Most advancements, technological or otherwise, are initially deeply rooted in the status quo. Current assessment platforms, most of which mimic traditional summative feedback mechanisms, are no exception. We are several technological generations into computer aided assessment and yet the focus is most often on efficiently measuring retained knowledge, not on bringing learners up to a standard.

At Scholar we began with seven transformations, or affordances, that technology brings to learning and set out to create a new kind of learning and assessment platform. Based on these principles any assessment system should:

1. Provide timely, meaningful feedback, (Recursive Feedback) in context, every bit of which contributes to improved work.

2. Be Ubiquitous, available anytime/anywhere so learning is not bound by time or place.

3. Develop Collaborative Intelligence with intensive, peer interaction where learners respond to each other’s work with constructive feedback.

4. Promote Metacognition, thinking about one own’s thinking, where extensive giving and receiving of feedback, and recruiting students as self- and peer- assessors, places them in the position of having to think about the nature of the task, and the cognitive processes of the discipline.

5: Involve active knowledge making so learners are active knowledge producers (project-based learning, based on multiple knowledge sources), less than they are knowledge consumers (traditional textbook learning or e-learning focused on video or e-textbook delivery).

6: Support Differentiation where every aspect of every learner's work is visible at all times, along with on-the-fly assessment data, where individuals and groups can work at a pace that suits their needs, and where data analyses allow that these processes are readily and conveniently managed.

7: Enable Multimodal expression where learners represent their knowledge and ideas using the latest new media tools, integrating writing, video, image, sound, and other media types within the one piece of work.

If technology is to help us achieve what we have always wanted to do in education these principles can and should be applied to any new learning and assessment platforms moving forward.