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Three Roles

28/Feb/2011 09:52 PM
The course is finished and the last eight weeks have gone by very quickly. I always appreciate the opportunity to be a student again. It helps me be a better administrator by keeping things in perspective when I experience the same accomplishments and frustrations as my students. We had excellent and professional conversation about student learning. Throughout the course, we maintained our own learning by focusing on the learning of our current and future students. The topics we explored about were extremely timely, relevant, and practical. It will help me to be a better principal because I can support and recommend so many new technologies for my teachers to use. After introducing blogging, wikis, surveys, and other Web 2.0 technologies at a recent in-service, I'm happy to say many more of my teachers are beginning to explore and utilize these new tools.

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Assessment Toolbox

04/Feb/2011 05:08 PM
It has been a crazy, but productive week four. First, the blizzard or “snowmageddon” as the weather forecasters called it, dropped about 20 inches of snow on Tuesday. Second, school was closed for three days, two from the blizzard and one from a previously scheduled day on Friday. Third, I had a doctor’s appointment and a dental appointment this week. With all of that time off, I was able to work on the midterm project for the Assessment in eLearning class.

I worked with Albana and Tania on the Assessment Toolbox midterm project. I think we used technology well, especially using Skype for conferencing and instant messages. We mostly worked independently on our assigned components of the project and e-mailed our tool descriptions to each other. I assembled all of the documents into the web site. I chose to write about Google Apps as a collaboration and assessment tool. Did you notice I mentioned we e-mailed our documents to each other? Isn’t it ironic that I researched how to use Google Apps to work collaboratively in a new way and we worked together the old way!

We’ve spent a good amount of time in class reading about and discussing how to write a good learning objective. Last week, we created a concept map with sample objectives. This week, a component of the midterm project was to write at least one learning objective connected to the use of the assessment tool. On the message board we even discussed how to effectively convert learning objectives for an online course. I think a discussion about standards and benchmarks, a key component of learning objectives, was left out. National, state, and local standards define the knowledge and skills students are expected to know at each grade level. The benchmarks determine the level to which a standard must be obtained to be proficient.

Standards and benchmarks are used to guide instruction so that content gaps and overlaps do not occur. A teacher needs to create his or her learning objectives so that the expected standards and benchmarks are met. By using standards and benchmarks, most of the work in creating an objective is already done. This frees up the teacher to be more creative in planning how the objectives will be met. For future Assessment in eLearning classes, I think it would be beneficial if a discussion about standards and benchmarks was held before students begin to write objectives.

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