a Twist
• Historical Newspaper
Projects

8. Editing with a twist
• Students come in with a piece of writing
and need to change:
– The Author
– The Audience
– The Context
– The Argument
– The Length
– ???

9. The Original Assignment
• 1) Write a 2 page sermon, drawing on the New Testament readings
we have read for homework and in-class. The sermon will be
delivered on September 16th, 1963 in Birmingham. This is several
weeks after the successful March on Washington, and right in the
middle of the heroic and brutal Birmingham Campaign for Civil
Rights. Your sermon should use Christian texts to inspire, console
and motivate your congregation
• 2) Please use Times New Roman 12 point font, 1.5 spacing
• 3) Save it somehow to NoblesNet. If you use a program other than
Word or Appleworks, you should copy and paste the text into an
email or a document.
• 4) At the beginning of class i will give you instructions, and then I'll
give you about 30 minutes to revise the sermon.

10. The In-Class Twist…
• After successfully presenting your sermon at the morning service,
you retire to your quarters to rest before the 11:00 service.. At
10:30, one of the church members rushes in and tells you that
something horrible has happened: the 16th Street Baptist Church in
Birmingham was bombed, 4 little girls at Sunday School have been
killed.
• As an important leader in your community, it will be your job to
console your community, and to help them understand how these
deaths fit into your struggle for civil rights.
• The second service starts in 1/2 hour. You probably don't have time
to write a whole new sermon. Your challenge then, is to adapt what
you have written to take into account this shattering loss of innocent
lives.

11. So how would you assess?
• See original and • Accuracy of evidence
revision, check • Privileging individual
changes.. arguments…
• Were they on point in •
terms of addressing
audience in
meaningful way,
address new
information

12. Newspaper Projects
• Editorials
• Cartoons
• Cover Art
• Articles
• Classifieds
• Advertisements
• And more!

13. Don’t
worry
about
fancy
publishin
g, learn
Columns
and the
Text Box Image from Microsoft Word

14. So how do we assess?
• Identify key issues, • Restrict to primary
pick appropriate sources; citation
topics • Meet the press follow
• Factual accuracy up…
• Clarity of prose • Peer evaluation- what
• Design moves you, what
– Writing opinion articles most
– Images convince you…

15. Teaching with New and
Emerging Technologies
• Instant Message Conversations
• Blog/Podcast Perspective-taking
projects
• Collaborative Audio-Blogging

16. IM Conversations
Email: Abraham In Class Chat
The leader from each group should invite the other members into a chat. From this point
forward NO TALKING, ONLY TYPING.
Each person will then in turn ask one of their discussion questions. You will be given 15
minutes to discuss. The goal is to discuss questions as deeply and thoroughly as possible.
I'd rather read an in-depth examination of two questions than brief discussions of six. GO
DEEP!
You will get a 5 point grade for this exercise. While I will raise the standards later, for now
the grade will be mostly based on the following:
1) Do you stay on topic?
2) Do you carefully read and respond to each other?
3) Do you ensure that you finish each question before moving on?
In the future, I will also expect you to actively challenge one another and to incorporate
evidence from the source material.
When you are finished, the leader should copy and paste the chat into an email and send it
to turninreich.

17. • Pablo Toribio-09[10:11:31 AM]: Why is Arjuna is reluctant to fight?
• Jess Lippincott-09[10:11:54 AM]: because he doesn't want to kill all of those people
• Pablo Toribio-09[10:11:55 AM]: Arjuna is reluctant to fight because he believes those people are
his family.
• Jess Lippincott-09[10:12:02 AM]: and his teachers
• Vinesha Collymore-09[10:12:07 AM]: yeah
• Jess Lippincott-09[10:12:09 AM]: and his great uncles
• Vinesha Collymore-09[10:12:22 AM]: his family, he didnt want to kill them
• Jess Lippincott-09[10:12:29 AM]: right
• Vinesha Collymore-09[10:12:39 AM]: he felt like he was close to these people
• Jess Lippincott-09[10:13:12 AM]: yeah, and he thought it would be cruel and unnecesary to
kill them
• Vinesha Collymore-09[10:13:17 AM]: yeah
• Jess Lippincott-09[10:13:28 AM]: +, he says he doesnt want a kingdom
• Jess Lippincott-09[10:13:30 AM]: right
• Vinesha Collymore-09[10:13:32 AM]: he became overcome with grief
• Pablo Toribio-09[10:14:04 AM]: "Then Arjuna saw in both armies fathers, grandfathers, sons,
grandsons; father of wives, uncles, masters;brothers companions, and friends. When Arjuna
thus saw his kinsmen face to face i both lines of the battle, he was overcome by grief and despair
and thus he spoke with a sinking heart. "
• Jess Lippincott-09[10:14:20 AM]: right
• Vinesha Collymore-09[10:14:44 AM]: so that's our conclusion for number 1
• Jess Lippincott-09[10:14:49 AM]: then "I have no wish for victory Krishna, nor for a

18. Podcasting and Blogging as
Assessments
• Teenage Hobo Radio Show Project
– There’s no Aunt Sarah
– Podcast Excerpt

19. Collect-Relate-Create-Donate
Students Should…
• Collect the information needed for the
performance of understanding
• Relate to one-another in collaborative
learning groups
• Create meaningful, authentic
performances of understanding
• Donate their work to a broader audience

20. Podcasting and Blogging as
Assessments
• Teenage Hobo Radio Show Project
– There’s no Aunt Sarah
– Podcast Excerpt

21. So how do we assess?

22. Collaborative Audio-Blogging
with Voicethread
• Voicethread.com
• Art of the Renaissance

23. So how do we assess?

24. Voicethread Challenges
GRASSHOPPER MASTER
1. Register for 1. Set your Voicethread
Voicethread to be publicly
2. Upload an image accessible
3. Record (or type) a 2. Share your
comment Voicethread link with
a colleague
3. Record a comment
on a colleague’s
Voicethread

25. Things to Remember
• Learning Goals come first, assessments
and activities come after
• Technology use in the social studies has
four affordances worth our consideration:
1.Whoever is doing most of the talking, or
most of the typing, is doing most of the
learning (and the more people listening
the better)
2.The more ways we put ideas in our head,
the more likely they are to stay there

26. Backwards Planning
Select learning goals
What do you want students to learn by the end of the lesson or unit?
Design assessment tasks
How will students demonstrate their developing mastery of those goals?
Develop lesson activities
How will you prepare students to master the goals and succeed on the
assessment task?
See Wiggins and McTighe, Understanding by Design

27. Why Teach History with
Technology?
1. Whoever is doing most of the talking, or
most of the typing, is doing most of the
learning (and the more people listening the
better)
2. The more ways we put ideas in our head,
the more likely they are to stay there
3. Learners need to be both independent and
effective collaborators- technology can
scaffold both
4. Learners can access the sources that made
us fall in love with history