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E d Te c h S h o w D a i l y 1 7 T h u r s d a y, F e b r u a r y 5 , 2 0 1 5 NAIKU: THE ASSESSMENT TOOL OF THE FUTURE Naiku is the assessment tool that can turn any Web-enabled device – tablets, smart- phones, laptops – into a virtual clicker system. Naiku allows for a variety of ques- tion types including true or false, multi- ple choice, matching and short-answer. Student assignments are scored automat- ically upon completion. Teachers can also immediately view reports that illus- trate class and individual student per- formance. While taking a test with Naiku, stu- dents can rate how confident they are in their answers. Students can also provide justification for their answer selections. This allows students to reflect on what they are learning and assures teachers that the students understand what is being taught. Every student has the opportunity to participate with Naiku and teachers receive immediate in-depth feedback from every student without the need for proprietary hardware. "Many schools are doing one-to- one initiatives and bring your own device initiatives," Doug Pennekamp, CEO of Education 2000 and a trusted Naiku partner, said. "With Naiku these schools can use the technology students most likely already have. Students can also use the same device for all of their classes instead of having to use a sepa- rate clicker system for each class." Allowing a student to use the same device for every class also helps the teacher with classroom management. "Before Naiku every teacher and every classroom might have had a stu- dent response pad system that had to be used specifically in that classroom," Pennekamp said. "These systems required a lot of classroom management to make sure that every student picked up their assigned number and returned the device at the end of the class. With Naiku, students can log in from any device that connects to the Internet and respond." Naiku can also be used for home- work assignments. "Teachers can create homework assignments with Naiku and students can log in from their homes to complete the assignments," Pennekamp said. "Teachers will have the results of the homework assign- ment before class even starts the next day." Teachers can use the Quick Question component of Naiku for free today. Quick Question allows teachers to poll their students and get immediate feed- back for that moment in time. The class- room responses can then be shared to generate a classroom discussion or to help guide the teacher with the direction of their lessons. To learn more about Naiku and to see how Naiku can be used in your school, stop by booth #623. Also, visit Education 2000, a trusted Naiku partner, at www.edu2000plus.com. TEN TIPS FOR WRITING BETTER ASSESSMENTS FOR MEASURING STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT By Nikki Eatchel, Vice President Assessment Services and Professional Services, Scantron Corporation If you are a teacher, administrator, assessment professional or anyone involved in the assessment development process, you know the importance of get- ting it right – effective test questions are the most direct and accurate measure of intended learning outcomes. Quality assessment items drive how reliable and useful the results are in identifying and improving student achievement – the core goal of data-driven instruction. The following tips can help you get more out of your classroom assessments: 1. Focus on the stem. Ensure stems reflect an appropriate level of reading difficulty for the intended grade level of the item and that only information necessary to answer the question is included. Unnecessary infor- mation drives up the reading level with- out adding assessment value. If you use graphics, make sure the image is not con- fusing and that it illustrates the relevant part of the question. Be sure you are fol- lowing proper copyright laws when using images. 2. Provide effective distractors. Distractors should be plausible to stu- dents who have not learned the material. The key phrase to remember is plausible but clearly incorrect. 3. Include various levels of complexity. Bloom, Marzano and Webb offer classifi- cation systems to recognize and identify cognitive complexity. Using assessment items across multiple cognitive levels helps determine whether a student has a basic or complex understanding of a skill. 4. Be sensitive to bias. Being cognizant of stereotypes and bias helps ensure that content is as free as pos- sible from offensive material, allowing students to focus on the skill being assessed. It also helps reduce measure- ment error caused by lack of familiarity with words or sce- narios that are not critical to what's being tested. 5. Consider text complexity. Include a variety of texts. This helps rein- force the rigor and specifications of applicable academic standards. 6. Allow time to review and edit items. Carefully analyze the content and con- struction of each item, ensuring answer choices are parallel and don't clue the correct answer. Include an independent review of aspects such as age appropri- ateness, bias, sentence structure, vocabu- lary, clarity and grammar/spelling. 7. Be consistent. Make sure items, passages and graphics adhere to the same style and format. Students attach meaning to every aspect of a test item and could be unintentional- ly misled by inconsistency. 8. Identify appropriate scoring. Points associated with items should reflect the relative weight of the skill and cognitive depth you are measuring. If you are including extended response items, provide rubrics to help with scoring. 9. Evaluate the technology need. Not every assessment requires technology-enhanced items. Sometimes multiple-choice items deliver the best results. 10. Consider how you're going to use results. Think about why you're giving the test. An end-of-unit progress check is different from an end-of-term exam, and a semester final may require still another approach. Developing effective assessments is not easy, but you don't have to go it alone. Scantron's team of assessment experts can provide professional development, consulting and item/assessment develop- ment services to help you transform your data-driven instruction and ensure you get the results you want. For more information, visit www.scan tron.com, call 858.349.9488, email bonni.graham@scantron.com or stop by booth #1739. SYMANTEC MONITORS THE WORLD TO PROTECT EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS AND THEIR USERS Whether it's a single user running a les- son plan on a smartphone, the data center that makes a school district go or an entire governmental network, Symantec protects users and systems completely and uniquely. So comprehensive and adaptable that its tools are used by gov- ernments to formulate risk management programs and create and assess policy, Symantec's security solutions cover BYOD access to networks and provide technical controls that preserve data con- fidentiality, as well as protect against data loss and malicious activity. The key to protecting users and sys- tems across the country starts with moni- toring and responding to threats across the world. Symantec maintains a global intelligence network that collects data from hundreds of thousands of threat sen- sors in over 130 countries. Attacks on U.S. users and networks frequently evolve from threats that start overseas, and by meeting threats at their source, Symantec has the time and expertise to develop defense mechanisms before those threats try U.S. systems. Combine that with the data Symantec collects from it's own user base of 100 million sys- tems, and it's easy to see why Symantec leads by protecting. "Each threat has different compo- nents," explained Renault Ross, National Security Business Principal of Symantec's Strategic Government Program Group. "There is the actor – the person behind it; and then the mode of attack, which can be a constantly changing strategy. By having sensors around the world, we identify what that profile looks like, and from there we create a signature that detects the behavior in a system." "Just as important, we create awareness with our reporting; so not only is our technol- ogy smarter due to the worldwide net- work of sensors, but we make the end user more aware, we make them smarter and more capable of identifying risks coming into their particular environ- ment." It's no surprise that many of Symantec's security solutions score in the top right Gardner quadrant, with this leading third-party technology evaluator naming Symantec as the leading data loss solution for the last eight years. Symantec's Endpoint Security solution is also named as a market leader by Garnder. It's one thing to become a leader in the security and data protection industry, but another thing to stay a leader. With tech- nology ever evolving, school districts and govern- ment institutions need a technology company whose solutions protect them today, but also in coming years as their systems advance. "As the attack surface expands from cloud to mobile to virtualization environments, we're able to draw on our vast threat intelligence to produce protective tech- nologies," explained Ross. "That data allows us to stay ahead of the curve in protecting our customer base." For more information, visit go.symantec .com/education, or stop by booth #224.