Nadia Williams

ITEC 7500: Capstone & Portfolio

Fall 2015
Standard 3.2
Standard 3.2: Managing Digital Tools and Resources
Candidates effectively manage digital tools and resources within the context of student
learning experiences. (PSC 3.2/ISTE 3b)

Reflection:
As an example of my mastery of Standard 3.2, I chose the initial draft of my
Methodology to show as an artifact of my learning. This artifact, which I created on my
own, was constructed as part of my EDRS 8000 course.
In this Methodology, I outlined the setting and participants of the study I was proposing
during my time in my EDRS 8000 course. In this study, I worked to effectively
manage digital tools and resources by researching an alternative method for
assessing students. I opted to use the digital tool and resources of Kahoot! and
Microsoft Excel within the context of a student learning experience as a
diagnostic assessment. The students I would be using as part of my research were the
Advanced Content/Gifted English Language Arts students I taught while at East Cobb
Middle School. In this artifact, I also took time to explain the design of the study which
illustrated what digital tools and resources I would be using in order to ascertain
whether the type of assessment that a student receives has an impact on his or her
grade on that assessment and why I had opted to use those resources. In fact, I had to
manage a variety of tools in order to gain my final results. The most important of
these tools were my District-issued computing tools such as my laptop, Room Pro
Audio/Visual controls, my classroom SMART Board Interactive Whiteboard, the BenQ
projector, Microsofts Excel, and the web-based Kahoot!.
Throughout the process of creating this artifact, I learned of the importance of doing
thorough research on a topic in order to design the best method to conduct the study
and collect the results. That said, should I create such a methodology again, I would be
sure to conduct a little more research on assessment styles, methodologies, student
engagement strategies, human learning, as well as study design to ensure that I was
setting my study up to be the most scientifically sound.
Learning about how to conduct a study methodology provided me with a clearer
understanding of the organization of the research I had been using to guide my
instruction for years. This impacted my classroom which spilled over in to the
professional development of others as well. I was sure to bring this knowledge to my
colleagues through our department and grade-level meetings wherever appropriate.
This impact could be assessed in the increase of my colleagues in using digital tools

such as Kahoot! and Plickers to gather formative assessment data. One specific
example came about in a presentation I co-facilitated as a professional development
session on alternative student response systems, in this case, the use of Plickers, in
order to gather quality student assessment data. This led to more engagement within
my classroom as well as the classrooms of my colleagues.