1 A:Design and implement digitally-based learning experiences with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments;

I have been using two Learning Management Systems: Haiku site for the past two years, and my Sakai site 3 years ago. These LMS's housed most of my reading and literacy assignments, and my creatively designed Karabaic Newa/Necap type of tests. 

Students used to log onto their Haiku site, to access many of their assignments, my daily announcements where I post poems, quotes,motivational things to think about, video clips to write about and/or discuss, visuals. Students have had many of their assignments maintained on their Haiku  login site, and can access them at will-from school, home or anywhere they can gain access to the internet. Now, that I have a Smarboard and a full sized classroom, everyday begins with the Haiku Announcement page as projected onto the Smartboard. 

 I gather news stories and literary works designing curriculum  in order to expose my below grade level readers  to relevant news and literary works samples that they might never otherwise come in contact with. These reading samples  are used to create the basis for informational reading and comprehension as well as to create reading tests. In these tests students are challenged to read carefully, practice good test taking skills, use scanning skills for key words, read test questions carefully, learn how to exclude certain multiple choice questions, and practice strategic reading.

Additionally, it  is an opportunity to also connect older learning to new learning, reinforce learning, and expose students to things even if only briefly, that they never knew before. Here is a great little story-One of my students was taking the Spring Newa test, and on the test was one of the poems that I had posted about a month or two before. Because we read and discuss possible meanings, how the content might apply to their lives, rhyme patterns, who the author is etc, they sometimes recall or  hold the information. My student, Matt suddenly opens his eyes large and stares at me as he is working on the Newa test. I was sitting at a right angle from him and didn't see what was on the screen he was looking at. He told me, we read this poem in here. I came over to see that it had in fact been a poem that I exposed my students to in the announcement part of Haiku. I never would have believed that my students would hold onto that poem in any way, but clearly that  poem reading and hopefully others, have made their mark.

Here is an example of a typical morning announcement on Haiku:Happy Tuesday, June 5, 2012

A life without love is like a year without summer.
-- Swedish Proverb
A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken.
-- James Dent
A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.
-- St. Francis of Assisi
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.
-- Russel BakerBe like the flower, turn your face to the sun.
-- Kahlil Gibran

Being a child at home alone in the summer is a high-risk occupation. If you call your mother at work thirteen times an hour, she can hurt you.
-- Erma Bombeck

Breathless, we flung us on a windy hill, laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass.
-- Rupert Brooke

Celebrate Summer - Sun drenched days and starlit nights...
-- Gooseberry Patch

Colored scents that fill the air as drowsy insects hum around in the meadow is the place of secret magic where nature alone renews itself.
-- Kate Bergquist

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This year I've also been connecting many student assignments, pre/post check in tests to Google Documents, Google Forms,  and QR codes using a free QR scanner on the ipads. Students come into class and scan a QR code, taking them to a private Google Form quiz or pretest. This will allow me to see where they are prior to instruction on specific concepts. This gives me a great way to assess where they are in their learning. Also, I create a  post  test using the  same format-QR code linked to a Google Form Quiz. This structure not only is fun and engaging  for students but  it allows them  to very quickly scan, take the  quiz, and then be ready for  the next  task. We don't have  to wait precious class time  for logging  in, which has taken upwards of  10 minutes or  more at times.

Here is a link to a google document that has a sampling of many types of assignments  I have designed this year: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ce_5hZ8-YJ8PSYCeDWGqoWgt6xvElv_8Ah4vmIQ4PSQ/edit?usp=sharing