http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/06/01/makin

Konrad Golowski has a long post about assessing students - and in particular getting them to assess themselves. He makes the point:

Of course, the challenge with student self-evaluation is that many, when given an opportunity to give themselves a grade, are often too harsh on themselves. Others, on the other hand, sometimes choose not to take the task seriously and give themselves an A+. I realized that I needed to help them visualize their progress, their level of engagement, and their sense of ownership and not simply ask them to rate their own work using the traditional percentage or letter scale. Most importantly, I wanted them to see that an entry that contains lots of facts and links to many valuable resources is not necessarily as valuable as one that shows personal engagement with ideas, one where the readers can hear a unique, personal voice.

He then has a number of diagrams that he’s created to help students see where they are. Given the difficulty that I have had getting students to self assess, I think I’m going to have a closer look at them.

On Monday, we’ve got the next ExPERT centre Network Learning Lunch - meetings for University staff to discuss Teaching & Learning matters. As it’s on assessment - I think that this could be a useful set of diagrams to take.

Listen to this podcast

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/06/01/makin

Konrad Golowski has a long post about assessing students - and in particular getting them to assess themselves. He makes the point:

Of course, the challenge with student self-evaluation is that many, when given an opportunity to give themselves a grade, are often too harsh on themselves. Others, on the other hand, sometimes choose not to take the task seriously and give themselves an A+. I realized that I needed to help them visualize their progress, their level of engagement, and their sense of ownership and not simply ask them to rate their own work using the traditional percentage or letter scale. Most importantly, I wanted them to see that an entry that contains lots of facts and links to many valuable resources is not necessarily as valuable as one that shows personal engagement with ideas, one where the readers can hear a unique, personal voice.

He then has a number of diagrams that he’s created to help students see where they are. Given the difficulty that I have had getting students to self assess, I think I’m going to have a closer look at them.

On Monday, we’ve got the next ExPERT centre Network Learning Lunch - meetings for University staff to discuss Teaching & Learning matters. As it’s on assessment - I think that this could be a useful set of diagrams to take.

Listen to this podcast

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/06/07/logo-

logothings: A wiki about the History of Logo. It’s got some 1980s video of children using turtles, as well as links to other aspects of the history of logo.

Via: Stephen Downes

Listen to this podcast

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/06/07/secon

Aleks Krotoski writes in The Guardian about the forthcoming voice in Second Life.

Pro-voicers, represented by the large education community, offline businesses and the in-world sex industry, welcome this change, seeing it as the next step for the platform. Anti-voicers, represented by community groups and old-timers, view this as another example of Linden Lab ignoring the needs of its population in favour of commercial interests.

By her definition I ought to be Pro-voice (Education, please, not the sex industry), however, I’m not sure. There are several issues some that would be a “yes” for voice, some that would be a “no”.

So, we have dyslexic students / those with RSI / those who are slow typists, for whom voice will be a benefit. We also have those with hearing problems who won’t find it that useful at all.

It’s easy to grab the text-chat after a class, and make it available to students - but if it’s voice, then we can still capture it, but transcribing it isn’t going to be easy & most speech to text isnt’ that good. It will be much harder to “skim” what’s gone on.

For non native speakers, there’s a different issue. My feeling (not that I’m a great linguist), is that reading is often easier than listening (you can miss out words/ go back & guess the actual meaning), but talking is easier than writing. So, what’s going to be best for students. Focussing on the knowledge acquisition - which will probably mean text, or on the sharing, while might well indicate voice.

Text based chat also makes it quick to catch up if you get distracted from the session - but, on the other hand, you shouldn’t be getting distracted when teaching/learning face to face, so what right have you to get distracted while teaching/learning online?

Clearly, as group sizes increase, some form of turn taking/ indicating a need to speak is going to have to be implemented - just as it is in a face to face class.

So, I’m going to see what it’s like when it arrives, but won’t be dashing off to join in straight away. Most likely, I’ll attend sessions & listen, but type my comments (the complete opposite of what I’m guessing that non-native speakers will want to do!)

Listen to this podcast

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/06/26/e-lea

Richard Macmanus gives an overview of e-learning. Though the title is “e-learning2.0″ - he does also mention tools like Blackboard - and is fairly dismissive, seeing them as clunky, and offering tools that not all students and teachers want.

While I agree that the traditional VLEs can be clunky, I’m not sure that I’d agree with the argument that not all students and teachers want all the tools. If we look at, say, Facebook - will everyone use all the tools that are available in it? For example, he mentions that Elgg gives the students control over who sees what. It’s something I also think is a strength of Elgg. But, I wonder how many students really make good use of that feature. I know that I don’t. In my main blog, I’ve got everything as public; in part that’s due to the fact that the posts are imported from this blog - which is public.

I also use Elgg to occasionally post things that are just for my students - when I’ll restrict them just to the group. That, though, is more often than not, a reminder about an event or change of session. Do students really make use of the flexibility - or not. If they don’t, then is that any different from having a feature in a traditional VLE that’s not used…

Listen to this podcast

http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2007/06/27/techn

I’ve just given an overview of the way I’ve been using blogs with students - showing examples of several of the blogs that I’ve had over the years.

• Blogger


• Blogging IT and EDucation - a WordPress powered blog hosted on the Tech server


• EduSpaces - powered by Elgg, allowing me to import the posts I have on the tech server, and also to create communities of students. Gives the students lots of control over who can see their posts.


• Elgg Spaces. Also powered by Elgg, but can create small setups. Used by a group of Digital Media students. Most of their posts are private to the group.


• Facebook: This is just the home page - you’ll have to create an account to see it. A search for “University of Portsmouth” showed 175 groups last week, 221 last night, and 250 in the actual session.

I also showed staff a diagram created by Terry Anderson:

He’d used it to show a route that staff could take from the safety of a VLE, to using Elgg.

I’ve adapted it (the red arrow) to show what can be done with CurveRider’s WebCT Elgg link… - which is something I’d like to see implemented.

Blogged with Flock

Listen to this podcast

The server where my "Main" blog is hosted is off line at the moment - I hope that it's backup soon; meanwhile this will have to be my main location.