Digital Documentation: Using digital technologies to promote language assessment for the 21st century

Abstract

The article describes how the use of digital technologies such as iPod and iPad contributes to the gathering of tangible evidence of students’ learning, and promotes the emergence of a new means of formative assessment that supports language teaching and learning for the 21st century. In particular, the use of such technologies by Early French Immersion learners promotes digital documentation (audio and video recording) of language learning across the curriculum, to help make the learning and thinking process more visible to teachers and students. The process of revisiting the digital documentation constitutes a new means of formative assessment that informs both the teaching and the learning. Moreover, the use of digital technologies allows students to become active participants in their own learning and assessment process. Finally, the article examines the role of oral language in the digital documentation and revision process and how this enhances the assessment of students’ learning in the 21st century language classroom.