489q
assessment with technology
This course was my first graduate level as well as my first online course. In an attempt to stay current in the trends of technology while strengthening my own assessment practices, and balancing my work and family, I figured that an online summer course could not be "too bad." I was at first very nervous about learning the Moodle interface and I'd not had much experience with the Web 2.0 tools beyond blogging. I am pleased to say, however, that it was not bad....AT ALL! In fact, after the enlightening and invigorating experience I had, I cannot imagine going back to a traditional classroom setting for graduate work. I feel like, as a learner, I was transformed twofold by this class.
First, I realized how narrow my realm of experience was. I'd completed my student teaching and first five years of teaching all within the same District that I was teaching. Not to mention, the former two items took place in the same school! Hearing from classmates how varied their districts' and administrators' policies were about assessment and grading was very eye opening. My second realization, I'm sad to say because I likely should have come to this understanding much sooner, was the vast difference between assessment to drive instructional decisions and assessment to report "grades" to parents. I found that the information that I could glean from the type of online tools (such as Survey Monkey) that I was experimenting with often was not data that parents would find informative about their child's performance, nor could it easily be shared with them in laymen's terms. Rather, I understood more clearly the benefits of using technology both to gather data about my students and to increase my own efficiency at analyzing it (Excel formulas.) It was nice to be back in contact with the eMINTS folks, whose eLearning department facilitated this class. Inquiry based learning is not something that is commonplace yet in my school, so it was refreshing to have some like-minded colleagues with whom to collaborate. |
|