Crowdmark

I was immediately impressed with how easy it is to access Crowdmark and the speed with which it allows teachers to grade an assessment compared to conventional red pen and paper practices. I began thinking about how this resource could be used to support the teachers I work with and the students we assess if Crowdmark were our primary assessment tool.

In our K – Grade 6 school, we offer students general feedback on their completed tests based on the leveled exemplars provided by our provincially standardized test “EQAO” (written by Grade 3 and Grade 6 Students), but teachers rarely work through each individual mock assessment due to timing and feasibility constraints in handling so many test hard copies.

We again had students write this assessment and were ready to grade it collaboratively – I thought of Crowdmark’s ability to toggle through separate tests (specific to student and individual questions), offer authentic teacher feedback through its comment feature and its capabilities for staff collaboration and moderated marking. Crowdmark fit our needs.

Working together one morning, teachers were greeted with an email inviting them as markers to their specific grade test. Our Grade 3 and Grade 6 teachers worked in the same space, on separate devices — I monitored teacher progress for each Grade 3 and Grade 6 assessment using my iPad — assessing either the same student’s test simultaneously or by working on specific questions through the entire student roster using strategies developed by the separate teams of teachers.

As teachers worked, they said it was easy to switch between questions and students – something that is much more challenging when working with red pen and paper. Teachers were also able to assign each student a grade for each piece completed while providing rich feedback through the comment feature that students could later see. Teachers flagged particular tests for colleagues to review and easily discussed strategies for collaborative assessment and specific grades assigned. Our grade 3 and grade 6 teams completed their assessments in half the time traditional marking would take, something that made them ecstatic about Crowdmark.

When asked about what it was like to use Crowdmark, teachers commented on its efficiency and speed, and how easy it was to move across tests and through the interactive interface. This simplicity allowed them to focus on the assessment one question at a time rather than shuffling, turning and adjusting papers. They also liked the efficient and collaborative moderated marking scenarios, and the collaborative power to engage students, parents and guardians in the assessment process.

I would use Crowdmark again as it saves time, provides critical feedback to colleagues, students and parents and also innovates the assessment and evaluation process.

Best Regards,

Joseph Romano
ICT Lead Teacher & Position of Responsibility (POR)
Golf Road Junior Public School
Toronto District School Board

[email protected]

Crowdmark is an assessment tool that allows teachers to upload student written assessments into the Cloud so that assessments can be done anytime, anywhere in digital formats. In addition, because assessments can be accessed by several teachers at the same time, Crowdmark enables teachers to effectively collaborate in a moderated marking environment. The company is still in its beta-testing phase, but there is enormous potential for what Crowdmark can provide for an educator (e.g. more accurate assessments, archived student portfolios, data analysis of exams). Try it out!