Abstract:

For the last decade, the educational system has been undergoing a conspicuous change. This is not least because of the rapid technological development and increased complexity of today’s world presenting new demands and challenges on our education system. Individuals of today have to apply and to develop new abilities and skills in a quick and effective way being able to survive and being successful in this dynamic, information-rich, and continuously changing society. However, these changes have major implication not only for the process of learning but also for the teaching profession. The teacher of today is more than being an expert standing in front of a classroom and talking about important facts and concepts. Teachers need to be a facilitator of learning, a partner or co-participant in the learning process by taking into account students’ strengths and weaknesses when planning and delivering learning activities. These changes in the role of teachers has also significant influences on assessment methods and practices. Constructive assessment accompanies the learning process more in a formative than in a summative way – students’ learning is not only assessed through their learning outcome but also through the processes underwent by students in order to arrive these outcomes. This wide variety of information that teachers collect about students’ learning processes serves the basis for determining what they need to do next to move students forward. Doing this, teachers have the responsibility of reporting students’ learning accurately and fairly. This is precisely the point where the European project NEXT-TELL (www.next-tell.eu) comes into play. Addressing the challenges of todays’ classroom, the main aim of this project is to support formative assessment processes and the aligned teaching with smart planning, teaching, and assessment technologies. This is realized by developing software solutions aiming at supporting teachers in collecting information about the learners’ achievements, progress, and learning behavior. One of this software solution is myClass, an activity tracking tool that supports teachers in both capturing and generating data on behavior and sharing the results with parents, administrators, or students. In this paper, we want to present myClass in a comprehensive way by providing an in-depth insight to its conceptual approach and technical implementation. Furthermore, we will report on explicit user feedback given by teachers who have applied and used myClass over a longer period of time.

Keywords:

21st century classroom, information and communication technology ICT, formative assessment, activity tracking.