Sunday, March 6, 2011
Assessment in eLearning - Module 5 Reflection
We have turned the corner and now are on the last half of our class which means we are working towards the final project. Seems like we just finished the mid-term project! Wait - we just did finish it but since this course is only 8 weeks long we have no choice but to start working on it right way in order to get it completed. Dr. Erbe posted for us the details of the final project (here is a brief synopsis from his description):
You will need to choose an online course that you are currently teaching or may teach in the future and begin to plan learning objectives, associated activities and the assessment piece and tech tool you could use for assessment.
So within our final project, we need to include well-written objectives, engaging activities, as well as assessments using tools we have learned about in our class. I think my head is spinning just thinking about it again. However, I really appreciate how we are actually taking this bit by bit or step by step.
For example, this week's assignments and/or discussion topics could be drawn upon what we are using for our final project if we want. If we want?! Considering I can get feedback from my peers to know if I am going in the right direction or am totally out in left field, this is a no brainer for me. I am going to be using information from my final project for these two items. Boy am I glad I did use my topic since the feedback I received help me to know I needed to make some changes along the way.
One thing I realized is well-written objectives take time and thought. These are not something you can simply whip out and hope/pray they work. Chances are if you did not take the time to think these out you will find your students struggling along the way and you the teacher feeling a sense of frustration due to a lack of proper planning. It was actually nice to have to think deeper about my objectives for the final project. I am not saying I throw mine together when working on lessons, but I can certainly tell when I do not devote the proper amount of time necessary to develop well-written ones. This task certainly opened my eyes once again. I also discovered I needed to see the "whole picture" when it came to the final project in order to help with not only the objectives but also the activites.
What I ended up doing was create what might look like a mini lesson plan under my taxonmy table. I had thought of my activities but needed to see these paired up with objectives as well. So, I wrote these objectives too which was great since these needed to be posted in the discussion board for one of the discussion assignments - 2 things done at one time is great thinking! Then knowing I needed to have assessments to go along with each activity/objective I created a tentative listing of my assessments. These will be evaluated to see if any changes need to be made but I feel good about the start I have going and I am certainly starting to see this picture emerge. As a visual learner, this is something which truly helps - seeing the big picture.
Looks like Week 5 is now over and we are on to Week 6. Hard to believe only 3 more weeks left in this class. Until next time - I am signing off for now!
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Group 1's Mid-Term Jigsaw Project
You can visit Group 1’s Midterm Project here! - https://sites.google.com/site/educ763/
Assessment in eLearning - Module 4 Reflection
Wow! What a week this was. This was the midway point of our Assessment in eLearning course and that meant MIDTERM PROJECT time. Yikes! Last week, we were assigned our groups and chose what each of us would evaluate. Next came the challenges or should I say LIFE! I really like how one of my teammates put it. She called them "incomings" - something that needs to be dealt with right now while you still have all of the other things needing to be dealt with too! All three of us seemed to have many incomings at the beginning of the week which meant we couldn't really devote as much time to the project until midweek (or in this case Wednesday).
Well, when Wednesday arrives we all start to work vigorously on our portion of the project. Since mine is Excel, I am very comfortable with the program. The problem lies in remembering to think as someone who might not be familiar with it all. This was quite the challenge and took much more time than I thought it would. However, it was a great lesson in remembering where I started and how I can best help others when they are struggling with the program. Not only that, it made be realize once again why I use Excel for so many of the things I need at work and in my personal life as well. It was wonderful to delve deeper into what Excel is capable of as a grading program especially re-learning about the graphs and charts which can be made once you have your data entered. Nice refresher there! There can be a large learning curve with Excel and reading books and tutorials will help but other resources will probably need to be sought out as well.
As we come to the end of the project, we realize we need to decide how to present this to our classmates. Having viewed some of the others, I think we are feeling our presentation won't be much if we can only do a WORD document. Friday night as Margot and I were working and talking in Groove Workspaces (shameless plug here) I thought of an idea to use Google Sites to set up our presentation. Having used this for my portfolio allowed me to feel quite comfortable in looking at it and seeing if this would work. Well, I found what looked like the perfect template and set to work giving us the skeleton which would be our final presentation.
Finally after many hours of work between all of us such as editing our documents, editing the site, getting pictures and quotes, etc. we put the final touches on our site. I have to say I am feeling pretty proud of this project. Normally, I do not like group work. This project, however, was one where having the right teammates made all of the difference in the world. I think without all of us supporting one another as well as encouraging each other this could have been a major disaster. Instead, it turned out to be something incredible and I am proud of having been a member of Group 1! Way to go Ladies - We did it and did it well!
Until next week's entry, I am taking a much needed break (only for a few hours and then it is back to the grindstone aka Grad School work).
Well, when Wednesday arrives we all start to work vigorously on our portion of the project. Since mine is Excel, I am very comfortable with the program. The problem lies in remembering to think as someone who might not be familiar with it all. This was quite the challenge and took much more time than I thought it would. However, it was a great lesson in remembering where I started and how I can best help others when they are struggling with the program. Not only that, it made be realize once again why I use Excel for so many of the things I need at work and in my personal life as well. It was wonderful to delve deeper into what Excel is capable of as a grading program especially re-learning about the graphs and charts which can be made once you have your data entered. Nice refresher there! There can be a large learning curve with Excel and reading books and tutorials will help but other resources will probably need to be sought out as well.
As we come to the end of the project, we realize we need to decide how to present this to our classmates. Having viewed some of the others, I think we are feeling our presentation won't be much if we can only do a WORD document. Friday night as Margot and I were working and talking in Groove Workspaces (shameless plug here) I thought of an idea to use Google Sites to set up our presentation. Having used this for my portfolio allowed me to feel quite comfortable in looking at it and seeing if this would work. Well, I found what looked like the perfect template and set to work giving us the skeleton which would be our final presentation.
Finally after many hours of work between all of us such as editing our documents, editing the site, getting pictures and quotes, etc. we put the final touches on our site. I have to say I am feeling pretty proud of this project. Normally, I do not like group work. This project, however, was one where having the right teammates made all of the difference in the world. I think without all of us supporting one another as well as encouraging each other this could have been a major disaster. Instead, it turned out to be something incredible and I am proud of having been a member of Group 1! Way to go Ladies - We did it and did it well!
Until next week's entry, I am taking a much needed break (only for a few hours and then it is back to the grindstone aka Grad School work).
Saturday, February 19, 2011
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