Assessment Made Easy

This article is called "Assessment Made Easy" and is written by Andrew A. Zucker.

There is a school called the Denver School of Science and Technology that is very special. It is the first public high school to have a one to one laptop ratio amongst the students. The school received 1 million dollars from Hewlett-Packard so therefore a laptop was purchased for every student so they could all be technologically savvy with one another. 40 percent of the students that go there are from low-income families, yet their test scores are among the highest in the state. Also, every graduating senior was accepted to a four-year college or university. This is so awesome and the reason for the high test scores and positive information is because the students have their computer with them at all times. Andrew Zucker believes that “DSST is noteworthy both for its success in improving student performance and for its use of laptops for assessment.” The students say that laptops are positively influencing how they work with others, their grades, and loving their school. These laptops are keeping everyone together and keeping them connected to one another with their fingertips. With the students all having access to the internet in class, the teacher can have them take tests on it through different programs. The students taking their tests online will be very organized and will make it easier for the tests to be graded. Students love getting feedback on how they did on tests as quickly as possible.

I think it is amazing that the ratio was one to one for each student on the campus in Denver when it came to laptops. I hope that soon in the future funding could pay for every student to have a laptop at their disposal. I can totally see how having a laptop could improve your education because there are no excuses for not having access to a computer. The testing online is an awesome idea for many reasons and the main one being that it keeps everything very organized. The students will get their grades back in a timely fashion and it will lift some stress off of the teacher in the grading department. When I begin teaching I would love to have my students take quizzes this way. Even if we don’t have access to computers in the classroom I will have them take little short quizzes online at home to show that they know how to use a computer and it will be an easy way for me as the teacher to see their progress in class. It is true though that a one-to –one laptop program cannot make a weak school strong. “To take advantage of computers, schools still need thoughtful administrators, high-quality teachers, an effective curriculum, and all of the other components that make a school excellent.” All of those key elements are very important yet if laptops were available to every student then they could make different assessments and other tasks more efficient. I hope this happens in the near future!