Posts Tagged “google docs”

Reading fluency in Aurora Public Schools is measured as the difference between how many words are read in one minute and how many times the reader makes a mistake.  It is soley measuring the accuracy of reading written word and is not a measure of comprehension.  An error can be considered stumbling over a word, for example stuttering, repeating, or sounding out (but not limited to just these three examples).

Old school: a student sits with a teacher and reads for a minute while the teacher marks down errors.  After the minute is up, the words are counted up and the fluency level is calculated.  Often, during these sessions, this is the only time the teacher can provide feedback to the student concerning their reading fluency.  Also, a drawback is that the teacher can only have the student read a few times a session in order to fill out a picture of the student's reading fluency.  It is the opinion of the author that this is limiting and inadequate.

21st Century: a student reads an excerpt from any published medium in any subject at any time of the day from anywhere and records them self doing so.  As long as an internet connection is established, the audio file can be immediately emailed to the teacher for archiving and review at the teacher's discretion. The student can listen back to their own reading and assess their mistakes on their own.  Once the student has the data, they can then access an online form in which they can instantly provide their teacher with this valuable information via the iPod touch.  The teacher, who may be in the same building, at home, or in a hotel half-way across the Earth, can see the data update in real time and see a graph generate creating an easy way to identify reading fluency trends.  The teacher can then provide the student with feedback via email and the student can receive this and access it through the iPod touch - from anywhere, at anytime.

Clearly, the 21st Century method allows for the student to take a larger role in their own reading fluency, and using these 21st century tools, the teacher can receive much more formative assessment data than in the old method of data gathering.  Also, the data is categorized based on time and subject and can provide important, specific information to better aid the teacher and provide a means to help the student grow in their reading fluency.

Please view the following video to see this process illustrated.  For more information about this breakthrough in 21st Century Reading Fluency Assessment, please contact:

Kevin M. Riebau - kmriebau@aps.k12.co.us
Instructional Technology Coach
Department of Instructional Technology
Aurora Public Schools, Colorado
Blog: Riebau.org

Kevin would like to thank Michelle Flynn at Frontier K8 for introducing him to the fluency assessment process.  Without her input, this project would have never been conceived.

Click the video after it has begun to play to see it bigger and better!

Here's a brief overview of what I got Mr. Durham's class at Iowa Elementary started with. Among many possibilities for his classroom full of netbook users, I'm thinking that Dave can make a calendar and then share it with his class so that they know when deadlines, events, etc. are happening. With Google docs he can have his students share their written pieces, data gathering, and presentations with him and their classmates. But, Google docs is just the beginning... the students can make webpages, their own calendars, and they also have their own homepage they can customize.  Your students will need a valid email address to use this tool so they will have to get hooked up with epals.  If you're interested, contact your coach or trainer to help you get started.  Click here to access Google's website dedicated to this.