Assessment- Midterm "Discovery and Experimentation"

This week I gathered information, watched tutorials, reviewed the literature, and practiced using three different assessment tools.

Google Docs

I started the week using Google Docs. I uploaded files and created a template for the midterm assessment. I transferred information between documents and edited documents. I gave access to view and edit documents to my group. I learned how to download files and entered the final version of the group midterm assessment file to a wiki that I created.

Wiki

I contributed the research about Wiki to the on-line assessment tool group midterm project. I value the opportunity to test and practice using equipment so I decided to make a wiki. The practical experience was invaluable. While reviewing the literature, I found Wikimatrix, a wiki comparison tool. I answered a few questions in the Wiki Choice Wizard and was provided with a list of appropriate wikis for my project. I chose wikispaces to create my first wiki. Through the process of making a wiki, I realized that I can assess individual contributions and group process with wikis. I would need to provide a rubric and clear explanation of how students would be graded. At the start of a class, I would want to assess student experience with wiki. A wiki is easy to learn to use; but it is necessary to provide time to familiarize the students with the mechanics of the wiki.

Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro

Thanks to Carol Kubota for giving me two opportunities to experience a peer to peer collaboration tool. We had so much fun and laughed so hard as we fumbled through the process of trying to figure out how things worked in the collaborative tool. It takes patience and humor if you are not going through a formal training. We both watched tutorials to prepare to use the tool. Carol hosted the meetings. Attending the first meeting, I had a goal of exploring, having fun, and getting my webcam on. I met the first two goals; but was unable to get my webcam up. I went back to view tutorials and went back to the second meeting with the same three goals. Again, I met the first two goals; but was unsuccessful with getting my webcam on. I believe it is related to the fact that my webcam is built in to my computer. I plan to explore this more and try to figure out why there is only an avatar on my camera box in the tool. Carol, being the great teacher and host had several goals. She presented her power point in the first meeting. In the second meeting, she gave me permission to upload and share a document and a powerpoint. Carol also created an on-line survey in the tool. This program is very powerful and complicated. I would use it in a work setting with participants that work collaboratively on a continual basis. Formal training and technical support would decrease the learning curve as opposed to on-line tutorials. For on-line classes, I think it would work best if your teaching / learning with a group of students over an extended period of time to learn the functions and capabilities of this tool.

Check out Carol's review of this assessment tool at
http://midterm-assessment-uws.wikispaces.com/