At one time, the promise of tablets or netbooks for education was the ability of students to learn anywhere, anytime. This Education Week article picks up a more recent theme: the possibility of a constant stream of formative assessment to help teachers teach more responsively and students learn more actively.

Schools administer assessments via mobile device

by Katie Ash / Education Week / 8 February 2012

Students in Kelly Neuserâ's kindergarten class at Deer Run Elementary School in East Haven, CT

The 3,200-student East Haven schools in Connecticut, elementary teachers did their initial student reading assessments a bit differently this school year.

Instead of using paper and pencil to jot down observations about each of their students and then collecting and analyzing those notes by hand, each teacher used an iPad to collect the information and send it to a centralized database through software from the New York City-based ed-tech company Wireless Generation.

“One of our primary goals was to be able to develop a system that would bring a lot of the data into one place,” says Taylor Auger, a technology-integration teacher in the district who helped incorporate use of the iPads into classrooms. “Previously, the data was processed by hand, and it wasn’t really being put to use effectively. I’m all for data, but that data has to drive instruction.”

To read more…

Image Source: article (Christopher Capozziello for Digital Directions)