First in a new series of short vidcasts (is that the right word?). In this one I talk about the idea of ‘rich surveys’. Puzzled? What to know more? Just watch the video. It is about 5 minutes long.
This story from thestar.com in Canada shows just why we need to tackle issues over assessment (thanks to Cristina Costa for forwarding). Ryerson University is threatening to expel a student for administering an on-line study group.
“First-year student Chris Avenir is fighting charges of academic misconduct for helping run an online chemistry study group via Facebook last term, where 146 classmates swapped tips on homework questions that counted for 10 per cent of their mark.
The computer engineering student has been charged with one count of academic misconduct for helping run the group – called Dungeons/Mastering Chemistry Solutions after the popular Ryerson basement study room engineering students dub The Dungeon – and another 146 counts, one for each classmate who used the site.
Avenir, 18, faces an expulsion hearing Tuesday before the engineering faculty appeals committee. If he loses that appeal, he can take his case to the university’s senate.
The incident has sent shock waves through student ranks, says Kim Neale, 26, the student union’s advocacy co-ordinator, who will represent Avenir at the hearing.
“All these students are scared s—less now about using Facebook to talk about schoolwork, when actually it’s no different than any study group working together on homework in a library,” said Neale.
“That’s the worst part; it’s creating this culture of fear, where if I post a question about physics homework on my friend’s wall (a Facebook bulletin board) and ask if anyone has any ideas how to approach this – and my prof sees this, am I cheating?” said Neale, who has used Facebook study groups herself.”
Ir seems fairly ridiculous that we spend so much time and trouble working on the use of new technologies for collaborative learning – and even more so for encouraging autonomous learning, only for academic institutions to take actions like this. Furthermore, every survey of employers suggests that the ability to work as part of a team is both one of the most sought after competencies and one which they feel is not being taught by the education system.
If the university is really worried about the integrity of its assessment system there are many things they could do. At a simple level why not set group assignments. Peer group assessment can provide for individual assessment within a group. Or, they could take a little more time and trouble and develop more authentic assessment to test each learner’s ability to apply knowledge developed through group work.
As Chris Avenir says ” if this kind of help is cheating, then so is tutoring and all the mentoring programs the university runs and the discussions we do in tutorials.”
From a Jisc press release:
Over 14,000 items of archived TV footage from 17 European countries are now available via the EUscreen online portal for teaching, research and general interest.
EUscreen – the result of a collaboration between 36 partners across Europe – provides a rich insight into Europe’s television heritage with content dating from the 1920s to the present day.
The portal includes rare footage and commentary on key events in history, including a 1962 interview with Martin Luther King about racial discrimination in the US.
John Ellis, Professor of Media Arts at Royal Holloway and principal investigator on the EUscreen project, said: “This is a valuable resource for anyone interested in social history or indeed TV history, as it brings together tens of thousands of clips from across Europe. The portal is available to anyone (not only academics) and it is very easy to get absorbed and spend hours browsing all of the footage.”
The expansive footage has also proved popular as a learning aid for foreign language students, with clips available in 14 languages.
By the end of September 2012, there will be around 30,000 items of digital content freely available on the portal as the European providers continue to add carefully selected material.
Open online seminar
Jisc are hosting an open, online seminar on ‘Making Assessment Count (MAC)’ on Friday 3rd Feb – 1-2pm. The presenters are Professor Peter Chatterton (Daedalus e-World Ltd) and Professor Gunter Saunders (University of Westminster).
The mailing for the seminar says” “The objective of Making Assessment Count is primarily to help students engage more closely with the assessment process, either at the stage where they are addressing an assignment or at the stage when they receive feedback on a completed assignment. In addition an underlying theme of MAC is to use technology to help connect student reflections on their assessment with their tutors. To facilitate the reflection aspect of MAC a web based tool called e-Reflect is often used. This tool enables the authoring of self-review questionnaires by tutors for students. On completion of an e-Reflect questionnaire a report is generated for the student containing responses that are linked to the options the student selected on the questionnaire.”
You can find out more ans sign up for the seminar at http://jiscmac.eventbrite.co.uk/
EC-TEL 2012
The EC-TEL 2012: Seventh European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning 21st Century Learning for 21st Century Skills takes place on 18-21 September 2012 at Saarbrücken in Germany.
The focus for the conference includes:
- How can schools prepare young people for the technology-rich workplace of the future?
- How can we use technology to promote informal and independent learning outside traditional educational settings?
- How can we use next generation social and mobile technologies to promote informal and responsive learning?
The deadline for proposals is April 2.
Visitors and Residents
David White (University of Oxford) and Dr. Lynn Silipigni Connaway (OCLC) have been attracting quite a stir with their JISC-funded work on Visitors and Residents: What Motivates Engagement with the Digital Information Environment?, being undertaken as part of the Developing Digital Literacies programme webinar series.
Slides, audio and a recording of the Blackboard Collaborate session where they presented some of the findings of their work can be found at http://bit.ly/jiscdiglitvr.
The keynotes, videos, radio shows and interviews from the ECER 2010 Conference in Helsinki:
Here you find the Taccle handbook for teachers order form.
Watch the Pontydysgu Videos
Our Wikispace for teaching and learning
Join our Sounds of the Bazaar Facebook goup. Just click on the logo above.
Our next programmes will be live from the German Moodlemoot in Emsden. Full details coming soon
