So, does this qualify as a Learning Object?
What do you think?


The Higgs Boson explained – PHD comics

New tools tutorials...

This week in class, a couple of us commented on the notion that it would be really useful to have a list of online tools with accompanying tutorials. Today I found something to add to that discussion: the eduTecherTV channel on YouTube. His video tutorials are well-done: short, well-paced, and clearly illustrated. Watch one of these and then off you go to try your hand at using the tool. 


Some of eduTecherTv's work:
popplet

Wall Wisher

Museum Box

(click on image to enlarge)

Ahh, yes! I could be at home in this book. What you see here is a wordle based on some of the topics I found in Char Booth's new book Reflective Teaching, Effective Learning: Instructional Literacy for Library Educators.

It was the "Reflective" in the title that first caught my eye. There are lots of connections here with my current coursework in the Assessment in E-Learning course. Since I don't teach an online or hybrid class right now and I don't have an ongoing class on the horizon, it's sometimes difficult for me to connect personally with the discussions and readings.

I'm reading this book with my current coursework as a great, informative lense. I love when worlds collide in a good way!

Even if you don't work in Library Land, I think you would find this an interesting read:

Booth, Char. Reflective Teaching, Effective Learning: Instructional Literacy for Library Educators. Chicago: American Library Association, 2011. Print.

Finding and posting videos and assessment stories

I wanted to find and then post here a video of Grant Wiggins discussing his Understanding by Design. I wanted to hear his theories in his own voice, thinking that would add an extra dimension to the PowerPoint slides we viewed during class last week. Unfortunately, it's not possible to embed his videos here. You can view them by searching for "Grant Wiggins" in YouTube.

I decided to look further for videos about assessment for learning. I wanted to find another way of understanding the concept as well as practice the skill of embedding a video on a blog. That's how I found Ramona Pierson's story.

Ramona Pierson has a remarkable personal story of triumph and recovery after a horrific accident. Now, she is creating algorithms for matching students and their learning needs. I came across her TED talks while I was looking for something else. How often does this happen on the web?

I'm most impressed with her recovery following an 18 month coma and a long period of being unable to see or talk. A number of academic degrees later (including two doctorates!), she wants to revolutionize education. She aims to invent ways to deliver exactly what a student needs in order to learn. It's a prescriptive approach, but she doesn't describe exactly how the students' needs will be discovered/diagnosed.

She's a driven, inspiring thinker, but her methods don't seem to fit in the picture of alternative assessment that we've been studying. What do you think?

Data Visualisation: a new favorite site

During the first module of this course, we read about a variety of technology tools that might be used for assessing online learning. There are a number of tools available for creating visual presentations of concepts or data. Some tools have become so well known that they are now part of nearly everyone's electronic landscape: Flickr, Google Earth, Google Maps, et. al.

Last week I read about a number of visualisation tools that were new to me. Unfortunately, there just isn't enough time to explore new tools in depth during a fast-moving course. One tool that I definitely want to explore further is VUE (Visual Understanding Environment).

Designed at Tufts University, VUE is a fascinating concept-mapping tool. I'm especially interested in returning to the site in order to finish reading Chris Ray's "Notes vs. Maps" account. Ray began using VUE as an alternative to taking as many as ten pages of notes during one class session. Constructing visualisations of our data is one way of presenting what we have learned or what we understand in new ways. Students learn through the construction process; teachers learn about where the student is in his/her learning; peers are given a tool for increased understanding of a topic.

Here's a link to Chris Ray's "Notes v. Maps: Trading Quantity for Quality"

The site I'll be returning to in order to download and experiment with VUE is: Visual Understanding Environment

The blogging begins

Greetings!
Welcome to my blog where I will be reflecting on my learning during this course called Assessment of Student Learning in the Online Classroom. For a period of eight weeks, I will be joining a number of other curious and adventurous souls in our journey to study, practice, and reflect upon methods of assessment in the world of online teaching and learning.