When technology became a regular part of classroom assessment, the goal wasn’t simply to replace pencils with keyboards.

It was supposed to make assessment better: faster feedback, less time spent grading and reporting, and new ways for students to demonstrate what they know.

But too often, we took the limitations of paper, moved them onto a screen, and added some of the limitations of technology along the way.

A multiple-choice question became four clickable circles. A worksheet became an online form. And because certain responses were easier for technology to capture and score, those became the responses we asked students for.

For more than a decade, Edcite has pushed against that idea.

More Ways to Show What You Know

Edcite supports more than 60 technology-enhanced and interactive question types because we don’t think the technology should determine how a teacher assesses a student.

Students can graph functions, highlight evidence in a passage, label images, plot points, build equations, drag and drop responses, work through multipart questions, and more.

Examples of question types available in Edcite.

And sometimes the best way for a student to respond is simply to explain their thinking. Edcite supports open-ended responses too, even when that means a teacher, not a computer, needs to evaluate the answer.

At the same time, many Edcite question types can be automatically scored. Teachers get results without manually grading every response and can quickly see performance by student, question, and standard.

That’s what technology should be doing: expanding what’s possible for students while reducing unnecessary work for teachers.

Sometimes the Answer Isn’t Enough

An answer box doesn’t always capture what a student knows.

That’s why students can also attach evidence of their learning to responses in Edcite.

Think about a math problem. A student might enter the correct answer, but their work could reveal a misconception that happened to get them there. Another might enter the wrong answer while showing the right approach with one small computational error.

Seeing the work changes what a teacher knows about those students, and what they might do next.

That evidence could be handwritten work, a diagram, an annotation, or another artifact that helps a student show their process alongside their answer.

We’re continuing to build on this idea at Edcite, exploring ways for students to capture and share more evidence of their learning throughout an assessment. When we expand the ways students can share their thinking, teachers can get a better picture of what they truly understand, not just whether they got an answer right.

Digital assessment shouldn’t force teachers to choose between the efficiency of technology and authentic evidence of student learning.

There’s Still a Place for Multiple Choice

Multiple-choice questions aren’t the problem. A good multiple-choice question can tell a teacher a lot.

The problem is when the limitations of the technology start determining the questions we’re willing to ask.

Sometimes students should select an answer. Other times they should graph, construct, annotate, calculate, explain, upload, or show their process.

The question should always be: What’s the best way for this student to demonstrate what they know?

Then the technology should support it.

That’s what we’ve spent more than a decade working toward at Edcite. Putting an assessment on a screen shouldn’t make it more limited.

It should make more possible.

See What You Can Build in Edcite

Create a free Edcite account and explore more than 60 question types for your next assessment.