Welcome

             At the conclusion of the game, each group worked collaboratively to create a digital story of what they learned.  They were able to chose to do a story based on “how to survive”, a year in the life of their characters, or what they learned overall from the project.  Students had to collaborate to create a cohesive story. Then the groups will work together to create a digital story based on their collaborative story.  Their digital story was assessed using a rubric.  Not only will did I checkfor their ability to present their material, but I also assessedtheir ability to integrate the elder knowledge they learned from the game into their digital story.
           Students’ digital stories were graded using an analytic rubric.  I chose a rubric because I was able to tailor it to the skills that we learned throughout the course of the project, and thus maintain validity. I wanted to make sure that my assessment of their learning was valid in that it “measures accurately what it is intended to measure.” (Hughes, 2003, p.22) Not only did I use a rubric, but I also had another teacher help me assess students using the rubric to check for reliability.  I wanted to ensure that there was inter-rater reliability and content reliability within the rubric.   We chose one story at random to first assess using the rubric.  After we scored separately, we discussed our results to see if any changes needed to be made to ensure reliability.  
           I chose to include a digital story because I wanted a performance assessment within the project.  A performance assessment “consists of any form of assessment which the students constructs a response orally or in writing.” (O’Malley & Pierce, 1996, p. 4)  A digital story was an authentic assessment in that it relates to their experiences within the game, and it helped students to think about their own process and the product they wanted to produce.