Blog Post 2: Technology Tools and Assessment

What kind of assessment for learning is appropriate in the age of Google and Wikipedia? Facebook and You Tube? Smart phones and text messaging? Twitter and blogging?

August 30, 2011

Abstract: 
Claims for the transformative effects of e-learning on student learning outcomes imply changes in the nature of learning when learning is mediated by technology.  If it can be shown that the nature of learning changes in a distinctive way when learning is mediated by technology (Andrews 2011) then it seems plausible that the evidence for learning might also change. This paper explores how "assessment for learning" might change in a digital culture where students are "collaborative producers" of learning. It identifies some distinctive changes in the nature of the evidence for learning when learning is mediated by technology and asks whether these changes in evidence needs a new approach and/or theory of assessment.
Does the character of learning change when learning involves technology?
It could be argued that e-Learning utilises the characteristics and affordances of the internet to create distinctive environments and interactions to support learning.  For example, the non-linear architecture of the internet (a network of nodes and internodes) provides different opportunities and structures for learning, communication, collaboration and co-construction than those available in the face to face.  Opportunities for learning can occur: with anyone, at anytime and in any place; through one to one, one to many, or many to many interactions; through push and pull; synchronously and asynchronously; using multi-literacies or multiple modalities (including text, graphic, audio, video, animation, etc.) and within open and flexible access systems.  Andrews (2011) argues that if learning is socially situated then e-learning extends “the horizons of e-learning in space, resource and time.” He suggests that a new theory of learning is developing because in e-learning; the relationship between knowledge and the learner becomes “more democratic, more potentially dialogical”; transduction (the creation of observable evidence of learning) is easier; and the access and use of learning “according to socio-economic, geographic, cognitive and motivational factors” is stretched further (Andrews, 2011 p119).

MY BLOG POST 2: 2/1/12

This really makes me think of how I can utilize technology more in my high school English classroom.  I have just started blogging and using a wiki for a doctoral class and find them very user friendly.  I am trying to get more comfortable with using this type of technology.  I know my students are very comfortable with blogging and would love to use this type of technology for class…I am just not sure on the logistics of it all.  How would I assess blog postings? How many is enough? Too many?  And of course there is still the question of authenticity.  How do I know that my students are not cheating?  You bring up some interesting ideas that make me truly consider using technology to assess my students.

Link to the original blog and posting:
http://artichoke.typepad.com/artichoke/2011/08/what-kind-of-assessment-for-learning-is-appropriate-in-the-age-of-google-and-wikipedia-facebook-and-.html#comment-6a00d8341cd43353ef0163008b9e97970d