Technology Assessments

Assessments are used for multiple reasons and allows for the measurement of what matters, and measures strengths and weaknesses in all areas for educators and students. Technology based assessments can be very beneficial in that they can help make decisions concerning what is needed to reach a specific goal and can help to modify curriculum to fit a student’s specific need as well as help improve the current education system. But there are also some disadvantages to some types of assessments. An assessment that is given in test form can give false information in its results because some assessments want specific actions in order for the question to be answered correctly. An example for this would be an assessment of knowledge and skills in Microsoft word. When taking these types of assessments the instructions are clear as to what they want done within the program in order for the task to be completed but the problem is there maybe 10 different ways to complete the task, however, the computer wants a specific sequence of actions. Most assessments of this kind are set to keep a record of incomplete actions it takes for a person to answer correctly.

Assessments with cognitive research and theory that concentrate on how students think with multimedia, interactivity, and connectivity allows for these skills to be assessed. When placed with learning systems, technology-based assessments make it easier to diagnose and modify the circumstances in learning and instructional practices. Some systems are designed to assess student’s data as it is entered, during this process the information is used to determine the student’s knowledge and problem-solving skills as they are working. The more the student works the more the system learns about the student and their skills, which allows the system to provide the support the student needs to move forward in improving in technology.