How does Edulastic Work?

Teachers create an account by using their email and creating a password. Once the teacher accesses the platform, teachers may upload a class-list, or allow students to sign up themselves. Teachers will now be able to create assessments from an assessment bank that mirrors the types of questions they would see on standardized tests such as the Georgia Milestones and PARCC.

Pros

Price

The site is free for individual teachers. The more accurate way to describe the pricing strategy would be to say that it is a freemium pricing model. This means that the core features of the site are free. However, if you want to have all the features that are available, you will have to upgrade to experience those features.

District Level Accounts

District level accounts are also available. That means that school districts may be able to plug it into existing applications and bring everything under one roof for teachers and administrators. I am pretty confident this may come at a varying price-point, because you have to contact them to determine how much this will cost.

Ready-Made Assessments

This is an excellent feature. This has the potential to save a teacher loads of time.

Effortlessly Create Your Own Assessments

With Edulastic, you may upload assessments that you already have and quickly formulate them using built in tools to collect answers through Edulastic.

Wide Range of Assessment Items

This application has more interactive assessment type items when you compare it to the Georgia Milestones. This makes it a fun and engaging tools for the students to use as they develop mastery of the standards.

Professionally Created Assessment Items

Some of the assessments on the site were created by established publishers. That means that your students will have the opportunity to experience a broad range of assessment items.

Realistic Assessments

The assessments that are ready made are realistic assessments. This makes it a great preparation site for statewide assessments such as the Georgia Milestones. Also, the interface mirrors the one that students will see on the computer-based version of the Georgia Milestones.

Real Time Scoring

Teachers are able to score students immediately through this web-based assessment tool.

Differentiate Instruction

Teachers are able to differentiate students based on rigorous and relevant assessment tools. Teachers may zero in on standards that students struggle with or move past those already mastered.

i-Ready-Killer

I have used i-Ready at a deep level, along with other assessment tools created by some content publishers. This tool has the potential to crush them all, if they execute it properly. It is still a new company, but they have tremendous backing and a very experienced staff. They could easily wipe a tool such as i-Ready off the map. I can see a company like Google or Amazon licking their lips at a company like this. This would be a great compliment to Amazon’s Tenmarks acquisition.

Cons

The Assessments are Mainly Geared Towards Math and Reading

Since most states have their own history and science standards, it is understandable that the site is lacking in those areas. However, teachers in the various states may create their own question types and share them with the community. Also, I think that if they can get more publishers on-board, that is something that they may be able to change and fully take on some of the more established premium players in this space.

The Software is not Adaptive

Most educational software are moving to the adaptive route. That means that students take a pre-assessment and then the software designs a learning path for that student. Edulastic is not quite at that point with this application. 

Not Much of a Kid Eye-Candy

The main problem with this application is the fact that it is geared mostly around assessments and not necessarily teaching the content. With state-mandated testing falling into the disapproval category, it is a disadvantage as far as growth is concerned. However, as more schools start to put more emphasis on district level assessments, they could find themselves in favor there.

From the Publisher

Launched in June 2014, Edulastic is a platform for personalized formative assessment for K-12 students, teachers and school districts. Edulastic was created by Snapwiz, a venture-backed education technology company with offices in Fremont, CA and Bangalore that provides a highly interactive, cloud-based learning environment for publishers. In its short time, thousands of educators have used Edulastic to get deeper insights into their students’ understanding.

Verdict

This tool is a great application, and many teachers will find it very useful. Many of the assessment items are relevant to state standards, and there are many rigorous test items to choose from. Therefore, teachers at opposite ends of the classroom are able to expose their students to assessment items that students in higher performing districts across the country may be exposing their students to. Teachers are able to quickly assign and effortlessly get their hands on actionable data that mirrors the assessments that students take at the end of the year in school districts all across the country. The program is free, so even if school districts do not want to take on the software, individual teachers may become local advocates by using it in their classrooms and demonstrating to their peers the effectiveness of the program.

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