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A recent webinar brought to mind again the importance of measuring learning. That’s a given in most professional workplaces, where the return on investment (ROI) has to be measured and justified to support the funding. Dr. Patti Phillips’ “Show me the Money: How to Determine the ROI in People, Projects and Programs” (part of the Provocative Ideas Free Webinars) discussed some of the ROI methodology (as developed by Jack Phillips developed in the early 1970s).
To ...
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“Teaching with Online Games” Webinar with Dr. David Gibson
I’d never taken part in a truly global webinar. Most of the ones I attend are local…or only have the occasional person tapping in from a few other locales. Then, I attended Dr. Gibson’s “Teaching with Online Games,” and as a warm-up to the actual presentation, the facilitator asked participants to indicate their locations on a virtual map. She turned on that annotation tool in Elluminate, and the ...
Continue reading "Teaching with Online Games" Webinar with Dr. David Gibson
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Two faculty from unrelated fields (audiology and interior design) recently presented on how their respective programs use assessment plans. Both concur that assessment is generally just “good practice.” Within the general push to encourage assessments, programs have flexibility and may focus on different aspects to build in different years.
Both faculty are from fields with external accrediting agencies, which focus on the building of knowledge and skills in learners, and their feedback has enhanced the functioning of both programs. Audiology ...
Continue reading Completing an Assessment Plan: Two Programs (Part II)
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Our campus has an assessment conference earlier this month. The main message to faculty and administrators was the importance of assessing inputs and learning outcomes.
This endeavor is encouraged in part because of the upcoming accreditation visit for the university in a few more years, but program assessment has continuing value—to study and measure academic achievements, student learning, and even coincidental learning. This knowledge is not just for in-house use but for the requirement to publicly account for the ...
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A colleague generously set up a campus tour for me, and during this tour, we visited a state-of-the-art e-learning lab.
The lab itself looked like any other set of academic offices, with a mixture of computers, papers and books….and students…and comfortable furniture. We all crowded into a small meeting room to see some of the work of this office (which has a strong track record of federal educational grant funding as well ...
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Part of elearning course design involves thinking about the learners and their needs. This is not only a matter of pedagogical necessity but also financial and bureaucratic protectionism. I've been on projects where this wasn't explicitly considered until the modules for the course were fully built. In that case, the assessments had to be redesigned to fit the needs of the accrediting agency. Now that another project with accreditation needs has just started, it seems like a good ...
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Those who nose around graduate school and academia will run up against a computerized locked-down lab for true assessments / testing.
A locked down computer lab is one that does not allow for Web surfing. It is password protected in terms of entry. It captures learner inputs and makes them available to the instructors. It disallows the saving of information on the desktop. It's used for doctoral comprehensives, masters comps, and any range of strict tests.
Those who have the ...
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Our small team had driven two hours to take part in an educational Web conference, which drew people from neighboring states. The publicity for this event had been pretty unrelenting and positive. The conference was featuring two nationally known authors in the elearning field. They were the authors of numerous accessible and reader-friendly texts. They somehow managed to capture meta-analysis data about various aspects of elearning and then to simplify the concepts into texts that people from various backgrounds could ...
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As a seasoned college instructor, I've had a fair amount of experience dealing with "grade hounds." Grade hounds are those learners who focus a lot on their formal grade. That's not a negative in and of itself. That gives an instructor some leverage in the teaching and learning / learner motivation department. Where grade hounds get a little exasperating is when they do some of the following things.
They'll wait until their peers have ...
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Scott Edwards (of Outstart) presented on "Why your LCMS should be PENS Enabled" at the Jan. - Feb. 2007 SALT conference in Orlando. -His presentation addressed why the standard "package exchange notification services" (PENS) standard should be integrated into an LCMS or LMS. PENS is an AICC and SCORM-supported specification. PENS allows for the automating of the process of content publication, transportation, and messaging between servers hosting LCMSes, LMSes, and data repositories. PENS allows not only for the transfer but the ...
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e-portfolios has been a term used for various digital compendiums of learner work. There are various software programs for the compilation of such portfolios. Others simply use websites and some back-end basic programming.
The idea is that learners need to "think" with artifacts that convey their thoughts coherently---mixing words, images, sound, and even video. There should be a clear sense of audience and purpose in these portfolios. To be deployed well ...
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Thomas A. Angelo and K. Patricia Cross's Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers (2nd Edition), Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1993) has survived all these years because of solid research methodology and usefulness. Their ideas apply to online applications.
These authors differentiate between the different types of information one may want to know about learners, and then they offer unique insights about the different types of measures. Their book is a must-have for an ID's library.
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So Angelo and Cross (1993) have some essential questions for instructors to consider before they build an assessment.
Begin with "What do you want to know? Is it assessable?" Consider, "What's the best way to surface this information with the most efficient use of both student and faculty time?" Consider, "What is the most fair, objective and efficient way to gain this information?" Consider, "How will I use this information to enhance student learning? Will this assessment benefit student ...
Continue reading Initial Points to Consider in Creating Online Assessments