In nearly every school in the world, teachers look for ways to assess what students have learned throughout their class. These assessments often take the form of multiple-choice questions or true/false questions. While those traditional question types give teachers some insight into what students have learned, they often do not tell the whole story.
A good assessment goes beyond factual memorization and challenges students to express their learning in different ways. Kami allows teachers to create new and exciting assessments that enable students to do just that! As technology continues to be a part of educating students, we can leverage it to transform the assessment process. During my Kami Connect session, I outlined several features of Kami that will challenge students to express their understanding in new ways. If you prefer to read about them in place of watching, then read on as we look at how Kami can transform your assessments!
Use Text Boxes and OCR to Keep Successful Assessments Moving Forward
Do you have assessments that have worked in the past, and with the transition to digital learning, you are unsure how to use them? Kami allows you to upload those assessments and transform them into Kami Documents. You can then share those assessments with your students, opening up the ability to type on them directly and also utilize the entire Kami toolbar, features such as drawing, markup, and the equation editor!
Some of our assessments may not be in digital format, but now that you’ve seen the power of Kami, the wheels are turning on how to use them in an even better way! If you have printed material, you can scan the paper and then run it through Kami’s OCR tool. The OCR tool will allow all of Kami’s functionality, including Text to Speech, to be utilized by the students!
Another fantastic feature of Kami that assists in digitizing previously used assessments is the Split and Merge tool! Split and Merge allows users to upload files into Kami and easily pick and pull different pages from the files. Do you have a document that is twenty pages long, and you only need two of the pages? Split and Merge will allow you to select just the two pages you need and create a new Kami document with them!
Creating New Assessments with Kami
Using Video and Images
To this point, we’ve explored how we can take previous assessments and transform them; now, we should look at how we can create NEW assessments that leverage some of Kami’s amazing features! For example, Kami allows teachers to insert YouTube videos directly into their Kami document! Throughout the global pandemic, teachers have utilized video as an instructional tool more than ever. With this feature, students can now watch a video and respond to question prompts in real-time without leaving the document!
If videos aren’t a part of your lesson, Kami allows users to insert images into the Kami file. Students can then use the markup tools or use the image to support their demonstration of learning.
Have students respond to your questions with Voice, Video, and Screencapture Comments
Traditionally students respond to their assessments the same way, through the written word. We know that not every student can fully express their learning in that matter, though. We also want to redesign lessons that challenge students to demonstrate their knowledge differently, and that’s where we can use Kami’s incredible commenting features in our assessments!
Kami’s Voice Comment tool allows students to respond to questions verbally rather than a traditional written response. Students who struggle with typing or students in a language class can better articulate their learning on an assessment with a Voice Comment more than a written response. Voice Comments can also be an excellent tool for teachers to assess their students’ reading levels. Teachers can post a passage in their Kami document and have the students record themselves reading it back to the teacher. Students can also use the Video Comment tool to physically demonstrate their knowledge and show their faces while doing it!
To take it up a notch, students could also use the Screen Capture Comment to talk through their process of solving the problem. This would allow teachers to hear what the student is thinking while completing the work.
Make Your Assessments More Accessible
Kami is a fantastic tool for all learners and has many features designed to accommodate our learners who may need extra support. Let’s explore some amazing ways that Kami can support students who need accommodations with their assessments.
Assessments can be read to students using the Text to Speech tool
We all have students that need extra support, and at times ensuring those needs are met can be a challenge, specifically when text has to be read to the student. With Kami, students can leverage the Text to Speech function to have their assessment read aloud. Students select Text to Speech from the toolbar and then highlight the words they need to read aloud. This ability to differentiate truly makes learning accessible for all students.
Students can use the Speech to Text option to express their learning
It can be difficult to transition assessments to digital for students that struggle to type. Whether this is a special education student or a younger learner who does not have the skill set to type yet, getting text into a document can be challenging. With Kami, they make this easy by utilizing the Speech to Text tool! With the Speech to Text tool, students can verbalize their learning while Kami converts it into text. Speech to Text gives all students the ability to add their words to a page without the potential difficulty of typing them out.
Teachers can use the Screen Capture Comment to explain the assessments to their students
Students often need that extra bit of instruction that comes along with introducing an assessment in class. Kami allows the teacher to record a screen capture of the assessment while in the Kami document using a Screen Capture Comment. The Screen Capture Comment tool records a screencast of the Kami document with the teacher’s voice providing the activity’s narration. This allows the teacher to go into great detail about the assessment in a way that written instructions may not provide. A win for all students, but most certainly for those students who may need extra help!
Assessments can tend towards the lesser fun side of teaching and learning, but with these amazing Kami tools, your assessments can transform into incredible learning experiences for your students!
