Teachscape-Journal Article Teacher Observations | News Teacher Observation App Goes Native on iPad By Dian Schaffhauser03/21/12 An educational technology company that specializes in creating products for improving educator practices has launched a version of its teacher observation application for the Apple iPad. Teachscape's Reflect Live app lets observers collect classroom evidence and works even when there's no Wi-Fi connection available in the room. The non-iPad version of the product works on a laptop or another type of tablet device. According to the company, the app has a simple interface for recording details during an observation. The iPad edition can work with the dictation feature included in the new iPad, introduced by Apple earlier this month. Performing a teacher observation with Reflect Live follows a five-part process. The iPad version of the app is free in the iTunes store. About the Author Dian Schaffhauser is a writer who covers technology and business for a number of publications.
Khan Academy Easy Assessment Pennsylvania Published: Sunday, Feb. 5, 2012 School administrators gave 99.4 percent of all Pennsylvania teachers "satisfactory" ratings during the 2009-10 school year, the latest data available from the state Department of Education show. But, said Sandi Jacobs, vice president of the National Council on Teacher Quality: "That kind of teacher evaluation system tells you almost nothing." The state's teacher evaluations "give no consideration to teacher effectiveness and include no objective measures of student performance," Jacobs said. The nonprofit, nonpartisan council, partly funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, recently gave Pennsylvania an overall grade of D+ for progress on policies to support and measure teacher effectiveness and an F for efforts to rid schools of ineffective teachers. That could change. "Teacher evaluation should not be based on a single test score," said Wythe Keever, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state's largest teachers union.
eCove Administrator eCove / Google mxMobile Teachscape RANDA Announces Summer Release of Teacher Observation App for iPad Nashville, TN (PRWEB) March 23, 2011 RANDA Solutions is pleased to announce the upcoming market release of their Teacher Observation app for paperless classroom observation via their patent-pending mobile device system. This announcement comes amid RANDA’s cross-platform app and system field-test pilots in seven K12 school and higher ed systems utilizing eight rubrics. The iPad app powers field observations for the RANDA Observation Solution. Synchronization/Offline Use: No Internet access required during field observations Workflow: Download only teacher assignments needed for current observation workload Scheduling: Assign a year or a week of observations - flexible to administrator preferences Rubrics: Numerous rubrics including classroom walk-throughs Reporting: Aggregate observation results with other data to create meaningful updated reports About RANDA RANDA Solutions is an INC. 500 software firm based in Nashville, TN serving the education sector.