Learning Technologies: Design & Applications

ePortfolio assignment #4: Assessment Tools

A reflection upon my experience completing the assignment 

• Access quiz here: Moodle / Module 1 / 2. Producción linguística (quiz: formative assessment) 
• or here: http://moodle.met.ubc.ca/mod/quiz/view.php?id=6879

While creating the multiple choice questions; the matching questions; the short answer questions and the essay questions, many thoughts crossed my mind.

Technical support:

• I realized that, despite the online book provided in the course (excellent, by the way) and web resources available, in the end I had to figure out how to create the quiz more or less on my own.
• I tried to ask for some help in the student forum, but people were already overwhelmed with what they had to accomplish and one doesn’t want to inconvenience the community.
• Although I managed to somehow create a quiz that met the basic parameters prescribed in the assignment, the process reminded me of many of colleagues’ reluctance to using new technological instrumentation.
  • The time and patience that it takes to create tools that may or may not be better than what already exists is something to ponder.
  • On the other hand, with all the technological experimentation that I have done in the MET program, I have come to realize that technological exploration often reaps excellent results in the end.

Exploration:

• The Moodle quiz assessment provided me with an opportunity to explore the tools available in this LMS.
• I realized that this quiz would be useful for practicing the linguistic skills and the interactivity would motivate the students.
• The experience made be consider the assessment procedures that I would have to devise for the students’ oral presentations (daily new from the web) and the thematic projects (research projects presented on PowerPoint or other audio visual medium).

Presence: (Anderson, CCM)

• Cognitive:
  • The quiz I devised allowed the students to demonstrate their knowledge of Spanish. The essay questions also provided an arena for them to use their own experience and display some critical thinking skills.
• Social:
  • This type of quiz does not provide for much social interaction. I would like to explore these activities in relation to our daily oral presentations (chats) and thematic projects (forums).
• Teaching:
  • The quiz is a way to engage students in an interactive environment that can be monitored by the teacher. It is useful to know if students completed the questions during the time allocated and if they had to do it only one or many times.
  • This type of “teaching presence” relates more to the organization of learning (Anderson, CCM) than to communication with the students.

Conclusion:

I am looking forward to further my exploration of the Moodle assessment options in the hope to enhance my students’ social presence and to optimize my presence as a learning facilitator.