New Methods of Assessment/Group work on chosen technology1

Objective

The objectives for this week are as follows:

To start peer tutoring and define rules and media for peer tutoring.
To get an orientation to New Methods of Assessment.
To have first online tutor meeting with each small groups.
To define tutoring rules and medias of small group working.

General

You should by now have decided on he small group you wish to be involved in (either Wikis, Blogs, e-Portfolios or Virtual Worlds). Lists of the participants within each small group are available from the groups page Small group. If your name does not yet appear on the list, please add it as soon as possible to the group you are interested in. If you have not added your name, you will be assigned a group to work in.

Each of the groups has a tutor who supports both small group working and peer tutoring.

Discuss with your pair what are the rules of your peer tutoring and peer assessment. Discuss and decide what kind of medias you are going to use in your interaction.

Assessment

This course is about new assessment methods. There are many assessment methods and some of them are older and some more modern. What is clear is that more student centered assessment methods, as well more process oriented assessment methods, can be seen as new methods compared to teacher centered tests and other traditional summative assessment. In this course we see as new methods of assessment all those methods which support the principle assessment is for learning and not only assessment of learning. The aim of these new assessement methods is, thus, to support learning and promote learning to the next step and in lifelong learning.

In e-Assessment we can divide into two paradigms of assessment: one has strong connection to student centered methods and the other one takes advantage of a computers capacity to gather and process big amounts of data (examples of these are adaptive testing and e-testing where we don't concentrate during this course). This course concentrates on innovations in assessment which involve the use of new technology, where assessment is mediated through or delineated by, the technological medium. Because this is an e-Jump 2.0 project we talk about social media and Web 2.0 when we talk about new technology. We look for assessment innovation and possibilities beyond learning platforms. Althought the use of technology may be innovative in assessment, the type of assessment being used may not be so. This is why the concept map we made for this course doesn't have so many new assessment methods. See the final list of new assessment methods, possible activities they mean and variety of tools that are available for them: Media:Assessment_Methods.pdf

The aim of this course is to make all participants familiar with social media and provide a place to try different methods of assessment and learn from these experiences so that we can describe assessment in social media and learn how to use them together. For further information please visit: Innovative assessment across the disciplines An analytical review of the literature (especially pages 16 and 51).

ePortfolio

Further information on the ePortfolios Group is provided in the Moodle Area for this course.

Wiki

Get familiar with different wikis like wikispaces, MediaWiki and wetpaint. What is your first impressions about them? You can create an account and see them around for a while. If you are interested in more wikis you can pick up more from wikimatrix.

Be prepared for peer meeting taking place next week. You should choose a pilot wiki together with your peer and some topic you are both interested in somehow. You can invite colleagues and friend of yours to join this wiki writing process. Topics can be some favorite places of yours, your favorite hobbies, pets etc. It is easier to try out something new when you are really interested about the topic. You can of course use this mediawiki too and start your own topic here. You can add you own page/topic starting from pairs-page.

Blog

As part of this course, you will create and add entries to your own blog as well as comment on the postings of your peer and others in your group.

Create your own blog

As you are aware, there are a number of different blogging options/platforms. Your first task is to create your own blog using whichever tool is most appropriate for you. It may be interesting for peers and groups to choose different platforms to enable analysis later in the course. Below are a number of links which may assist with the initial creation of a blog.

Write your first Blog Entry

Once you have created your blogging site, write your first blog entry. This can cover anything you feel is appropriate, but a few suggestions as to topics are listed below:

Reasons for choosing the blogging software you opted for
Initial thoughts on the use of blogs for assessment

You may find it useful to read the Tips how to write better blog texts from Sue Waters

Link in to your peers blogs using RSS

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an important tool in the Web 2.0 arena. Further details on RSS (including the set up and creation of an RSS Feed reader) are available from the RSS page. In order to keep up to date with the blogs of other participants, link them to your RSS Feed Reader. As before, choose whichever tool you feel would be most appropriate for you.

Remember, if you come across any further links add these to the Delicious Social Bookmarking site we have set up for this course.

Second Life

Create your own avatar in Second Life (later SL) and learn to move and interact in SL. Agree with your peer when are you going to meet in SL and train together moving and interaction together in EduFinland Island. If it is possible for you meet your tutor Mauri Kantola on Friday on EduFinland Island.

There are lots of nice tutorials for excample in YouTube. Seach with words like Second Life tutorials etc. Here is one tutorialhow to change the appearance of your avatar. Of course you can use also one of those ready made avatars.

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