This week in my Leading Edge Certification course, we learned about assessment in the online and blended environment. I was reminded of a blog post by Will Richardson in which he states, We define an “education” by what we assess, which in turn defines the value (or lack of value) of this thing we call “school.” One of the complaints many critics have about high stakes testing is that teachers tend to offer instruction mainly on what will be on the state exam, which in turn narrows the curriculum to what can be tested on a multiple choice test. Using Web 2.0 tools as part of online and blended courses offers us the opportunity to assess a broader set of knowledge and skills which in turn helps us to value a broader range of knowledge and skills.
We first looked at formative assessment, those assessments that provide quick feedback to both the teacher and student on the student's progress towards learning objectives. One important consideration in creating formative assessments for an online or blended course is that the student get timely feedback and that the teacher do something with the results (as suggested in this blog post by Harry Tuttle). Formative assessments are often automated in an LMS so that the student can get instant feedback. Teachers in blended courses can also use systems such as Google forms to generate immediate responses using add on tools like Flubaroo. All of these assessments are best for testing the lower levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.
Teachers can also use threaded discussions or products developed in Web 2.0 tools for formative assessment, but the teacher must consider how he or she will assess the results. We learned about a lot of resources for developing rubrics for this purpose. This page by Kathy Schrock is my favorite. Formative assessments using these tools are better for the higher levels of Bloom's.
Teachers can also think in new ways about summative assessments. For a final exam, the teacher can enter many more questions than needed into a LMS and have the LMS generate tests with randomly selected questions. For more complex assessments, students can upload essays or projects to a "digital dropbox". One consideration I see for teachers in dealing with this kind of summative assessment is the need to have good tools for retrieving, viewing, and annotating final projects. Also, having students create complex performance assessments as a summative assessment requires a lot of thought in creating the assessment tool. It was easy to think of an idea for a summative assessment for the class project, but much more difficult to think about how it would be graded fairly. If a teacher is using performance assessment, I feel that the formative assessments need to be carefully monitored to ensure the student is ready for the performance assessment before the student puts time and effort into its development.
I addition the above considerations, as I implement assessment in online and blended courses, I feel I need to remain thoughtful that assessments reflect what I value in the course. My assessments should reflect both the content and the thinking skills that are most important to the domain I am teaching. It's easy for me to get excited about all the online tools available, but I still need to consider the "best fit" for my objectives and not just the "WOW factor" of the tool.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Friday, July 13, 2012
Developing a Professional Network
I started developing a professional learning network (PLN) in February 2012 after going to the California League of Schools technology conference. Connecting with educators across the world has helped me tremendously in learning how to use technology effectively with students. I follow about forty educators on Twitter and about the same number of blogs using Google Reader and an app called Feedly. I also have a Google+ account where I follow about forty educators. Here's an example of my Twitter feed from the conference I went to recently:
I don't read all of these resources every day but I usually look at at least one a day. I look for posts about topics of special interest to me like using iPads in the classroom, but I also enjoy reading about big ideas in education. I occasionally post questions when I need help and I share great resources when I find them.
In one way all these sources of information can distract me from spending time actually doing something when there's so much to read about! I've been trying to use this blog as a way of taking my PLN to the next level of producing information that others can learn from.
I think my students have some of the same basic challenges I do of participating and not just consuming information online. We also share the challenge of how to become a part of that community-- how to figure out what we have to say that's worth saying.
There are several ways I might support students in using the Internet as a personal learning space. First, I might model how I use my own PLN. Second, I can teach students how to do effective searches so that they can find people who share their passions and interests. I can show them how to notice the links to Twitter or Google+ on a website and demonstrate how to connect with others using various social networks. Finally, I can encourage students to participate by contributing ideas to the stream.
Google Apps for Education Conference Day 2
I decided to continue to learn everything I could about using Google apps for creating a LMS. I went to four good sessions and I feel like I now have a pretty complete picture of how to do almost everything except threaded discussions. Daniel Russell presented the keynote for the day on what it meant to be literate in the age of Google, which was great!
My first talk was by Tim Welch called Google Classroom for Higher Ed. His notes are here. Basically, Tim put together an empty shell of a site for his college level course and had students research and contribute to create the textbook as they went. I learned a lot about setting permissions and organizing folders from Tim's presentation.
The second session I went to was 25+ Ways to Use Google Tools for Online and Blended Learning by Chris Bell. You can find his notes here. This was probably one of the best sessions I went to at the conference. He really had a lot of practical ideas for every Google Tool and you could tell that he had a great deal of experience working with kids. He had some great hints, like submitting math homework by inserting an image from the camera on your computer of the handwritten work. He also showed us how to set up "office hours" on Google Docs so that we could have students select and schedule appointment times.
My third session was Forms Plus Site Gadgets by Roni Habib. His notes can be found here. The most important gadget he talked about was iFrame, which allows you to embed an outside site in a "frame" into your Google Site so students can access other sites right from your class home page.
Lastly, I went to Teaching to the Common Core Standards Made Easy with Google Apps by Catlin Tucker. You can see her notes here. Catlin brought a lot of enthusiasm to the last session of the day and it was encouraging to hear her speak of the Common Core with such a positive vibe. She shared a number of ways to use Google Docs to teach language arts. Most could be shared docs that you link to in a Google Site.
I feel like I left the conference with a much stronger picture of how Google apps could be used to support learning. It was great to be at the conference with colleagues from my school and be able to talk to one another about our sessions.
My first talk was by Tim Welch called Google Classroom for Higher Ed. His notes are here. Basically, Tim put together an empty shell of a site for his college level course and had students research and contribute to create the textbook as they went. I learned a lot about setting permissions and organizing folders from Tim's presentation.
The second session I went to was 25+ Ways to Use Google Tools for Online and Blended Learning by Chris Bell. You can find his notes here. This was probably one of the best sessions I went to at the conference. He really had a lot of practical ideas for every Google Tool and you could tell that he had a great deal of experience working with kids. He had some great hints, like submitting math homework by inserting an image from the camera on your computer of the handwritten work. He also showed us how to set up "office hours" on Google Docs so that we could have students select and schedule appointment times.
My third session was Forms Plus Site Gadgets by Roni Habib. His notes can be found here. The most important gadget he talked about was iFrame, which allows you to embed an outside site in a "frame" into your Google Site so students can access other sites right from your class home page.
Lastly, I went to Teaching to the Common Core Standards Made Easy with Google Apps by Catlin Tucker. You can see her notes here. Catlin brought a lot of enthusiasm to the last session of the day and it was encouraging to hear her speak of the Common Core with such a positive vibe. She shared a number of ways to use Google Docs to teach language arts. Most could be shared docs that you link to in a Google Site.
I feel like I left the conference with a much stronger picture of how Google apps could be used to support learning. It was great to be at the conference with colleagues from my school and be able to talk to one another about our sessions.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Google Apps for Education California Summit
I'm at the Google Apps for Education conference and just had a great first day. I feel like almost all the talks I went to have been just about at my level. I've used several of the Google apps for simple projects and so this is building on my prior knowledge. Today, my goal was to figure out if the Google Suite could replace an LMS in our school. We are mostly ungraded, so the emphasis on grades in commercial LMS environments is unappealing to us. In addition, we've been experimenting with various Google tools and this would take us to the next level.
Today I started out with Lisa Highfill who gave a talk called Using Blogger and Google Apps to Revitalize Your Reader's Workshop. It was a great start for my day because she modeled a lot of good ideas for slowly integrating these tools. You can see her links here.
Next I went to Brian Van Dyck's talk called Google Sites One Stop Lesson Shop. This was basically how to put all your lessons online as a Google Site and have places for kids to upload their files. I gleaned a lot from the example site he showed us, but I wish he had gone into more specifics of how to build it from the ground up. You can see his slides here. There's a good set of tutorials for Google Sites.
After lunch, I went to Kate Cheal's Google Flip Packs talk. I really liked the format she used which I think has the right balance of information and interactivity. Instead of just watching videos as homework, she has kids responding to the videos on Google Forms and she puts everything together in the nice five slide presentations. You can see her slides here.
Finally, I went to Mark Wagner's talk on Google Docs for Educators. I really like how Mark gives lots of practical how-to's. His notes are here.
By the end of the day, I found I was convinced that Google could do almost everything I wanted except threaded discussions. Lisa Highfill solves this problem by replying to students' initial online response in class or by using Edmodo for threaded discussions. I felt that Brian's and Kate's talks provided a suggested structure for integrating various tools into a site or presentation respectively.
Now to plan what I want to learn tomorrow!
Today I started out with Lisa Highfill who gave a talk called Using Blogger and Google Apps to Revitalize Your Reader's Workshop. It was a great start for my day because she modeled a lot of good ideas for slowly integrating these tools. You can see her links here.
Next I went to Brian Van Dyck's talk called Google Sites One Stop Lesson Shop. This was basically how to put all your lessons online as a Google Site and have places for kids to upload their files. I gleaned a lot from the example site he showed us, but I wish he had gone into more specifics of how to build it from the ground up. You can see his slides here. There's a good set of tutorials for Google Sites.
After lunch, I went to Kate Cheal's Google Flip Packs talk. I really liked the format she used which I think has the right balance of information and interactivity. Instead of just watching videos as homework, she has kids responding to the videos on Google Forms and she puts everything together in the nice five slide presentations. You can see her slides here.
Finally, I went to Mark Wagner's talk on Google Docs for Educators. I really like how Mark gives lots of practical how-to's. His notes are here.
By the end of the day, I found I was convinced that Google could do almost everything I wanted except threaded discussions. Lisa Highfill solves this problem by replying to students' initial online response in class or by using Edmodo for threaded discussions. I felt that Brian's and Kate's talks provided a suggested structure for integrating various tools into a site or presentation respectively.
Now to plan what I want to learn tomorrow!
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Example of using Web 2.0 Tools
This week we have been exploring various Web 2.0 tools, defined at tools that allow users to "create and share content online" (Module Three textbook, pg. 4). Here is an example of how I might use a Web 2.0 tool in the K-2 classroom I taught in last year. This lesson idea doesn't include a formal out of class component as the students are fairly young.
Our Learning Objective would come from the creating and applying levels of Blooms Taxonomy: Students will create comic strips that illustrate how to respond respectfully to other students when working in small groups.
We'll start out by reading the book How to Be a Friend by Marc Brown. In small groups the students will think of various problems that happen when we work in groups and how we might "be a friend" and solve the problem. Students will start out by acting out small skits for each other with a problem and solution. We'll then work in the same small groups with a teacher or parent helper to go to Make Beliefs Comix to create three or four panel comic strips with a problem that might happen between students during group time and a solution. This tool doesn't require any kind of login, so it will be easy to access and use from any computer. Each group will email their comic strip to my email account so that I can print them out to make a class book.
Students should look through all the possible characters and items as they try to decide what problem to show in their comic. The helper might want to have students take turns adding components to each panel but assist with spelling and typing as needed. We may even want to print the comics out or take a screen shop in case the email sending doesn't work for some reason. To minimize potential frustration, I would want the helpers to be familiar with the tools that allow items to be resized, flipped, etc. I could also send the URL for Make Beliefs home with students in case they want to try making their own comics at home.
Here is an example of the kind of comic we might create:
http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Comix/?comix_id=11058621C754791
Our Learning Objective would come from the creating and applying levels of Blooms Taxonomy: Students will create comic strips that illustrate how to respond respectfully to other students when working in small groups.
We'll start out by reading the book How to Be a Friend by Marc Brown. In small groups the students will think of various problems that happen when we work in groups and how we might "be a friend" and solve the problem. Students will start out by acting out small skits for each other with a problem and solution. We'll then work in the same small groups with a teacher or parent helper to go to Make Beliefs Comix to create three or four panel comic strips with a problem that might happen between students during group time and a solution. This tool doesn't require any kind of login, so it will be easy to access and use from any computer. Each group will email their comic strip to my email account so that I can print them out to make a class book.
Students should look through all the possible characters and items as they try to decide what problem to show in their comic. The helper might want to have students take turns adding components to each panel but assist with spelling and typing as needed. We may even want to print the comics out or take a screen shop in case the email sending doesn't work for some reason. To minimize potential frustration, I would want the helpers to be familiar with the tools that allow items to be resized, flipped, etc. I could also send the URL for Make Beliefs home with students in case they want to try making their own comics at home.
Here is an example of the kind of comic we might create:
http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Comix/?comix_id=11058621C754791
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