Tools that can be used in online assessments

During online sessions, when the teacher wants to assess his/her students, there are plenty of applications and tools that he/she can use. Some of these are: 

Google classroom question tool: You may compose a question in Google Classroom and then distribute it with your students. You can make this a cooperative effort or simply make the answers available to you. It can be useful for formative exams and checking for knowledge.

Jamboard: It is a cloud-based whiteboard tool that may be used on smartphones and tablets for cooperation. This application allows students to collaborate, produce slideshows, and gather information from other Google apps and the internet.

Google forms: It is an extremely user-friendly survey and quiz generator. You can analyze and evaluate the data from your form or quiz by feeding it into a Google Sheet. Both Google Forms and Google Sheets feature a variety of "add-ons" that can enhance your formative assessment skills.

Socrative: Teachers can use Socrative, a web-based formative assessment application, to construct tests, discuss issues, collect exit tickets, and receive feedback.

Mentimeter: It is an accredited tool that lets you poll your students, clarify, and ask them to vote. You can construct a variety of questions, including image-based, multiple-choice, scales, open-ended, audience questions, and more. You can even make word clouds from the answers!

Flipgrid: Flipgrid is a video collaboration platform that enables students to use video to react to questions, discuss subjects, and respond to it. Students can also interact with one another by commenting to each other, posting messages, and more.

Quizlet: It is a study tool that assists students by using flashcards, games, and other "learning sets." Quizlet Live is a team-based quiz game in which students are divided into groups to answer questions and learn together.

The most interesting thing about the online tools that I mentioned above is that all of them are free and available to all people, so be creative and have fun using them! 

Integration of technology in teaching

 

The use of technology to improve a student's learning opportunity is referred to as "integration of technology in education."

I think it is very beneficial and helpful for all teachers and students to use technology during the journey of learning. Teachers can use it to make learning more efficient and enjoyable for their students. This can be seen in action in the following scenarios: Getting ready for a digital world that is becoming more complex as the clock ticks. Computer skills and online platforms of communication, such as email, are increasingly important nowadays.

Students benefit from technology because it gives them fast access to knowledge, rapid learning, and engaging ways to apply what they've learned. It allows them to learn about new topics and gain a better comprehension of tough concepts.

Here are some advantages of incorporating technology into the classroom:

Enhances participation.

It helps you remember what you've learned.

Motivates individuals to learn on their own.

Increases group work.

It can help students develop valuable life skills. 

What students should be taught when working online to avoid problems?

Students should be aware of the teacher’s rules and laws. 

As a teacher, I follow these strategies to avoid problems during my online sessions, these are:

Set clear and measurable goals.

Always have a plan B.

Enjoy flexibility, and expect to have surprises during the session.

Be friendly with students, but do not be friends with them.

Cameras should always be open ( to make sure that all students are with me).

Microphones should always be on mute, unless I asked them or one of them to open it.

Raise the hand if anyone wants to say something or participate.

The chat box is a tool we can all benefit from within boundaries (not for gossip but for participation).

Use the spinning wheel game that has all students’ names on it, and use it when the participation time has started. This way avoids any misunderstanding or injustice among students. 

Scaffolding

Scaffolding in education is a temporary support given by teachers in order to drive their students toward independence in their learning process, and then gradually remove the support to ensure they don’t tumble during the process. Because if the support was removed suddenly, the students won’t achieve the goals and won't be able to accomplish tasks alone. Scaffolding is considered a hard technique that needs lots of practice in order to be mastered, it breaks up the learning into bricks, and provides students with tools, or structures with each brick. 

Things I do now that I was not able to do a year ago

 The world around us is constantly changing. And lots of these changes affected us as humans, especially after the pandemic of the covid-19. The dramatical change led us to face challenges that we never thought we would face. 

However, the closing doors of universities gave me the chance to enroll as a student to get my teaching diploma, and I am so grateful for this opportunity. If I want to compare the person I was a year ago to what I am now, I would say that I have changed a lot. Our brains work like sponges in a miraculous way, where every person we meet adds something to us, and in the past few months I met so many people from different places due to the learning online.

Mentioning that learning online opened new opportunities, for example, me and my colleagues  could work on a project at the same time and not necessarily be with each other at the same place. In the past, and before the evolution of technology and learning online, this thing was not even possible. 

Here’s a glimpse of things I do today that I couldn't do a year ago: 

Accept others' opinions and tolerate new thoughts.

Work with people that I don't personally know.

Attend virtual classes without panicking.

Avoid toxic and negative people.

Say NO to things I don't want to do or be part of. 

Enjoy being alone and appreciate it.

Set priorities, and plans ahead of time.

Practice forgiveness.

Flow into the vibe, and trust my intuitions.

Challenges you face when learning/teaching online.

 Teaching online has many challenges, especially at the beginning when it was surprising to all teachers and students, where most of us were not used to technological tools and applications, and we could not imagine that we could use such ways to teach any time soon due to our economical and political issues that we live in the country. But the pandemic forced us to cope with the sudden changes and face our challenges, as students and as teachers.

One of the most important challenges is how to make students engage in our classrooms and participate, since no good teacher does accept having passive students. Another challenge is that it's tough for us as teachers to teach when we don't know how well our students are grasping course material. Also, achieving collaborative learning among students is a crucial challenge that we need to shed the light on. Since students are not actually in a classroom, and are not really attending physically, it is hard for them to cooperate with their peers.

Moreover, sometimes the teacher is not equiped with sufficient tools to have a successful teaching process, which also affects the quality of online assessments.

However, when we are able to face these challenges with the right tools, applications, and materials during the online session, that's when we overcome them.

How to be a digital citizen?

To be a good digital citizen is a huge responsibility that we all should take. We must know that respect and kindness towards others is a must, even if it is all digital, but these people truly exist, and they have feelings just like the way we do. That's why we must be aware of cyber bullying, if you have a bad thought you have to keep it to yourself.. 

Another thing is that we should do is to keep our privacy, there is no need to publish everything about our lives on social media. 

Also we should not post anything that can hurt or harm other people's opinions or feelings.

Moreover, we should stay authentic in a way that we don't copy other's work or opinions.

The last thing that i would like to mention is that we should be ourselves, and we should not fake any event or feeling, just be yourself! 

Educational media and technology

This course opens your eyes to the unlimited possibilities of how to use technology in your classroom. It introduces lots of applications and websites that can be used to facilitate learning and teaching processes. In this course we get the possibility to learn how to use different applications and websites step by step, it’s more like a written recipe that you easily follow and apply. 

We can not say that the course is not challenging, it needs a lot of practice and patience. 

We are in a world full of challenges and teaching has never been easy, so taking this course and learning new techniques and methods to use technology in our classrooms is very beneficial and facilitates our lives as teachers. 

Here is a glimpse of some tools/applications that we took so far in this course: wordwall, mentimeter, jamboard, google slides, google form, white board, padlet, and so many interesting tools.