Future Ready Learning

• The assessments embedded in the video game could be used to substitute for
the traditional assessments commonly used in today’s classrooms.
Shute’s work underscores the potential for embedded assessment to play an
increasingly important role in helping students to gain and demonstrate mastery of
important knowledge, skills, and abilities. 21
Assess for Ongoing Learning
Technology provides students with multiple pathways to create assessable work throughout the
year. To demonstrate their understanding, students can create multimedia productions, construct
websites to organize and analyze information, and design interactive presentations to serve as
products for assessment. These pathways allow teachers to understand how students access and
understand information across given categories. For students who need individual accommodations,
advances in technology allow for dynamic and personalized presentation and assessment
using alternative representations of the same concept or skill. For example, alternative text can
be provided for images through the work of the Diagram Center to make graphics accessible to
learners with print disabilities.
Moving forward, increasingly sophisticated technology-driven assessments will enable more
powerful personalized learning, likely accelerating the shift from time-based learning to competency-based
learning.
The Future of Technology-Based Assessment
Although the process is often challenging, in many places, transitioning to technology-based
assessment is well under way. Such assessments will continue to improve across time in the
following ways.
Continuous Improvement of Assessments
Traditional paper-and-pencil tests, and even some first-generation technology-based assessments,
usually are reviewed and updated only on a designated schedule, often driven by printing and
distribution cycles rather than when test items need to be updated. Online delivery of assessments
allows for continuous improvement of test items.
Integrated Learning and Assessment Systems
Technology has the potential to move assessment from disjointed separate measures of student
progress to an integrated system of assessments and personalized instruction to meet the needs
of the learner. Technology can integrate more fully student classroom experiences, homework
assignments, and formative and summative assessments, all of which are tied closely to academic
standards. Online learning platforms can display effects of missing assignments, progress toward
goals, and channels for communication with mentors and teachers.
We also should expect to see integrated systems that make the learning process more seamless
for students and educators. As students progress along personalized learning pathways, they will
be assessed when they are ready to demonstrate mastery over particular skills and content rather
OFFICE OF Educational Technology
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