Week 8

This 8 weeks flew by!  I can hardly believe we’re at an end.  It’s been an intense, highly interactive, very meaningful course.  I gained a working knowledge of so many valuable tools and am eager to share them in my work.  The final project was challenging for me in that I have a difficult time reining in my thoughts.  This project helped me to take one step at a time and think it through. It is already paying off with the course I’m developing.  Though it may not completely reflect what I designed in the final project, the process, helped me to be thorough, linking objectives to assessments, etc.

Thank you Dr. Kaur and all my colleagues in Assessment in E-Learning and Online Teaching Graduate Certificate program at the University of Wisconsin- Stout.

Image: http://www.unigamesity.com/farewell-filefront/ (Retrieved 3/5/11)

Week 7

Final Project

Well, I see that many of us (in my class) are recovering (or not) from winter illnesses.  But does that slow us down?  Well, maybe a little, but not by much.  I was able to plow through as best I could, and below is a link to my Final Project.  I know that I look forward to reviewing my colleagues’ projects over this next week. This project is part of a training course that I’m designing.  I have gained valuable tools from the great group of educators in my class as well as from the modeling from our Instructor and Teaching Assistant. I hope that this project has done justice to all of our hard efforts.

http://assessmentfinal.jimdo.com

Constructive feedback is welcome!

Week 6

Protestors in Madison's Capitol building

I must take a moment to talk about a shadow that has been cast over our state in this past week.  There is a “Budget Repair Bill” that the governor tried to rush through the Senate, that includes undermining the public employee sector by preventing the right of collective bargaining and major cuts out of Medicaid and Badger Care (healthcare for low income residents).   Union members and non-union members alike have been gathering at the capitol all week sparking the closing of many school districts due to teachers calling in sick.  They called in sick in order to attend the rallies in support of blocking this bill.  Numbers continued to grow all week culminating in a crowd of nearly 70,000 yesterday when members from the Tea Party also arrived in some numbers (few in relation to the Democrats).  One of the shining stars is that there have been only a handful of arrests (early in the week) on disorderly conduct charges.  I have walked in support as  much as I could as, though I’ve never considered myself a political person, I have lived without insurance and wondered if I could ever retire for most of my life.  I have just felt the security of a middle-class position in this last year.  Of course I wouldn’t want to lose the wonderful benefits that my work offers but foremost I do not want to lose my voice in the collective bargaining process.  I know that this is my opinion and I deeply respect your right to your own views, but I feel it is my duty and privilege to share this information in whatever way I can.

Readings

On top of the protests, my Internet has been very unstable, making it very frustrating to get online to attend to my coursework.  Ok, back to work…

This week we read an article discussing the merit of the Constructivism as a beneficial methodology for online learning.  I couldn’t agree more.  Constructivism is defined in the article as “active construction of knowledge based on a learner’s prior experience” (p. 92)  In “E-learning and Constructivism: From Theory to Application“, Alex Koohang, et al outline three categories of Constructivism that help us to design meaningful activities/assignments for online learning.  The model discusses the importance of designing activities in a way that directly taps into the learner’s past experience and knowledge then sharing their knowledge with other learners in creative ways.  This leads to self and peer assessment as knowledge continues to build into a final assessment which is a product that incorporates all the learning through the course.  Our course has modeled this approach to a great extent and is one which I will strive to model.

The instructor’s role in this kind of a framework shifts from “sage on the stage” to one of facilitator and cybercoach.  In another reading, “Cybercoaching: Rubrics, Feedback and Metacognition, Oh My!“, Dr. Naomi Jeffery Petersen’s paper from an E.C. Moore Symposium workshop addresses cybercoaching as a way of “Putting Student Learning First” which was the topic of that symposium.  The kingpin of cybercoaching is the instructor’s ability to utilize technology to detect the need of the learner and render the assistance accordingly.  Timely, meaningful feedback, early and as often as necessary, supports the learner to reach the next steps in their learning.  Rubrics are an important tool to a cybercoach and can be used in various ways depending on the assessment.

Dr. Khalsa shared her reflections in “Reflections and consolidation of thought on online course design” which helps us as instructors and students to see the value in technology and multimedia as a means of engaging students in an online environment.

The content of these readings have been modeled in our course and give much food for thought as we prepare our final project, not to mention our own real courses.

Technology

We created a pre-course survey this week as a way to help us see the value of this kind of tool to inform our efforts to construct our course.  This survey helps us to tweak our course to best present the learning objectives in a package that engages students.

The survey I created is for a self-paced course on Blackboard designed for faculty. (still in process)

Please click here to take and/or comment on my survey

Thanks for checking in on my blog this week!

Week 5

Here are two videos illuminating the topics that we delved into this week.
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Interesting take on Bloom’s Taxonomy – effective visuals.

We worked on developing our Learning Objectives and Assessments within the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. I hope I’m improving. I’ve attached a .pdf document of my table at this point. The shaded area are the learning objectives I plan to use for the Final Project. I decided to submit the whole table for context.

Taxonomy_Table_mod5

Plagiarism
A short, simple insight into plagiarism and a basic, simple solution.

It’s mind-boggling how blatant plagiarism is. What do we do? How do we fundamentally change someone’s mind about cheating? We could be here for some time mulling over that issue. In terms of tools, I’ve used SafeAssign in Blackboard as a way to check student submissions as well as a means for students to check their own papers before submitting them for an assignment. SafeAssign, similar to Turnitin, is a building block available in Blackboard.

Follow this link for a wide variety of tools to detect plagiarism.

http://21cif.com/resources/links/plagiarism_links.html

Plagiarism in the News (NYTimes)

http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/p/plagiarism/index.html

Week 4

Midterm Project
This week our team continued with our mid-term project by collaborating on the actual delivery. “S” took charge and organized a chat session using the Chat function (in Desire2Learn, our CMS) after eliciting our available times during this week. Everyone showed up for the chat and we came up with a plan. Everyone delivered their work according to our commitments and Voila – Our Assessment Toolbox was born! Please click here to view Group 3’s Assessment Toolbox.

I volunteered to create some kind of website to showcase our work. I really enjoy tinkering.  I started with Jimdo but found out that I couldn’t display images easily (no HTML toggle functionality). So I went with WordPress again. My report was the most problematic and I was starting to panic as it was taking so long. Of course my skills are nothing to write home about, and there was probably an easier way, but I ended up (html coding) my report into a table to keep the images from floating off into space! Oh well. It was fun to know that, simple as that is relatively speaking, I could still do it. I’ve done a little coding here and there but I took classes almost 10 years ago!

Here are links to our colleagues work (all very impressive not to mention great for the toolbox!): Group 1, Group 2, Group 4

hmmmm, apparently you can insert images in Jimdo – oh well – sorry Group 3!

Learning Objectives
Learning Objectives continue to elude me. I’m still trying to hone mine down to one sentence. I’d better figure it out as it sounds like it’s part of the final – eek!

Readings
Our readings were about the shift of pedagogy in online learning, further supporting Dr. Bonk’s premise from last week. Roberta Furger, in Assessment for Understanding, writes about how assessment is not just an end of chapter (unit, week, etc) ritual but “a way of life” for students (and instructors) in some highly evolved schools across the country (though admittedly too few). Performance standards are transparent from the start, choices are available to help showcase students’ natural abilities as well as develop skills in areas that might be challenging. There was a lively discussion about just what constitutes “authentic” assessments from one group to another – which is a valid point. Without throwing the baby out with the bath water, it seems that if we keep our learning objectives in the forefront and commit to see how those objectives are mirrored in the real world, we will be able to find authentic assessments. Maybe not easily, and it may require a lot more work but, as Roberta Furger says, assessment really is a way of life in some ways.

Edutopia website offered acknowledgement that teaching online is different from teaching face-to-face and the Sloan Consortium offers reports on what is happening in online learning.

(Image above retrieved on 2/5/11 from http://community.imaginefx.com/forums/thread/182582.aspx – click on image to go the ImagineFX website to see some very cool imagery.)

Week 3

Readings
Dr. Curtis Bonk, Professor of Educational Psychology and Instructional Systems Technology at Indiana University
Though this article is six years old, Dr. Bonk very clearly describes the upcoming “The Perfect E-Storm” in which a plethora of technology, high learner demand, and the strains in pedagogy due to both, the need for enhanced methods, and the fallout from institutional. Dr. Bonk outlined 30 emerging technologies. It made me think about technology for technology sake and my colleagues and I had a great discussion on not only choosing appropriate technologies for our audiences but also creating learning communities in which we share expertise and resources with one another.

2010-Horizon-Report
A collaboration between New Media Consortium and EduCause – this is an ongoing research project on emerging trends in technology and the impact on teaching and learning.  The 2010 findings were similar to  Dr. Bonk’s “Perfect E-Storm” regarding the rise of technology and the strains or redirection necessary on both the pedagogical and institutional level.

Jigsaw Group Project
As we prepare for our midterm project of showcasing a multitude of Assessment tools we were assigned to groups. We will each outline a particular tool relative to certain criteria, combine our outlines, introduce, summarize and present the project.
The tool I chose to outline is VoiceThread. My dabbling (below) was my first experience with it and I do believe it can be a very valuable Web 2.0 communication, collaboration, and assessment tool. (stay tuned for the details)

Learning Objectives
Another task for this week was writing Learning Objectives. It sounds like a simple, straightforward task but I have an amazing ability of tripping myself up and stumbling over my own thoughts. You’ll see a mind-map of three learning objectives for the course I am designing (a Blackboard online, self-paced tutorial for instructors). The module will be on, guess what, VoiceThread. (click on the image for an enlarged version)

Learning Objectives, Activity and Assessment

Blogs, blogs and  more blogs!
For our convenience, our instructor created a wiki in which everyone in the class added the link to their blog.

Embedded Video – Got It!

Here is a video showing one way to embed a YouTube video in a WordPress blog.

Week 2 Reflection

I feel like I have  multiple personalities concerning blogging.

I read tech and learning blogs for work and have gleaned much valuable, interesting information and resources from them.  Yet, in my mind the term “Blog” renders a self aggrandizing individual with a lot of time.  How strange of me.    Of course, as one of our colleagues posted, a blog (or any tool) is only as good as its design.  That said, I hope to overcome this split in myself and, in fact, I can already see the perceived chasm closing.

Considering blogs as a tool for assessment requires clear understanding of what is being assessed, and why?  The instructor must be able to shift from master of the universe or sage on the stage to the leader hardly known (facilitator or coach).  Questions now lie in how to design effective blogs.  Should prompts be teacher centered or student centered or a combination of both?  What does the teacher/facilitator “do” with the posts and comments on the blog?  What do the students “do” with that information.  How to best collaborate with students around the design and use of a class blog?

Of course many have already figured this out (and please share!) but for me, as I begin this journey with blogs as or enhancing assessment, these questions (and many more I’m sure) will help me to frame my process…

I was hoping to embed this short video that I made with VoiceThread but it appears the best I can do in WordPress is this link.  When the window opens, click “close” for some upload image alert that appears, then just play the video.  Feel free to add a comment by clicking “Comment”, then if you have a internal/external mic, click “record”; otherwise, just click “type” to type in a comment.  If anyone knows how I can actually embed this, please let me know.  I clicked the “HTML” tab in edit mode and pasted the embed code from VoiceThread but all I get when I update is this link.

http://voicethread.com/book.swf?b=1673728

Week 1 Reflection

Module 1: Interviews, Wikis and Surveys – Oh My!

Our introduction to the course “Assessment in E-Learning” had us Interviewing a colleague in the class, contributing to a wiki on “Netiquette Guidelines” and participating in a “pre-course” survey.  These were very engaging and meaningful exercises.  In our discusussions we discussed the use of these tools for assessment as well as benefits and challenges associated with them.

My prior experience with these tools has been to utilize surveys, (mostly through Survey Monkey) in my position, to determine how the Teaching Learning Center can be the most productive as well as to determine which workshop offerings are most meaningful for instructors. However I’ve also created surveys for instructors to use at mid-term and end-of-year evaluations.

I’ve used a pbworks wiki as a community wiki for a “Rite of Passage” experiential weekend I organize and help to facilitate for high school students at an alternative high school.  The wiki serves as a one-stop-shop with all information about the weekend and the facilitators, for parents’ benefit, as well as a place to sign-up for volunteer opportunities and conduct brainstorming sessions for last minute hurdles.

I realized that I haven’t conducted many interviews and I see that I need to work on my skills (or lack thereof) to elicit high level information.  Click here to view the Interview as conducted through email.

Our readings gave us a view of the history of assessment which by and large elicited rote return on investment.  If we couldn’t memorize facts and write down the instructor’s presentation on the content, then the assessment showed that we hadn’t learned anything.  From there our readings outlined some current trends which are calling for forms of assessment for learning as a means to an end to help inform and guide learning.  The readings also offered the reason for these trends describing how current research  states that we actually  construct our knowledge through active participation. Therefore, as we learned this week, utilizing more collaborative tools such as wikis to collaboratively construct knowledge, giving surveys to assess learning and utilizing interviews for student engagement and ownership can be powerful and meaningful tools in our alternative assessment kit.

As usual my colleagues are all very interesting and open, willing to share their loads of experience.

Hello World!

Here goes!  This is the start to my blogging experience.  I’m working on a graduate certificate at the University of Wisconsin – Stout in E-Learning.  My blogs will be in relation to that program, at least to start.  Stay tuned for  my reflections on Week 1!