As society and technology become more advanced and sophisticated there are kore ways in which the forms of assessment need to evolve alongside them. Students are becoming more skilled in the use of newer technology because it is becoming integrated into their lives and becoming the main way of communication.

New ways of Communicating

Communication is being fed through technology more and more as there are more advancement in hardware and software. Socially there is a huge amount of transmission of information because of the technology we use; this does not exclude the communication in the classroom. Teachers and students alike are becoming more integrated into technology and the multiple modes of communication that the next technology brings. Traditional forms of assessment fall short in the next society of technology when these ways that we communicate have changed. Roswell and Walsh outline how new literacies affect the classroom and assessment in saying these new literacies require different modalities. They go on to say that “Multiliteracies as a pedagogy simultaneously accounts for linguistic diversity and the use of multimodalities in communication” (p. 56). Communication of information and knowledge has been shifting and assessment needs to shift as well. As society shifts toward multimodal forms of communication, education practices and assessment must also shift in the same direction. In order to properly prepare students for lifelong learning in an ever-changing society, they need to learn to adapt to change and adapt to the different modes of communication emerging in our world. Educational practices have been shifting slowly to accommodate differing learning styles and with the addition of changing technology there needs to be acknowledgment of the changing ways people communicate. Along with that acknowledgement through changing teaching practices, the assessment of learning needs to shift to become truer to the type of communication. The traditional forms of assessment fall short in integrating newer technological forms of communication.

Assessment to Teach

Assessment is not only used for the evaluation of learning, but it is also a tool for learning. When teaching these new literacies to students, an effective way of teaching is through an assessment or through an activity where students teach themselves. As the learning environment changes with the addition of technology to the classroom and to the communication style of the students, assessment changes along with this change in communication. Dochy and McDowell (1997) explain that as technology changes, the modes of teaching and education will change along with it. They go one to say that the role of the teacher in the classroom changes as well with the change in modes of communication. “In the future some of these tasks will be carded out by new highly specialized professionals such as the item-bank manager, electronic course-materials developer, multi-media development expert or study counselor” (p. 283).

Where Do We Go From Here?

The exponential change of technology cannot go unnoticed in the classroom. Rather than pushing these types of changes in technology away, teachers can enlist them as tools for learning and assessment. Seeing the great change that has occurred in communication even in the last ten years, there is bound to be more change to happen in the next ten years as well, and students need to be ready to take on this change. Teachers need to prepare them for a society that today, we know nothing about. Keeping students at the forefront of the knowledge of new ways to communicate gives rise to even greater changes in technology. in order for students to be put at this forefront, teachers need to be alongside students in learning new literacies. Although this is opposite to the traditional sense of what a teacher is (that they are the experts in the room), the process of teaching requires learning. With this positioning of teachers as learners alongside students, there is more opportunity of learning and teaching to happen for both parties. In the spirit of education, for the students to learn from the teacher, the teacher needs to also learn from the students.

“If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.”

John Dewey

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References

Dochy, F. J., & McDowell, L. (1997). Introduction: Assessment as a Tool for Learning. Studies in educational evaluation, 23(4), 279-98.

Rowsell, J., & Walsh, M. (2011). Rethinking literacy education in new times: Multimodality, multiliteracies, & new literacies. Brock Education: A Journal of Educational Research and Practice, 21(1).