This is actually being used by primary grade teachers, kindergarten through second grade, with the hope of providing the teacher with more informed instruction time and less time labouring through the assessment and planning process. Along with providing quicker student-centred data for classroom activity development, it can also be a tool for parents to use at home.
But the infrastructure necessary to successfully push and maintain this type of classroom-level technology is something which most boards / districts are far from having. The following is a description of a program which introduced this technology:
Each teacher will get a netbook, which displays reading exercises for students to complete. As they give their answers, the teacher takes notes on how the child responds, and the computer records which answers were correct and incorrect.
It then determines what tasks the student does proficiently and which tasks need to be reviewed with the teacher.
- Education Week
Definitely not a fiscal reality for our board.