Rambling about computers and assessment

Brian Huot’s piece, “Computers and Assessment: Understanding Two Technologies” was very interesting to me. As a teacher of composition, I always find the area of technology and assessment to be a tricky arena. As for the piece itself, Huot examines past practices used with computers and assessment. It was scary to read that some teachers actually thought that a computer could replace the human agency in the grading process. People wanted to use the computers to grade papers based on “surface level” details. Word count, syllables, and grammatical uses were caught by the computer and allowed teachers to place to students in the “appropriate” category based on the findings of the computer and the student’s use of those things. I found that appalling. I realize that it is very tempting to try to find a technology or program that would decrease the amount of time it takes to evaluate student writing, but it seems to me that these predecessors of this decade led us straight into standardization. I hate standardization. Using a computer program to “grade” writing is ridiculous to me even with the temptation of less itme spent on reading countless student essays.

Huot reviews some of the main reasons for the need/want of computer grading systems and along with a dispensation of “drudgery” was the concept that computer grading would be more efficient (that seems a lot like a means of relieving drudgery but whatever)…so these teachers wanted to decrease the amount of time it takes to grade to , I am guessing, spend more time on creating a better classroom or some such. I totally understand these reasons and the early programs do seem remarkably like SpellCheck and GrammarCheck, so I guess we have moved into an area that allows some computer objectivity in the writing classroom. I am an advocate for these programs because it allows students to write without worrying as much about their surface level flaws becaes the computer will usually find the mistakes for them.

Huot then goes on to explain how assessment and computer technology works in our world today and the efficiency of using the World Wide Web to share portfolios and ideas within the computer classroom as well as allowing teachers to compress the very large portfolio system. As I am typing, I have a box full of portfolios waiting for a student to retrieve them taking up a large amount of space in my kitchen, so I can totally justify the idea of having portfolios electronically submitted. Also, the computer allows teachers to respond to students in a more time efficient way because they can type their remarks and then immediately send it to the student via email or a system like Vista. Although I have not yet integrated this system in my classroom I plan to because it seems like a very good idea. Overall, I just liked this piece because I think it looks at some of the ideas that led to how the computer is used in assessment today and it discusses some of the very positive traits the computer can give to the writing classroom.

However, as I was reading about the beginning uses of computers as grading systems I was hoping to discover some sort of type that allowed for less time spent on grading the papers due to the use of the computer—but I realize that I don’t really believe in objective grading like that. I would not be here if graduate school application relied only on standardized test scores and writing because I am not a strong surface level writer. The computer programs that are discussed would probably have thrown me out in the first round, but since the application process includes reading a person’s essay by human subjects I believe I was able to join the graduate program. I think I am confusing myself a bit here, but basically I just want to say that I realize it is tempting for a composition teacher to want to find more time in the day (especially if they are teaching 4 or 5 sections of Composition) but the idea of human subjectivity in writing is too important. Value should be placed on what ideas the students are trying to convey and not how well they use their commas, and the revision process is an extremely important tool to teach and learn. Computers and the technology that comes with them are valuable because they can take some grunt work off of the teacher and allow for swifer responses and more creative lessons—so, go computer technology!!!