Assessment everything comes down to assessment

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Assessment - everything comes down to assessment

• Brian Whalley
• School of Geography, Archaeology and
  Palaeoecology
• Queens University Belfast

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Fieldwork - maximising the effectiveness

• Clearly integrated with the programme/module
• Deeper learning will be facilitated where it
  enhances student interest
• Students respond to hands on data acquisition
• Be aligned - ie relate subject matter, level,
  instruction mode to student need and assessment

Adapted from Fuller et al. 2006. JGHE
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I shall cover

• Use of digital affordances in the field
• USB (see poster)
• Geocaching and use of GPS
• Virtorial and Virtual Field Guide
• Supporting Fieldwork - audio and video
• Webfolios
• Student mailer (spreadsheet data)
• Some bits of code
• Spreak sheet targeting
• Mark generator and criterion referencing
• Reusable Educational objects

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Fieldwork and learning

• 'You know what a learning experience is? A
  learning experience is one of those things that
  says, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do
  that.'
• (Douglas N Adams 'The Salmon of Doubt', p274)

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E-learning

• Using e-things to help E-ducation
• Student side
• Staff side
• Affordances - something new from old ideas and
  devices
• Devices for helping accessibility (or
  encouraging inclusivity)
• Should we use it to develop a 21C HE syllabus?

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THE USB(Universal Serial Bus)
Widely used on all sorts of devices, hosts
laptops, PDAs, games consoles Clients cameras,
videos, scanners and a whole lot more
Treed or daisy chained via hubs, hot-swappable,
Reasonably robust
Coming soon
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GPS data collection

• Hand held GPSs are
• Effective, cheap, multi task
• Upload and download data with USB
• Geocaching (example follows)
• Use breadcrumb trail data for plotting
• Making a shopping database of Belfast
• Anything else you can thing of!

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Geocaching

• Going to a GPS location to find treasure
• Provide the GPS locations as waypoints
• Students navigate to these and make observations
• Take their own photos - or use those provided
• Link the information into a poster
• E-poster, submitted electronically, annotated
  electronically, electronic use of mark scheme

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One example
A screen grab of part of a poster showing basic
map and images (provided). Student organises
whole and provides their interpretation
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Virtual Field Guides and Virtorial

• What are Virtual Field Trips (or Guides)?
• Our version
• Using the benefits of the web to ask intelligent
  questions in a Socratic dialogue
• Using field work, field scene, data acquisition
  etc.to populate the site
• Uses XML and data handling via data base-driven
  web-facilities
• (Web 2.0)

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Virtorial - general schema
Links to the 'Compendium' (next page) More info
Review QsQuizGlossary
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Complex MCQ with add on
Bring in new scenes and questions from the
database
New answers come in together with them
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Supporting the field trip - before after

• Podcasts and audio files
• Audio is now easy to do, use USB microphones
  software
• Directly into an iPod
• Use to provide support on the traditional
  PowerPoint or website

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Feature reminderreminder before assessment or
feedback after marking
Make sure you comment on
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Webfolios(ePortfolios, e-folios)

• Allows students to put practical work on a
  website
• For review and scrutiny and assessment
• Staff, peer and peer group, external examiner
• Provides extra skills in IT
• web production (Nvu as a cross-platform HTML
  editor)
• ftp, ssh etc, information organization (not for
  PebblePad etc)
• Layout, design organisation
• Conversion between file types (.ppt to.html)
• Use many media types images, video, audio
• Teamwork or individual

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Some ways of using a bit of code

• Targeted Student Mailer
• To get bits of spreadsheets to individual
  students
• Mark Generator
• To help marking
• Using Criteria Referencing
• To help group marking standardisation
• Mark adjustment
• Refinement of the mark scheme

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ABs (Targeted) Spreadsheet mailer
You have marks in a spreadsheet (individual or
group) You want to get these marks to the
individuals confidentially How might you do it
easily? E-mail individually? Or to groups? Not
just numbers, short comments, queries, summaries
of marks Sending out passwords to
individuals Work from your basic spreadsheet Use
this nifty php application
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Targeted student mail
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Marking field notebooks or projects

• Um, thats a 55.
• Use criterion referencing
• ie students know what you are asking for
• Before they start, when theyre assessed
• Doesnt have to be elaborate
• Provide examples before they start
• Then
• Easier for multiple markers
• Provides much more information (for all)

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Some existing assessment tools

• Blackboard (Netskills), WebCT
• Respondus 3.5, QuestionMark
• MCQ
• Studymate 1.5
• Flash based activities
• Magic2
• UU, for groupwork
• Turnitin
• In JISC plagiarism software

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Mark Generator

• Use this to help
• Mark criterion-referenced pieces of assessment
• Provide quality control with multiple markers
• Provide extra marking information
• Provide simple feedback to students
• Can be used without a computer (or on line)
• Simple to use (but you have to use perl scripts)

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Criteria referencing

• You know it makes sense!
• Provide a mark scheme
• Graph provided a 5marks
• Curve goes through origin b 2marks
• Inflection identified c 1mark
• Units correct d 5marks
• Sensitivity variables e,e, 2each
• etc
• Modify this later if required

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Project assessment
Student Scripts
Marking Scheme
Marks
Raw Data File
Perl script
Statistics
Feedback
14371049 abcddghlnoprsssIxyl Good but has typos
and not the best presentation 15906043
abcdddghnoprssswxyz1 Too long, but comprehensive
and generally good 12627046 abcdddghnopsyz4 Keeps
to two pages, generally good
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Reusable Educational Objects

• Using - and reusing - objects such as
• Photographs
• Diagrams
• Videos (and audio)
• PowerPoints
• Web pages
• For teaching - learning and assessment
• Make them Copy left (Creative Commons)
• And sharing them

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REOs

• Keywords
• Metadata
• Exif Exchangeable image file format
• IPTC International Press Telecommunications
  Council
• Geocoded GPS
• Academic metadata
• Research as well as teaching

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Thank You Poster outside on some USB devices -
questions (possibly) answered
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All you have to do
Put the php script on your server, give it a URL
Select the bits of spreadsheet you want to use
(cmd/ctrl C)
Paste the selection into the window on the URL
Follow the prompts and submit
Each recipient gets only what is appropriate
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Marking and better feedback

• Can we save time by doing this to all
• Make it generally available
• Use it before the event
• Save time having done it once.
• Audio file within powerPoint
• Make it available as an MP3 file
• Link them to website (image) or powerpoint as
  required

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Electronic whiteboard in the field
Stick the device on a smooth (vertical) surface
and plug into laptop Place sheet of paper within
the arms Draw and save to file as required Staff
can save the images for use later
(website) Students can use their images on
presentations