Educational assessment tools are resources that make a significant difference in teaching and assessment for subject areas such as literacy or math. Common educational assessment tools include mobile devices for administration; Web data entry and; scanning technologies.
Wireless Generation chose to focus on handheld computers, or personal digital assistants (PDAs) as educational assessment tools. Teachers, they reasoned, are highly mobile professionals, and it made sense that teachers' technology tools should meet the demands of their work environment.
The Wireless Generation team studied teachers in the classroom, paying special attention to the tasks they regularly perform. It became clear that an easy-to-use technology solution for conducting observational assessments, collecting and analyzing data, and helping teachers to link results to appropriate instructional support and interventions could yield great benefits for educators - saving them enormous amounts of time and providing them with crucial information about student learning needs in a timely way.
"Like professionals in other industries, teachers can use technology to make their workflow, their every day instructional and administrative tasks, more efficient and productive," said Larry Berger. "The test for any Wireless Generation product is always, does it really help educators to do their jobs?"
Wireless Generation has developed mCLASS® (for Mobile Classroom Assessment) software and created handheld computer versions of commonly used, paper-based early reading assessments, including TPRI®, DIBELS®, PALS™ and reading records.
This fall, approximately 100,000 teachers in 48 states will use Wireless Generation's mCLASS technology to assess 2,000,000 preK-6 students. Teachers have been eager adopters of mCLASS software -- even skeptical teaching veterans -- because they find that they can learn to use the applications in just a few hours, and save time by doing the assessments on the handheld instead of on paper. Preliminary studies of mCLASS products show a 50% time savings in assessment administration alone, which adds up to 3-5 instructional days per teacher, per year.
Administrators value the mCLASS solutions because student performance data is captured accurately, teachers can apply the data to instruction more easily than they ever could using paper-based assessments, and student, class, school and district progress toward achievement goals can be easily tracked. Additionally, mCLASS solutions help administrators to collect and manage the data required to comply with No Child Left Behind Reading First requirements and other policy mandates.
The U.S. Department of Education has recognized mCLASS software, highlighting it in a virtual town hall meeting on how rural communities are harnessing the power of technology to help meet the goals and requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act.
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