“74 percent of educator’s surveyed said technology is the key to helping them expand on classroom content; the same percentage said technology is a motivational tool; and 73 percent said it helps teachers respond to different learning styles. Moreover, 69 percent said technology has helped do more than ever before for their students.”
Technology is emerging as a preferable possibility for elevating the concept of anti-oppressive education that is “multiple approaches to learning that challenge forms of oppression”. It is a point to be acknowledged that students these days are already on a familiar level with the changes that technology beholds for them. They have adapted to the new trends of automated world which creates a feasible opportunity to integrate various forms of technology in the classroom setting. But if we consider the minimal exposure of technology from the viewpoint of teachers then the situation gives rise to the concept of tech literacy.
Technological Literacy- Educating the educators
ITEA- International Technology Education Association illustrates technological literacy as the ability to “use, manage, assess, and understand technology”. Ceaseless innovations penetrating the education sector creates an increasing demand on teachers upon whom important decision lies as to when, where and how to use technology in classroom. It is imperative to impart these educators hands-on training in using classroom technology. A mere knowledge of how to counteract technical challenges is not enough, benefit lies in raising awareness amongst the teachers that how technology transforms relations, identities and complex power structures.
India with a $154-billion of information technology sector is ranking globally in succession of drastically raising the market level of IT industry. A growth level of 30% on an annual basis is lending a steadfast grip to the IT companies, which are responsible for increasing employability rate in the Country by providing jobs to around 3.9 million people. With such a vast development of this sector in many verticals the only sector that needs to discard its rudimentary and mundane approach is undoubtedly, human resource.
The sole body in an organization, responsible to appoint skilled employees is that of recruiters. With so much of dependency over recruiter’s rational skills that are subject to bias and partiality, one can hardly expect to land a genuinely fair deal in the process of hiring. So does this mean that organizations are entitled to face this grave share of luck, like… forever!? Well not in the presence of technology that hasn’t failed to create its eminence in every domain. With a sudden burgeon of online recruitment assessment tools in the market business giants such as Macy’s, Bloomingdales, Sears, Walmart and Burger King are already using it as a pre-employment testing tool.
How online Assessment platform is eliminating stake factor?
Words of wisdom by Lawrence Bossidy–
“I am convinced that nothing we do is more important than hiring and developing people. At the end of the day you bet on people, not on strategies.”
“You bet on people not on strategies” this statement goes a long way into highlighting the part that the human resource plays into either creating heydays or sadly gray days for an organization. HR Executives and even the managers are under constant pressure of getting a certain vacant position occupied that earlier got occupied by a “wrong hire”. The onus lies on the HR’s to embrace a technical approach and exploit the benefits that technology holds for them. But for this change to happen, the existing recruitment system needs to be altered.
The dependency over rudimentary technique of paper- pen based test needs to be reformed as it eats up on physical logistics and is highly time consuming. It is high time to revolutionize these methods with the application of reliable and valid procedure of assessment. Taking a hint from online assessment platforms is an effective first step.
Online Assessments is a pocket friendly approach to ensure the right hiring in your organization. Here are few reasons how:
Ensure smooth-running screening process
With a diversity of tools that include skills testing, personality assessments and pre-employment screening, online assessment platforms helps recruiters in narrowing down their approach to selective candidates out of a swamp of applicants. Online assessment is convenient for both the recruiters as well as for the applicants. It saves them on effort of going through the first written round of interview that gets switched by online assessment round that can be attempted from their respective premises. It saves time of the recruiters that goes waste in making phone calls and arranging venues and schedule for written tests. This leads to effective procuring of selective skilled candidates that are more likely to be valid for the job.
Extracting right skills out of many skills
Tell me something about yourself? And you get a verbal display of his varied talents but you are unable to pin the one that you need… what now? Save yourself on knowing about your applicants’ participation in some school drama or some singing competition that got him a bronze. With the choice of online skills testing platform for recruiters ease, you can totally avoid the verbal interview and let online skill assessment get you a measured outcome.
Streamlined approach to campus selection
Campus hiring is a seasonal process of majority organizations which gets them a great deal of good hires but undoubtedly they have a hard time landing on those deals all the while making a pratfall on wrong ones. A lot of time and money goes into this process with a limitation of reach to different campuses. Online assessment platforms come with the forte of online proctoring because of which many campuses can be covered at once without a need of any physical presence of an invigilator.
When it comes to hiring for an unfamiliar field
Many times it so happens that the HR’s are not exactly sure for which specific field are they hiring or what are the specific skill sets needed for the opening of a job position. This is when online assessment comes handy as it gives you the option to customize your test. A standard online test can be created and sent to the candidates. To add extra filters, recruiters can easily create tests that can measure the job-fit and interest level of the candidates.
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“We need technology in every classroom and in every student and teachers hand, because it is the pen and paper of our time, and it is the lens through which we experience most of our world.”
These days everybody is a tech-geek with mobile phones in their hands and technology based ideas in their mind. When nothing is being left without the influence of technology, then how can we not expect it to get into the main stream of learning too? Keeping in line with the innovation of new technology trends, teachers are offering students the privilege of education they truly want and need.
Schools have started to recognize the importance of wireless gadgets and its significance in shaping the brand new tech enhanced learning ecosystem in the classroom setting. More and more classrooms at K12 level and even in higher education are adopting this meaningful change and it is only subject to rise in the coming years.
It was way earlier prophesized by Market research firm Global Industry Analysts that “E Learning” would reach $107 Billion in 2015 and it did. Now, Research and Markets forecasts show triple the revenue of 2015 – e-learning will grow to $325 Billion by 2025.”
With all the jargon regarding the rise of technology in the educational sector, what exactly are the educational technology trends that are gaining fame amongst the students as well as the teachers?
Here is a list of top 5 technology trends that are bringing a fresh wave of change to our ever existing conventional classrooms:
Flipped Learning
This is an evolved form of blended learning in which the students initiate into learning activities from the space of their home. The technology behind flipped learning is the advent of E Learning apps and studying content online. Many learning apps provide various descriptive videos and solutions that make learning instant, easy and fun. The role of classroom in flipped learning is to assess what students have learned, and do their homework in class (as goes the name “flipped”). This type of learning eliminates the restriction of teacher being the only source of knowledge provider; instead students can learn from each other in groups created on the eLearning apps and other similar platforms.
Online Assessment Platform
Not just classroom learning but classroom assessments are also experiencing a vast change in terms of technology. Specially designed online exam platform for schools are simplifying the assessment task both for teachers and students making it much more efficient, accurate and prevalent than before. With the integration of a single online test platform in the classroom system, teachers can create, conduct and evaluate assessments all at once. It completely eliminates the hassle of manual assessments and augments the core value of examination with a twist of innovative creativity.
Gamification
Long gone have those days when games used to be abhorred by parents and teachers! Now games are the most significant part of our recent times learning methods. Gamification uses the basics of game system that involves providing reward winners, challenges, increasing the level of challenges with accordingly bigger rewards. This makes various classroom tasks fun and more engaging in comparison to any other type of method for learning.
All types of games are created on the concept of intense release of dopamine which is a chemical in the brain that gets triggered when you win at a game. This gives a positive experience to the students related to learning and naturally increases their interest in gaining more of knowledge.
Social Media
Social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are quite popular amongst today’s generation but it still considered as a distraction in the classroom setting. No doubt that it has made its way in the domain of education but it is still not much acceptable. It is important to put light on the fact that students these days are more comfortable with social media platforms and so it can be powerful tool for both students and teachers.
There are many platforms in the educational market that are replicas of social media but are solely used for the purpose of education. One of which is Study24x7, platform created for both learners and educators to augment learning and knowledge sharing process in a real time environment. Such platforms serve various purposes and provide courses and varied educational materials. Connecting with mentors or discussing with similar aspirants all in all is possible through Social media platforms for learning.
Mind Mapping
“Just as in every great idea, its power lies in its simplicity”. Mind Mapping is a way to represent ideas and concepts in a graphical manner. It is a tool that uses visual thinking factor that helps in structuring information, helping students to better understand, comprehend and recall existing ideas and generating new ideas as well.
It has been developed to take place of traditional note taking methods replacing it with a technique that resembles more closely to how the brain actually works. Since it is a task that is both artistic and analytical in nature it engages the brain in a more active manner and best of all it is fun!
“Formative Assessments are the way a classroom teacher can check to make sure everyone arrives at the destination of learning.”
Teaching methodology is a significant part of the education system that needs to be reformed time and again in order to cater to the increasing demands . To avoid stagnation in the methods of imparting knowledge, formative assessments are conducted to elicit, interpret and derive the evidence from student performance to inculcate changes in the instruction and learning techniques. Formative assessments are an integral component of effective classroom learning, serving the purpose of being an operative teaching tool unlike summative tests that are used as accountability metric.
Some of the basic characteristics of formative assessments,
– Illustrating and sharing the learning objectives.
– Evaluate learning while it is developing.
– Inaugurate productive classroom discussions and delivering consistent feedback.
– Encouraging students to become the drivers of their own learning and instructional resources.
Formative assessment is an ideal method to cater the demand of providing endless feedback but doing so with a manual procedure can be tedious. This is where technology surpasses the limitations assigned by standard methods and take over the assessment procedure in a whole new way.
Tech Tools Empowering Teachers
Technology enhanced learning opens the door to unlimited possibilities for both teachers and students. It is an ideal way to increase productivity and maintain the authenticity of the approach towards assessing the instruction and learning techniques. The main tech tools used for the purpose of conducting impactful formative assessments are online quiz builder and different types of online quiz maker tool for teachers that are specially designed to support and enhance the quality of formative assessments. They can be molded according to the specific needs in order to attain following advantages:
– Provide altered support modes to each student
– Understand the areas of strength and weaknesses
– Personalize instructions to meet the need of every student
Collecting the student’s response in real time with the help of tech tools, teachers are better able to provide instant altered support modes to each student. It is not necessary that every student is following the same pace while gaining knowledge, hence altering the support modes to suit the convenience of a student is where the teacher excels in terms of effective teaching.
Tech tools assist the teachers in pointing out the areas of strength and weakness for each student which enables the teacher to identify the ways in which the teaching practice can be revised and modified accordingly. Catering to such diverse needs in a classroom setting, manual approach can ruin the concerns of a teacher and can affect the efficiency of the strategy applied. With the integration of easy to use online quiz tool into formative assessments, teachers can align their teaching methods that are in balance with the needs of the knowledge seekers.
Identifying the right tech-friendly tool to carry on with the process of formative assessments is a critical point for teachers. With numerous options accessible for teachers it can be an intimidating task to pick a right one that suits your needs. Variety of factors needs to be taken into consideration when deciding on a tech tool to implement on your students. Age and Ability of your students should be the first concern while planning to use a technology tool.
Elementary students are more capable of showing what they know through their actions unlike older students who can answer to quiz questions and can write responses to the questions. Whatever the technology tool you decide upon should depend on the objectives as well as characteristics of the classroom, such as quantity of work and comprised students.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) does sound like a new term that has recently started to take control over various aspects of assessments, but the very first time AI made its initial move in this sector was in the era of 1990s. It was the time when paper-based assessments took a turn towards technology moving the conventional exam system to the online examination platform.
Functionalities such as automated scoring and computer generative easy to interpret reports started coming in trend. It was one of the most significant routine tasks that got transformed with technology, producing a candidate report with the use of algorithms.
With time the use of AI has greatly amplified in terms of completely automating the whole of the assessment process and totally eliminating even the slightest manual interference.
But with the application of AI comes along a few challenges that need to be overcome for a better experience while using it-
➢ Issues related to defensibility – AI evolves on the concept of “deep learning networks” which means that it learns as the data increases on the online test software. If the same systems are used by your competitors, then more or less you all will be on the same page of chasing similar talent. Another issue is that AI develops and learns based on data collected over time which makes it possible to take decisions. So sometimes it becomes hard to analyze its reasoning and to comprehend that the decision is based on which algorithm. Only the AI system which comes with the scope of customization can provide transparent decisions.
➢ Time Taking– As mentioned in the above point, AI develops over the course of time. The concept of AI is to replicate human behavior and develop on the data acquired from your assessors and raters. To train your AI you need to pre-feed the online test platform system on which the AI can base its concepts, which is a time taking process.
➢ Ethical issues – It is an ethical point that how much you depend on the support of AI. You need to decide if AI should take complete hold on the procedure or it has to be used only for additional information or augmenting efficiency. Depending completely on AI can be problematic somewhere, but using it as a companion in helping you making decisions is much better.
➢ Data handling – AI is an efficient system to handle large data at hand with perfect ease. But when it comes to interpreting the results and making decisions, then misinterpretation of data can be a problem. AI should be used in a careful manner and its functioning needs to be supervised to predict the outcomes.
Artificial intelligence has become a significant part of the online test platform as it is the most effective way to counter the drawbacks that are otherwise disrupting the assessment process in manual methods. Its part in guiding the online assessments and making them accurate at best is one of the many roles that AI plays.
Other than this some of its other benefits are:
➢ Precision – Handling huge data at hand is a brainstorming task for humans and is subject to some serious errors that can disrupt the outcome. With the presence of AI, the benefit is that it can analyze any amount of data with precision and perfection. Every day the efficiency and application of AI are growing while being used in software this is the reason why it can be depended upon more than human calculation when making decisions.
➢ Efficiency – Whenever any process is automated, it becomes efficient in comparison to manual methods. Integration of AI in the online test software enables the administrator to conduct objective and consistent assessments with efficiency. AI also adds to the feature of online proctoring by giving detailed analysis on individual candidates in real-time scenario.
➢ Eliminates bias factor – In general humans are inclined towards stereotypes and biases, but this is not the case with AI. It does not perceive any irrelevant factor while making decisions and solely rely on the installed programming and acquired data.
➢ Engagement – AI improves the quality of the online examination platform giving the best of experience to its users making it interesting software to use. Especially when online assessments are used for recruiting purposes, AI enhances the process of selection for both candidates as well as recruiters and makes better decisions.
Future of AI in Online Assessment
In the end it is important to take a glance on its future scope in online test software and how it is supposed to improve with time. Technology has got no limitations on its growth and is only moving towards more superior level in terms of rendering perfection. In this light it is important to note that assessment developers are coming up with new ideas every other day and are looking forward to implement AI on a much broader platform.
Open ended questions are the next move that needs to be effectively integrated with the online test platform which can also be evaluated using AI instead of manual evaluation. Carrying out real time interviews during recruiting assessments is another growth that the online assessment world is looking up to.
