Could be worse! May 8, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : learning , 1 comment so farLes Perelman via MICHAEL WINERIP quoted on Weblogg-ed
SAT graders are told to read an essay just once and spend two to three minutes per essay, and Dr. Perelman is now adept at rapid-fire SAT grading. This reporter held up a sample essay far enough away so it could not be read, and he was still able to guess the correct grade by its bulk and shape. “That’s a 4,” he said. “It looks like a 4.”
Assessment assessment - part 6 May 6, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : ultraversity, learning , 2comments( This series is getting a bit lengthy, up to part 6 already, so for the readers’ convenience, here again are the links to the Action Enquiry Report and the Assessment cover sheet )
Quoting
This is the first question which is asked in the Assessment cover sheet:
Sometimes I found it difficult to know when you were talking about someone else’s ideas and when you were talking about your own ideas- eg on your blog when talking about Wenger’s ideas on CoP you merely supply a link to his website then list some paragraphs outlining what CoPs could be – some ideas seem to be his, some yours. But it’s hard for me to tell. Could you keep this in mind?
This sounds valid, I wouldn’t want to be quoting something to illustate an idea with which I disagree only for the reader to mistake it for my own views. But let’s examine the only example given, the review of Wenger on COPs which appears in my blog entry COP part 1. The quote from Wenger’s website is introduced in the following way…
Etienne Wenger defines COPS thus
Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and who interact regularly to learn how to do it better. etc etc
So we have the word “thus” followed by an indented paragraph which contains text from the very website linked to. That’s a very common way to quote from other sites, almost a standard. It’s pretty obvious those are Wenger’s words and not mine, how much clearer does it have to be? Subsequently in that blog series, I describe various communities with which I am familar and how they relate to Wenger’s definition, discuss possible problems with Wenger’s criteria, and pose the idea of ‘communities of identity’ which are not COPs. Those are my ideas, it’s me, writing on my blog, not quoting anybody. If somebody is still confused by that, I don’t think there’s much more I can do for them.
Assessment assessment - part 4 May 5, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : ultraversity, learning , 2commentsPeer Reviewers
“I’d be interested in how your very capable peer reviewers found reading your work.”
Comment One - Linda Hartley
Hi all
In Andy’s feedback Gina suggests that this might be the start of a discussion:
Ability to relate theory to practice.
Excellent – I can see clearly how you have absorbed the reading you have done into the work you carried out in creating a wiki. I can appreciate the time you have spent in expressing your thoughts and emerging ideas in different media
I am not aware of Andy using a wide range of media to explore his ideas, just the blog and 43Things in this instance. These are just web sites - one form of media or am I missing something? Personally I used blog, 43Things, and quicktime movies stored on my FC web space. Eve what do you think?
– I find this at times a challenging way for me to piece together your thoughts- I’d venture to say it’s easier for a reader to take in an author’s ideas if he or she doesn’t have to visit many places to read those ideas.
Perhaps you have a different view of the internet to mine. I am not so aware of a sense of movement between spaces when I click a link as you seem to be. I find it easy to thread the whole together and follow Andy’s meaning usually.
Having said that, when I come back to your work for the second time, I come with a sense of seeing your ideas unfold and develop. I’m always going to waver on this point – should your ideas be in one place with clear headings in a more conventional format, or is your work a valid way of using media in a fresh and more accessible way? I can’t answer it. I’d just like to work less hard sometimes when taking on your ideas.
Is it wrong to make the reader work hard? Should we be considering this in our presentation of the work? I’m not so sure. Maybe the reader needs to concentrate and stretch their mind to understand the work, does this make it a bad piece of work? Is easy better?
I may have to concentrate to understand Andy’s meaning sometimes. I have to do that when I read anythng serious. I hope people give my work similar sort of attention.
It would be good to have a continuing dialogue about this- perhaps assessment ought to be more of a dialogue that a one sided judgement. I’d be interested in how your very capable peer reviewers found reading your work.
So what do we think on this point?
Personally I’m not sure that there’s a qualative difference between Andy’s work and mine and Eve’s. We all tend to use a ‘patchwork’ from various sources or spheres where we are active on the web (blog, 43Things, stuff stored on FC webspace, even sometimes comments on other people’s blogs.)
Does it make our work harder to mark? Quite possibly, certainly you can’t easily print off our work and read it. or copy it to cd. But then we are doing a ‘100% on-line degree’.
However read on-line, with reasonable attention paid I usually understand what Andy’s meaning is. I dont’ find it any harder or easier to follow than Eve’s work usually.
I know that Gina won’t feel able to look at my work or yours Eve but perhaps the knowledge that we got 79% and 78% respectively and used not disimmilar methods to present our work might be of interest.
Linda Hartley (Cohort 1)
Comment Two - Eve Thirkle
Linda Hartley on 29 April 2005 at 22:09 +0000 wrote:
Hi all
In Andy’s feedback Gina suggests that this might be the start of a discussion:
That’ll teach me to check in here while printing off directions! Some quick feedback and more to follow whenI’ve had a think!
Ability to relate theory to practice.
Excellent – I can see clearly how you have absorbed the reading you have done into the work you carried out in creating a wiki. I can appreciate the time you have spent in expressing your thoughts and emerging ideas in different media
I am not aware of Andy using a wide range of media to explore his ideas, just the blog and 43Things in this instance. These are just web sites - one form of media or am I missing something? No I’m with you there on that - all websites - but perhaps with a different ‘utility’ they appear to be different media? Personally I used blog, 43Things, and quicktime movies stored on my FC web space. Eve what do you think? I used blog, referrred to 43 in the peer bit and also the movies plus pictures.
– I find this at times a challenging way for me to piece together your thoughts- I’d venture to say it’s easier for a reader to take in an author’s ideas if he or she doesn’t have to visit many places to read those ideas.
Perhaps you have a different view of the internet to mine. I am not so aware of a sense of movement between spaces when I click a link as you seem to be. I find it easy to thread the whole together and follow Andy’s meaning usually.
I’ve done the whole of my LIWPS2 as a website - there are many links and pages and also ‘back’ referrering links to present a coherent whole - any links that are external to my work I have put to open in a new window so that it doesn’t detract from my main presentation - possibly something to think about? Andy’s work is fine as far as I am concerned.
Having said that, when I come back to your work for the second time, I come with a sense of seeing your ideas unfold and develop. I’m always going to waver on this point – should your ideas be in one place with clear headings in a more conventional format, or is your work a valid way of using media in a fresh and more accessible way? I can’t answer it. I’d just like to work less hard sometimes when taking on your ideas.
Is it wrong to make the reader work hard? Why is it hard work? Should we be considering this in our presentation of the work? Possibly - if the hard work puts people off - I found it hard to follow the pdf you sent recently for peer review - but I find lots of words hard work. - perhaps the answer is to have a different option to choose and present it three ways but … probably not at this level.I’m not so sure. Maybe the reader needs to concentrate and stretch their mind to understand the work, does this make it a bad piece of work? Is easy better?
I may have to concentrate to understand Andy’s meaning sometimes. I have to do that when I read anythng serious. I hope people give my work similar sort of attention.Ditto
It would be good to have a continuing dialogue about this- perhaps assessment ought to be more of a dialogue that a one sided judgement. I’d be interested in how your very capable peer reviewers found reading your work.
So what do we think on this point?
Personally I’m not sure that there’s a qualative difference between Andy’s work and mine and Eve’s. We all tend to use a ‘patchwork’ from various sources or spheres where we are active on the web (blog, 43Things, stuff stored on FC webspace, even sometimes comments on other people’s blogs.) I can’t understand the differences sometimes - we’re all working at a similar level - the whole idea of the La’s was to avoid writing a 4000 word report - we weave the LA’s together to form a coherent whole - is the problem in the weaving or are we following the wrong pattern altogether?
Does it make our work harder to mark? Quite possibly, certainly you can’t easily print off our work and read it. or copy it to cd. But then we are doing a ‘100% on-line degree’.
However read on-line, with reasonable attention paid I usually understand what Andy’s meaning is. I dont’ find it any harder or easier to follow than Eve’s work usually.
I know that Gina won’t feel able to look at my work or yours Eve but perhaps the knowledge that we got 79% and 78% respectively and used not disimmilar methods to present our work might be of interest.
Gina’s welcome to loook at mine if she wants to see a comparator - not for comments obviously as we’ve had that discussion before.
I will look with interest on Monday to see how full my inbox is!
Eve
[Cohort 1]
“Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only that the cat died nobly.” — Arnold Edinborough
“Research is what I do when I don’t know what I’m doing.” — Wernher Von Braun
http://firstclass.ultraversity.net/~eve.thirkle/
http://evet.blogdrive.com
http://www.furl.net/members/EveT
I am quite happy to be quoted and for the quote to be attributed to me. Please do not anonymise me.
Assessment assessment - part 2 May 5, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : ultraversity, learning , 1 comment so farThe assessment starts off with a few brief positive points, in a factual tone, and then quickly launches into a description of the assessor’s problems.
LEARNING FACILITATOR Comments
Select and negotiate appropriate tasks. Meet learning objectives.
Excellent – You have met all learning objectives for this module to a high standard.
Ability to take responsibility for own learning.
Excellent – you excel in this also.
Ability to relate theory to practice.
Excellent – I can see clearly how you have absorbed the reading you have done into the work you carried out in creating a wiki. I can appreciate the time you have spent in expressing your thoughts and emerging ideas in different media – I find this at times a challenging way for me to piece together your thoughts- I’d venture to say it’s easier for a reader to take in an author’s ideas if he or she doesn’t have to visit many places to read those ideas. Having said that, when I come back to your work for the second time, I come with a sense of seeing your ideas unfold and develop. I’m always going to waver on this point – should your ideas be in one place with clear headings in a more conventional format, or is your work a valid way of using media in a fresh and more accessible way? I can’t answer it. I’d just like to work less hard sometimes when taking on your ideas. It would be good to have a continuing dialogue about this- perhaps assessment ought to be more of a dialogue that a one sided judgement. I’d be interested in how your very capable peer reviewers found reading your work.
The first thing to come up is this question of “different media”. Now, I have in the past made use of video, audio, animation - ultraversity used to encourage this - but in this particular report i didn’t use any of these - it’s all just text with some minimal graphics and one monochrome diagram. And the main body of the report is all presented as one long HTML document, formatted exactly as prescribed by the imposed Action Research tool, such as it is. So I don’t accept that I have in any way bamboozled the reader with a baffling mixture of media because it simply isn’t true. Perhaps the word media is being employed as in ‘Through the Looking Glass”
`When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
Then we get the complaint about having to ‘visit many places’. Being a webpage, the Action Enquiry tool allows the inclusion of HTML code such as hypertext links. It doesn’t really matter whether you visit the official Action Enquiry tool, or the version which I have published on my coursework website, they are practically identical. Both contain the same links, links to the learning activities, goals, reflections, peer review and blog entries which tghe reader can optionally explore as far as they wish. This website format is something which I have used right from the very start of year one, with encouragement, and yet suddenly it is being criticised as too hard work for the poor marker. The question is even raised that it may not be valid. “is your work a valid way … I can’t answer it”
As for suggesting an alternative with clear headings, well the headings used are exactly as directed by the imposed Action Enquiry tool pro forma so what on earth is that supposed to mean? I have indeed submitted a report the main part of which is all in one document ( not that I would agree to always to keep to that , a series of linked pages may be more effective sometimes ) and uses the prescribed headings but the one which has been assessed is bafflingly described as something completely different.
So it was suggested that there should be a continuing dialogue, including my peer review partners, which we tried to have, but then it turned out that “It would be good to have a continuing dialogue” doesn’t imply that it should actually happen at all. It was a mistake. Taking Humpty Dumpty to a new level, not just words but whole phrases and sentances can be paid off and made to mean whatever you want them to mean, or nothing at all.
Assessment assessment - part 1 May 4, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : ultraversity, learning , comments closedI handed in a piece of university work recently, a substantial report representing over 200 hours work on a research project which I was interested in and went well.
Here’s a link to it
ultrastudents/andyroberts/year2/AEreport/AEtool.html
And here is a link to the assessment which I received back from my learning facilitator.
ultrastudents/andyroberts/year2/AEreport/mark.html
Since there are a number of direct questions asked in the assesment, and there is no obvious place where I am supposed to reply, I am going to use the blog for this purpose, in a series of articles which examine the assessment cover sheet and attempt to answer it.
degree title suffix
In this first part, I wish to deal with the optional degree title suffix.
Ultraversity offer to all students, the chance to add a suffix to the basic degree title “BA(hons) Learning, Technology, Research” although nearly all are dissuaded from doing so. I decided that it would be beneficial to attempt to incorporate my own speciality, Information Communication Technology (ICT) into the degree title and was sucessfully helped through the process to do so in year one last year. There will be another process to make sure I am still working towards the chosen degree title later this year, I am told, which seems fair enough.
But the thing which bothers me, is that the software which runs the Ultraversity stuff, and all of the pro-formas are never personalised for my own case. If I thought it was just an erroneous heading on a page then I could put up with that but whenever I query it I get given the same blank answer “your degree title will be reassessed at the end of the second year”, which is true as I have already explained, but it doesn’t answer my concerns at all.
My concerns are that the chosen degree title, and therefore the focus of my research, is simply never referred to anywhere, and I am extremely suspicious that it is simply forgotten about, even when my work is being assessed and advice given for future directions. This is important to me, because having an amended degree title means that I am not always trying to do the same type of work in the same proportions as other students who are doing the basic degree title, and yet my work is compared and assessed, apparently, as if it were. I would have thought that specialising in the technology aspect should at least mean that some effort is made by assessors to understand the technology I am researching and writing about, but it seems to be my writing style and skill at essay writing which attracts all of the analysis while the actual work I do and research barely gets a mention. If anything I feel as if I am being discouraged from pursuing the very thing which I was offered the chance to specialise in.
Why doesn’t the amended degree title appear in the feedback so that I can be sure it has been considered and not forgotten about?
The amended degree title is the one I am aiming to graduate in, but it is the incorrect unamended one which always appears in the titles, and this applies to all of the ultraversity tools, such as they are.
So I’ve begun by raising the question of the degree title then, to begin with. Future entries in this series will discuss selected parts of the substance of the assessment.
Online Learning and Collaboration event April 19, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : learning , comments closedAlready underway, TechSoup.org’s latest International online event on Online Learning and Collaboration.
Join us the week of April 18-22, 2005 in TechSoup’s Community at www.techsoup.org online learning
What are the issues and challenges involved in using online learning? What does it mean to collaborate and learn online? How can you and your organization use online learning and collaboration to achieve your organizational mission? This week-long event will answer those questions and demystify online collaboration tools. Join us as we discuss collaborative approaches for online learning communities, conferences, as well as classes and workshops. We will introduce you to the free tools available on the Web for online collaboration. We will also examine (and demonstrate) software and platforms in addition to best practice examples from the Tutor/Mentor Connection and Knowplace. The Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC), based in Chicago , uses the Internet as a resource library and meeting place for people interested in helping inner city youth. Knowplace is a customized International learning community that helps organizations and individuals move into the online world quickly and efficiently.
Drop in on the event and share your own examples, ideas and questions and test these new, free technologies that will help your organization with its educational goals.
Topics include
* An overview of ideas and practices integral to online learning and collaboration.
* Best-practice examples of learning community meetings and conferences.
* A live demo of a synchronous session.
* Free or inexpensive tools for teaching, training , and building an online learning community.
* The steps it takes to go from in-person to online learning.This event will be hosted at http//www.techsoup.org/onlinelearning and
moderated by Janet Salmons, Vision2Lead, Inc.
Dan Bassill, Tutor/Mentor Connection and Carole Cotton and Frances Long, Knowplace (http//knowplace.ca/).
See you the week of April 18 at http//www.techsoup.org/onlinelearning
Introducing a WIKI to a Community of Practice April 12, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : learning , 3commentsIntroducing a WIKI to a Community of Practice is the title of the Action Enquiry report which I finalised and submitted before the Easter Holidays. The findings were nearly all positive so I decided to try and take it further by publishing the work and seeking wider comment and comparison with others’ experiences. So far I have received a couple of comments in the small group community, nothing in Ultraversity Community, some encouragment from Nancy White, and a request to be interviewed about 43things for a Harvard graduate’s research project.
My intention is to update and re-present the findings in a shorter format to share with people who have done or are considering similar enterprises, in the hope that this leads to enough new learning to make up an Independent learning Module.
Introducing a WIKI to a Community of Practice
Four dichotomies March 21, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : learning , add a comment
Four dichotomies
Originally uploaded by Andyrob.
This diagram formed a handout which I gave out after speaking to London Wiki Wednesday recently and is still available for discussion at my Online Exhibition or indeed in the Action Researchers’ Coffee Shop
(post backdated 12 months)
OSX Server Maintenance March 17, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : learning, General , add a comment1) eMACS - to cure the distorted CRT screen problem - reboot while holding down apple+alt+p+r
This restores factory settings to the P-RAM
2) Appleworks file corruption - upgrade to 6.2.9 added to netboot image - also there is a file repair utility now in the shared folder
3) HP 5150 printer driver also added to netboot image
4) kar20uche and Firefox added to netboot image
5) Remote desktop - go to menu SETUP / COMPUTERS to add clients
6) after a restore, set the computer id in System preferences Sharing.
7) local printers should now be settable as default by ladmin, since server managed printing switched off.
Apache runs PHP and mySQL so intranet wiki a possibility, although there proved to be problems with database versions.
Exhibition and barn raising March 11, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : ultraversity, learning, internet, Wiki , add a commentOnline Exhibition now open at
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/?page_id=75
Barn raising for Distributed Action Research - until March 15th at
http://distributedresearch.net/wiki/index.php/Barn_raising
(post backdated 12 months)
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