Question the model
Posted by: ashleytan on: November 27, 2009
It’s almost the end of a long teaching semester. For reasons too long and boring to mention, some of my colleagues and I had to start next semester’s teaching this semester.
The two things that usually happen at the semester’s end are I fall ill and I think about what to do next. So I type now before the flu completely takes over!
One thing that doesn’t usually happen at the end of semester is a huge grading load to process during the break and before the second half of the course resumes next year. This is why I found Siemen’s recent comments on grading and evaluation particularly relevant. Some snippets:
Grading is a waste of time. We only do it in schools and universities. It’s a sorting technique, not truly an evaluation technique. Iterative and formative feedback is what’s really required for learning.
Agreed! Our teacher education university is still in sorting mode but for reasons that are no longer relevant. Why? First, they are selected by interviews (coarse sorting). Second, a few bad apples that beat this filter or the trainees who cannot handle teaching will drop out on their own (self sorting). Third, the sorting is only based on academic results. If anyone wants to sort them out, do so along the lines of their values and attitudes because they must be role models and lifelong learners (yes, values and attitudes can be measured). Lastly, even after they are sorted, teacher trainees graduate and end up in schools irrespective of their grades. It is not as if A-grade teachers end up in some schools and C-grade teachers end up in another. So why sort at all?
Siemens concludes with:
The authors of the HASTAC post are not trying to do away with grading (as I would suggest we should). They are trying to use technology to make grading more “modern” or “in line” with society’s needs today. I think that’s exactly the wrong way to go about it. Question the model, don’t modernize it.
Thought-provoking and something I thoroughly agree with. If you consider the concepts of assessment of, for and as learning, I’d argue that most of what we do is, at best, only assessment of learning. Furthermore, assessment is just a number. Unlike evaluation, the value of that number is not made clear.
So what’s on my agenda? This year my guiding principle as I facilitated the ICT course was to get my teacher trainees to use what their students were already using in terms of technology. Next year my approach will likely be “question the model, don’t modernize it”.
Different media…
Posted by: ashleytan on: November 26, 2009
Google Forms quiz
Posted by: ashleytan on: November 24, 2009
So far my EdPsych2 classes have been using Google Docs as a platform for collaboratively written articles, personal notes and activity templates. We have also used Google Presentations for (duh!) presentations, and Google Forms and Spreadsheets for surveys and class administration. Everything has been “held together” by a class wiki hosted by Google Sites.
The going has been good so far, so good that I am tempted to jump ship from PBworks. I like how well integrated elements like YouTube and Picasa are with Google Sites (they are Google’s after all). There is less lag with Google than with PBworks. But I long for page-level access control (admin, editor, writer, reader) and more templates to jazz up wikis or forms. In the latter case, a Sites-hosted wiki looks like a boxy, cream-coloured PC while PBworks looks more like a curvy Mac.
But I digress…
This week’s content, Managing Teaching and Learning Activities, is heavy and I have opted to refrain from lecturing. Instead I set up four learning stations, designed a Google Doc template for note taking and created a self-checking quiz with Google Forms. I learned how to do the last one by visiting http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cjXeqwnDe.
To clarify, the self-checking quiz is one that checks the answers, scores each answer and totals the marks. It does not help quiz takers check their answers. But it does help me see who has taken the quiz, who got which answers right or wrong, and what their final scores are.
Tools aside, the rationle for including the quiz at the end stems from the fact that learners might wander from station to station and still not learn anything. I want my teacher trainees to see the forest (activity management) and the trees (specific management strategies).
The big picture is that the lesson is designed to model some aspects activity management. It’s easy to see that forest. But they must also know the different trees that make up the forest in order to appreciate it or find their way about. The quiz (name that tree!) is a means to that end. It is just another management strategy to promote learning.
But whether they do well or not in the quiz is immaterial. I believe that teachers teach the way they are taught. So I try to use different strategies every week.
Typically I discuss technology-mediated strategies with my trainees during my ICT course, but as the content and emphasis are different in EP2, I have not done this so far. Perhaps I should find a way to work these in overtly rather than covertly…
PowerPoint tongue-in-cheek
Posted by: ashleytan on: November 20, 2009
A light-hearted but critical look at PowerPoint.
But really, it’s not just the fault of PowerPoint. We don’t blame the just the car for killing someone. Look at who’s driving and how.
Cloud computing
Posted by: ashleytan on: November 19, 2009
CommonCraft released a video last week to explain cloud computing. It’s presented well (as most of their videos are) but it is from a business perspective.
A teacher might look at it and not know how cloud computing applies in education. If teachers jump on the Google Ed Apps bandwagon, they might experience this for themselves.
They can collaborate via shared documents and databases. They can co-plan lessons and co-build resources. They can create not just learning content but more importantly learning experiences for their students. They can do all this for free and with tools that are easy to learn.
If you are reading this and an educator, I encourage you to spread your wings and join us in the clouds…
Pushing the envelope
Posted by: ashleytan on: November 18, 2009
When I read the BBC news article Great writers ‘fail’ online test, I was not surprised. Why? Two reasons.
First, one of the writing samples was actually a speech. Writing for a speech is not the same as writing for print. Yes, you are writing a speech, but not for someone to read like a book. The words don’t leap out of the medium the same way when they are delivered by the speaker.
Second, technology cannot (yet) replace complex human judgment, emotion and subjective interpretation. While this might have been a case of pushing the limits of technology, I also thought that this was using technology when it did not fit the situation.
Do educators make the same mistake when pushing the envelope with technology? Sure we do. But the harm is not in trying. The harm is in providing fuel for the naysayers to say “I told you so!”
But to the naysayers I reply:
Or as James Arthur Baldwin originally put it: Those who say it can’t be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.
No one knows everything, but everyone knows something
Posted by: ashleytan on: November 17, 2009
That was my favourite quote from Polivka’s recent blog entry. Simple but true.
Call it what you will, crowdsourcing or the wisdom of crowds, it is here to stay and evolve. Information, knowledge and power lie not only in the Internet, but also in the people and the connections between people that network via the Internet.
As usual, the education world is among the last to acknowledge it. Never a day goes by when an RSS feed lets me know of some organisation or other using the 2.0 moniker. For example, the National Computing Centre in the UK has an article on how Web 2.0 has changed the face of education. It’s not a recent article, but it is practically a template for educational institutions who are trying to adapt to Web 2.0.
But I want to go beyond creating awareness. I am a matchmaker and I work towards educators embracing it!
Shoutmix
Posted by: ashleytan on: November 14, 2009
I am experimenting with a shoutbox (from ShoutMix) in the EdPsych2 wiki that I maintain.
Screenshot of my EP2 shoutbox
Shoutboxes seem to used by Website owners to interact with visitors, for regular visitors of that site to “shout out” to other regulars, and in commercial sites for customer service and feedback. Basically its use revolves around a simple communication interface that does not require users to use email or install an instant messaging (IM) client.
My planned uses for the shoutbox are for: 1) trainee reflection at the end of class (or outside class), 2) quick announcements or notifications, and 3) IM style communications during e-learning week.
I have started the ball rolling with the first two efforts. The first is a modification of the one-minute paper technique. I value post-lesson reflections, but instead of requiring my trainees to maintain blogs (like I normally do for the ICT course), I ask them to share their “take home” messages SMS-style. The second is an attempt to provide links to current resources like online news articles.
It’s too early to say if the first effort is worthwhile. Both my trainees and I can see what the others are saying and thinking, but they have been at it for just two sessions. I think the habit and value of reflecting concisely will take some time to sink in. I have also not yet used other one-minute paper strategies, so they have not experienced the different ways of using the platform to its fullest.
But I already know that the shoutbox is not a good place for announcements. The item that I share scrolls away as soon as a few participants use the shoutbox. That is why I have a separate “Announcements” page and an “In the Media” page in the wiki.
I’ll have more information as the weeks go by and after I conduct a survey using Google Forms to get feedback mid-course.
