Final Project

I created my final project using Google docs. For my research, I evaluated Zoomerang, a wiki, a blog and Exam Builder. These tools will be applied to my AP Literature course. My primary learning outcomes include:

• prepare students for the AP exam.
  
• improve student's ability to critically analyze literature through writing and discussion.
  
• familiarize students with literary terms.
• build a collaborative community.
• assess knowledge base.

I believe that the tools and assessments created using them, allow for me to meet the demands of diverse learners and prevent plagiarism.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dc3wfv2s_27htp8mxcz

Cyber Coaching

During my years as an online educator, I have had various experiences with cyber coaching. Some of the experiences have been successful, while others have been complete failures. Despite all of the opportunities for success, there are just some students who aren't successful, regardless of my attempts at coaching.

During my second year of teaching online, I created something called "The Buddy System". The system was designed to pair new online students with a peer who had been with iQ for at least one year. The idea behind the buddy system was to offer new students one more person to contact. Sometimes students are more comfortable asking a peer for help, rather than approaching a teacher.

When I introduced the concept, a lot of students were willing to be the support person. I had about 20 students who wanted the support. I invited all of these students to a live Elluminate, and was able to put each pair into a private breakout room. It served as a great way for the buddies to get to know one another. Students exchanged phone numbers, email address and any other means for keeping in touch.

The program had a strong start. About a month into it, I emailed all of the buddies to see how things were going. Most of the buddies in the support role mentioned that they had not heard much from the student they were supporting. I decided to hold a second Elluminate session. This time no one came!
At this point, I felt my role had ceased to exist. What started as a strong program had fizzled to nothing. I am not sure what went wrong and I am not sure how to assess what went wrong. I suppose I could have created a survey. That would have been a great tool to assess the value of the buddy system.

Pre-Course Survey

I created a pre-course survey for my AP Literature and Composition.

The survey can be viewed by clicking on this link:
http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/survey.zgi?p=WEB228EHJDL4E6


Creating this survey took longer than I thought. It was difficult to come up with 10 open ended questions. I wanted to create questions that would give me a better understanding of the students enrolled in my AP English course. One of my objectives of my survey is to make sure the students are enrolled in the course for the right reason.

I only wish I had this survey created at the start of this school year!

Module 5: Punishing the Plagiarist

"Dealing With Plagiarists" by James M. Lang was such a timely read for me. Just this week, while grading essays where students had to write a character analysis, I caught a student who plagiarized.
I am all about giving students a second chance, especially at the high school level. I question the need to give students at the college level a second chance, but I liked the system developed by Lang and his colleagues.

When Lang decided to tackle plagiarism head on, he took the following steps:

1. He "reinforced orally in class" that plagiarism would not be tolerated.

I even take things a step further with my students. Oral reminders are great. But I have also developed a mini lesson that explains exactly what plagiarism is and how to avoid it. I feel that such a lesson can never be considered repetitive. Students from elementary school on should understand the concept.

2. During the course of the semester, Lang caught 3 students. Two of the students he failed for the semester. However, this didn't sit well with him.

I, too would have a hard time failing a student for the entire semester. I have developed an assignment for first time offenders, allowing students to gain back points lost for the plagiarized assignment. The assignment can be viewed here:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dc3wfv2s_25qr5kcbg5

By using this assignment, I am hope I am teaching students a valuable lesson. I want them to be held accountable. I could just have them redo the original assignment or offer an alternative that's similar to the first, however, this seems to suit my needs well.

Returning to the student who plagiarized this week, she opted not to do the above assignment and take a zero for the essay. She didn't want to share what she did with her parents and the principal.

3. Lang mentioned a flaw in his plan- "It works only if all of my colleagues are doing it".

I agree with him on this 100%! Fortunately, iQ teachers are very responsible when it comes to dealing with plagiarism. Our school has an Intranet that lists all students and allows teachers to post and email comments regarding any student. Teachers have been very good about posting when a student cheats.

I am sure there's always a student who get away with it. I hope I am doing my best!

Assessment Taxonomy Table

Here's a link to my Taxonomy Table:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dc3wfv2s_24gdt7zpvm

Group 1 Midterm: Jeanne, Nancy, Amy and Craig

Introduction
The World Wide Web has provided an opportunity to explore a variety of tools that can be utilized in diverse settings, from business to education to personal applications. By building a ‘toolbox,’ it offers a valuable resource for a collection of assessment tools to use in the online forum for learning and communication.
It can be a challenge to determine which assessment tool would be the best fit for assessing and evaluating student performance or meeting the desired course competencies and objectives. To assist with this challenge, the following four sections address different assessment tools that have allowed students, parents, instructors and business leaders to effectively collaborate in a virtual setting. Zoomerang, blogs, wikis and Micrograde have advantages, disadvantages and multiple applications.



Quiz and Test Builders Assessment Tools
Introduction of Zoomerang
Zoomerang is a software program developed in 1999 allowing users to develop a self-service format for a comprehensive survey and quizzes. Today, it is the world’s #1 source for online surveys. In fact, over 70% of the Fortune 100 companies encompassing over 100 countries are using Zoomerang for collecting data through the use of surveys. Zoomerang is owned by Market Tools, Incorporated, a leading provider of market research services.
Uses and Benefits of the Zoomerang
As an assessment tool, Zoomerang has a variety of applications from personal to professional and educational forums. Examples of using this tool can be useful with event planning, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, new product surveys, market research, educational surveys and quizzes and recruitment and other events in business. Additional benefits are:

• a 30-day free download to trial the software
• the capability of selecting four different levels for using Zoomerang from basic to professional formatting
• the availability of use with more than 40 different languages
• the support network for frequently asked questions, links with explanation of the various tools including email link if questions, moderation of the site by the administrators, ability to personally design the survey, and a self-guided tour to use the tool, a tutorial demonstration
• the capability to analyze data by downloading data for analysis into a PowerPoint presentation
• supplemented with expert professional services, including survey programming, translation, deployment and analysis
• the ability to retrieve data rapidly with anonymous responses if desired
Weaknesses and Challenges of the Zoomerang
With benefits of Zoomerang also come challenges and drawbacks that one needs to evaluate when deciding the efficacy of this tool. Some of those challenges are:

• the costs associated with using the tool which is 599 for one year and $75 for one month
• lack of ability to use as a collaborative tool; only allows for individual responses at one time
• limitation with free software package allowing only 10 questions with a longer survey/quiz requires a fee
• the need to include one of the question as a participant identification or results will be anonymous
• lack of capability for ongoing or interactive feedback among users
Example of Application of Zoomerang in an Online Classroom
The application of Zoomerang can range from pre-assessment to post-assessment and a system for the feedback loop to be utilized. This tool has the capability to gather the perspectives of the participants on certain topics, events or activities with the ability to collectively group information for analysis once data is retrieved from Zoomerang. Application of this tool can be incorporated into the online classroom with the following examples.

• Quizzes with multiple choice, short answer, Likert type feedback or essay type of responses
• Can be personalized with open ended questions
• End of the semester course evaluation
• Feedback loop with student’s perspective of how certain activities were effective or not with achieving the learning objectives and course competencies
• Student self-assessment of learning needs
• Pre-assessment and post-assessment tool
• Evaluation of the instructor for professional development
Learning Objective Connected to use of Zoomerang
The use of learning objectives provides a mechanism to evaluate the use of Zoomerang as a valid way to measure this tool for assessing student performance in the online classroom. Some potential objectives would be:

• Complete a self assessment of one’s own learning needs
• Analyze how Zoomerang can be used as a tool for assessment
• Examine the effectiveness of using Zoomerang to assess student learning
• Critique the strengths and weaknesses of using Zoomerang as a method of assessment
• Evaluate how performance activities could utilize Zoomerang in classrooms
Examples of other tools for Building Exams, Quizzes and Surveys
The following are a few examples of different assessment tools that can be utilized to build exams, quizzes or surveys in the on line classroom.

• Zoomerang – http://zoomerang.com
• Survey monkey – http://surveymonkey.com
• Exam builder – http://exambuilder.com/

Reflection Assessment Tools
Introduction of Blogger
“A blog (a contraction of the term "Web log") is a website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.” Source: Wikipedia.com The Assessment class used blogging software, such as blogger.com, to create a student portfolio, which is a form of performance assessment.
Uses and Benefits of Blogger
Blogs were originally used as an electronic personal diary. It’s morphed into other uses such as an e-Portfolio and a marketing tool. Listed below are some additional uses of blogs:

• Free use of software
• Provides commentary on a subject
• Used as an online diary
• Uses multimedia file types, such as mp3’s, video, and graphics
• Used in the business world to communicate to the public and also as a marketing tool
• Writing personal diaries have been proven to have the following effects: improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients, and speeds healing after surgery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog)
Weaknesses and Challenges of Blogger
The biggest weaknesses of blogs are privacy and safety. Listed below are some of those privacy and safety issues:

• Lawsuits surrounding defamation and liability.
• Privacy and employment issues. Some people have been fired for revealing too much information about the corporation or product or revealing too much information about the employee’s personal life.
• Personal safety. What a person blogs may bring on a personal attack by other bloggers.
• Reprisals by government. Some citizens have been punished by their governments for the words written in their personal blogs.
• The flow of information in blogs appears to be more uni-directional. Therefore, the tool is not a strong collaboration tool, although, there are more and more collaborative blogs appearing every day.
Example of Application of Blogger in an Online Classroom
We are using blogs as an e-Portfolio in our class, however, there are many applications of blogging as listed below:

• Can be used as a medium for students’ e-Portfolios.
• Can be used as a medium for FAQs.
• Student self-assessment of learning
• A resource for sharing common web links, favorite articles and other resources
Learning Objective Connected to use of Blogger
Learning objectives ranges from business uses, such as informing the consumer about the benefits of a product, to educational uses, such as an e-Portfolio

• Create a personal blog to be used as an e-portfolio
• Analyze the use of blogs as an assessment tool in the online classroom
• Evaluate the effectiveness of blogs as a collaborative learning opportunity
• Inform consumers
Examples of other Assessment Tools for Building Blogs
Listed below are some examples of assessment tools for use in blogs:

• Our Story
• ePals
• LiveJournal
• Other Blogging Software




Peer-to-Peer Collaboration Tools
What is a Wiki?
A wiki is a collection of pages on the Internet, designed to allow any user to add to and modify its content. Since its creation in 1995, Wiki has become extremely popular in both the world of business and education. Their ease of use and ability for much collaboration has made the wiki very popular application.
Benefits of a Wiki:
Due to its sheer simplicity for users, a wiki has multiple benefits in an online classroom or business setting. A wiki:

• is extremely user friendly, a wiki is the simplest online database.
• allows for instant collaboration among groups of people.
• is accessible from any place that has an Internet connection.
• has software maintains a history of each edit that has been made.
• can be structured to meet the needs of the user.
• does not require the user to download any software.
• allows for an RSS feed, alerting users of the latest content changes.
Weaknesses and Challenges of Wikis as an Assessment Tool
The wiki’s advantages exceed its disadvantages, but it does present some challenges for users. These challenges are:

• Accessible to anyone, allowing for content to be changed by an outside source.
• Because multiple users edit its content, a wiki can become messy and disorganized.
• Despite its ease, some user may have problems with navigation/use of a wiki.
• The user must have access to a computer and the Internet.
Example of Application of Wikis in an Online Classroom
If used effectively, with clear parameters for all users, a wiki can become a very useful application in any classroom. These applications include:

• Students can collaborate on a group project.
• Instructors can create a wiki to communicate announcements, assignments, course expectations to both students and parents.
• Allows students to develop communication skills, especially consensus-building and compromise
• Students can participate in the creation of the wiki, giving them a sense of ownership.
• A wiki is a great place to collect useful resources, student work, and link to useful websites
• Students define vocabulary lists and provide examples of the words in use.
Learning Objective Connected to use of Wiki as an Assessment Tool
The use of learning objectives provides a mechanism to evaluate the use of Wikis as a valid way to measure the effectiveness for assessing student performance in the online classroom. Some potential objectives would be:

• Analyzing the work of others through collaborative efforts
• Develop critical thinking skills
• Evaluate use of the Wiki as a collaborative assessment tool
• Create a classroom Wiki to assess student’s performance
• Collaborate with other students with peer editing and reviewing of written work
Examples of other assessment tools for Building Wikis
There are many wikis available on the web, however, some wiki providers are geared towards educators. These educational wikis provide benefits that others do not, including private space at no cost. Two great wiki providers for educators are:

• http://www.wikispaces.com/ provides free upgrades for teachers (the private space normally costs $5 per month). This upgrade allows teachers to invite users, keeping the site access limited to select users.
• http://pbwiki.com/academic.wiki is a large hosting site for teacher made wikis, allowing for private access.


Micrograde as a Course Tracking Tool
Introduction to Micrograde
Micrograde is a software course tracking tool, with numerous features. It is designed for educators to help automate the many tasks involved with the evaluation of student performance through the tracking of their grades. This software tool prides itself on being more than just a grading program.

Micrograde allows instructors to easily communicate the progress of students themselves and their parents. The capabilities of this tool assists with reducing the amount of time instructors need to complete grading using traditional methods of tracking grades and is estimated to save teachers as much as one hour a day.
Uses and Benefits of using Micrograde
The Micrograde tool has many beneficial uses when instructors take advantage of its many functions. The following uses and benefits are listed to assist with identifying the potential benefits using this course tracking tool.

• Automates the tasks of scoring assignments and calculating grades
• Ability to quickly evaluate student performance
• Has email and Internet grade posting features
• Convenient and quick feedback to both students and parents
Weaknesses and Challenges of Micrograde
When using the Micrograde tool, there are numerous items that need to be considered. The following list alludes to several challenges and limitations of this tool.

• No correspondence between the attendance and grades issued to student
• Assignments that are marked late must be manually lowered or adjusted
• Assignments can not be cut and pasted from category to category
• Initial set up period can be quite extensive if grading system is not compatible with current system or if the user does not currently use an electronic grading system
• Training is recommended for all staff to maximize the potential of the system
• Instructors must have sufficient access to a computer
Example of Application of Micrograde in an Online Classroom
For online instructors, the Micrograde tool offers several alternative tools as opposed to traditional evaluation tools currently on the market. Most of the following tools are critical when facilitating an online course.

• Communicate with students directly via email
• Post reports so students and instructor can track their grades throughout semester
• Internet posting
• Log student notes and comments
• Create own grading scale: letters, numbers, or symbols
• Monitor student’s performance by highlighting low scores with colors
Learning Objectives Connected to using Micrograde
How will the Micrograde tool help educators become better instructors? The following objectives will provide a mechanism to assess the effectiveness of this tool with tracking student’s performance in the online classroom.

• Identify time savings and increased efficiency for instructors
• Evaluate improved communication of grades between instructor and student
• Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of student’s performance
• Analyze large quantities of assignments and activities with one tracking tool
Examples of other Course Tracking Tools
The use of technology in educational assessment continues to increase on a daily basis. It is critical to choose a tool that is best suited to accomplish the goals of the instructor and students. The following web sites give further information with other potential tools that may be beneficial for instructors with tracking student performance.

• Micrograde - http://chariot.com/mircrograde/
• Teacherase instructional management system – http://www.teacaherease.com/
• Calendar software – http://www.rkssoftare.com/calendarbuilder/overview.html
Conclusion
To create a successful online course that stimulates student learning through a collaborative approach, it is essential for instructors to develop a solid foundation for assessing student performance. This toolbox provides an opportunity for instructors to explore a variety of assessment tools that will best ‘fit’ the needs of the instructor and student. By incorporating the tools that gives the most resourceful approach for learning and evaluating, it aids in building a quality course.

There are other assessment tools that have the potential to assist with evaluating student performance. As you explore additional tools, please add them to this toolbox as a resource with building your online course.

Module 4: Assessment and Online Teaching

As an online teacher, I could easily relate to some of the issues presented in "Australian Flexible Learning Quick Guide Series". The article addressed many of the challenges I have frequently had to confront when dealing with student assessment in an online setting.

These challenges include:
(a) whether and how to measure student participation in online discussion and activities
(b) preventing and detecting plagiarism
(c) issues of security
(d) authentication of student work


Personally, I have never required participation in discussion boards. Discussion boards are very valuable tool in an online classroom. However, iQ Academy only has one deadline per semester. Students are all over the place in the course. Some work weeks ahead, while others haven't even started the class. Even in this class, I have been frustrated by discussion boards. I like to post early within the week, but I have found that many classmates wait till the latter part of the week. It requires me to constantly check on the board's progress. From a management perspective, I have also found that discussion boards are very time consuming. There's no easy way to manage a discussion board in Blackboard.

Preventing and detecting plagiarism is something I deal with frequently. Despite the fact that many of my assessments are authentic, students still plagiarise. However, I have discovered that Google is a great tool to combat plagiarism. I can simply copy and paste a questionable phrase into Google, and often get fast results. There are other times where Google doesn't give me results. In cases where I suspect plagiarism but can't prove it, there's not much I can do. That's a real frustration!

Authentication of student work is almost impossible to prove. I have caught students submitting work that another student completed. The work involved journal writing, and some of the writing was based on personal experience. In these incidents, I have been lucky to catch the students. I do not think I always do, due to the sheer volume of assignments I grade. In an online setting, I have to trust that the student whose name appears at the top of the page is actually the same student who completed the work.