Lucas the Spider - The Imposter

Cecile Richards: Grace Under Fire at Planned Parenthood

Cecile Richards: Grace Under Fire at Planned Parenthood: How Richards faces down attacks that may yet backfire on the right.

Shortage puts uncertified teachers in Arizona classrooms

Shortage puts uncertified teachers in Arizona classrooms

Report: Few take advantage of student loan refinancing - CBS 5 - KPHO

Report: Few take advantage of student loan refinancing - CBS 5 - KPHO

Authentic Assessment

I would like to share the information below that has helped me to increase my knowledge on assessments, which has also made me more appreciative of the Adult Education Programs.

Authentic assessments as noted by Myer (1992) is not the same as performance assessment, in that, they are similar to the point that both forms of assessments provide challenges, and engages the students; however, authentic assessments affords the learners with sufficient time for planning, completing the assignment, “self-“assessment, revising, and consulting  with another.  Additionally, when using “authentic assessments,” student assignments must be evaluated using the “same kinds of criteria (standards) used to judge similar task,” (Wisconsin Education Association Council, 2014).

“Authentic Instruction and Learning”

Based on Wisconsin Education Association Council, (2014) authentic instructions and learning are very much like “performance or authentic assessments” in relationship to students retaining knowledge and instructions. Educators desiring for improvement in assessments, and instructions have to integrate the two.  “Newmann, and Wehlage, 1993 article” states that instructions are “authentic if they help learners obtain the following objectives:

1.      “ Construct meaning and produce knowledge”

2.      “Use disciplined inquiry to construct meaning and”

3.      “Aim work toward production of discourse, products and performances that have value or meaning beyond success in school,” (Wisconsin Education Association Council, 2014).

Reference

Re Wisconsin Education Association Council. (2014). Performance Assessment.  Retrieved

January 06, 2014 from http://www.weac.org/professional_resources/Testing/performance_assessment.aspx

E-learning: More Than Meets the Eye

I am entering the last half of the last week of my course all about e-learning.  This was one of the few required courses I was blase about because of the content.  I work in a corporate environment and while we use online technologies, an actual online class is not what I do.  However, I am happy this course was required, have learned quite a bit, and could see myself facilitating online courses as a second job (I was told by someone he could see me doing that).  One of the most significant things I have learned is there is the same amount if not more preparation required for facilitating an online course as compared with a traditional face-to-face classroom or even a hybrid environment.  In a true e-classroom, there is no face to face interaction unless participants take advantage of collaboration through Skype or other applications for video chat.  This means instruction, activities, and assignments need to engage and motivate learners on their own.  This can be extremely difficult!  In my own experience, there have been courses that are more difficult to involve myself with whether it be the content (if it's required and I don't really have an interest, it can be hard for me to get motivated to complete my work) or the methods used (even with interesting content, discussion that is not developed to encourage research and support doesn't support engagement).  E-learning requires significant motivation for self-study and exploration and if there is not proper support from a facilitator, almost any learner can lose motivation to continue their learning.  Some major learning I have taken from my courses with this program are the different applications out there to aid in learning.  One of these is Piktochart.com.  Here is an example of my work that just so happens to be about the topic of this post:

Just a reminder...

IIRC, Facebook was started as a way for college students to share their thoughts and experiences regarding college -- all of it, not just classes, learning, opinions about professors or frustration with learning content but the entire social aspect of the university, who not to date, great places to get a beer, frats to avoid, etc. In a way, FB replaced some of the more traditional ways of interacting with other students, i.e., forming a club, electing officers, drafting a charter, roping in a faculty sponsor, setting an agenda and scheduling meeting times that were the most convenient for everyone involved.

Back in the day, before the World Wide Web, there was a series (tens of thousands, actually) of discussion boards on something called USENET that pretty much had everything one was interested in discussing. They all began with "alt." such that, if you were interested in discussing a particular topic (or even finding a companion), you searched groups like, "alt.cognitivescience" or even subgroups such as "alt.cognitivescience.quantum.theory" to engage with like-minded students and individuals. The FB inventors took that idea and made it Web 2.0 since, the old USENET groups were moderated (it's where the terms "flamer" and "lurker" originated, among other things) and one would sometimes wait for days for a reply to a post (bearing in mind that, back then, very few people had access to the Internet) -- suddenly, interaction was immediate and IRT (in real time). The meeting was ongoing and asynchronous.


That's what this PLN is supposed to be about -- Web 2.0 technology used for the purpose of sharing information, interests, gripes, opinions, insights, input, arguments and anything else we can throw into this that will add to the dialog -- and our own education.