I have used several PBA emerging market tools. Those I used the more frequently include wiki, prezi, toondoo and blog. I have used wiki and blog in the teaching of mathematics and physics prior to starting this MET program. Since I have being enrolled in this program, I have used toondoo and prezi to make […]
Continue reading Conroy’s Final Post Posted in: Uncategorized, Week 10: Product-Based Assessments
I have used many of the products in my own learning and with students – blogs and wikis especially. I think a great product that could be designed is also a simple one (in theory). Part of the issue in developing good PBL activities is coming up with a good topic/question/plan. Wouldn’t it be nice […]
Continue reading Final Post – Idea generator Posted in: Week 10: Product-Based Assessments
… with a nice rubric that noted the curriculum links and marked the assignments for us based on quality, sentence length, and use of colour? 🙂
Sarcasm aside, I like the idea. What do you think of applying the cube here? Something like: a market focus (public schools), the type of offering (service and content), the buyer (guide offering to the learner), the global target (quite a widely applicable audience assuming that the curricular links can be supported), the market status (supporting both content an infrastructure), and the competition (there isn’t a great competition here).
Thanks for the idea!
Kristopher
Hi Emily and Kristopher,
I think may be on to something. It’s worth fleshing out. 🙂
Kerry-Ann
I am a huge fan of portfolios and used them extensively in my classrooms in both elementary and secondary schools. So the emergence of eportfolios was a gift – no longer did I have to keep boxes and cabinets filled with artifacts that students were completing and saving in their old-style portfolios. So student use […]
Continue reading Final Post: Emerging PBA for the future Posted in: Week 10: Product-Based Assessments
Wow, fantastic ideas there Brenda. If a PBA product was designed and incorporated with easy access or affordances for developing and tracking a Personal Learning Network, I imagine that adminstrators across Canada would be extremely interested in using such a tool. Within my own PLN (ie the people I follow on Twitter!), it is obvious that many would jump at the chance to use a web2.0 service that tracks their progress and assessments.
Thanks for the ideas. Sorry I can’t write much more right now, I have some software that I need to develop 😉
cheers
Doug
Hi Brenda,
I echo Doug’s sentiments. Fantastic idea! It could also include targets, for example, did they attain targets and if not what were the challenges and/or how did they overcome challenges or why were they not able to overcome challenges. Such information could provide useful for administrative processes and ministry officials who are not in first hand contact with the’ field’.
Kerry-Ann
Brenda,
Great that you came up with this topic. I am currently doing the topic of assessment and evaluation of literacy behaviours with my students and portfolio is featured prominently. However, their knowledge of a portfolio is folders with various artifacts. Since I introduced them to eportfolio, their mindset has changed and they are even now drawn to it more than the folders. They express their love for the convenience and accessibility wherever one goes. They also mentioned how student can share their work with a wider audience and get instant feedback; not only from teachers, but also from parents and peers.
Everton
E-Portfolios Wow, I would like to congratulate the group for your excellent project. Very well done and packed with a ton of information. I’ve used project based assessment many time in my teaching career with ultimately good results. I worked at an alternative school and we charted student analysis through e-portfolios. Now, these were informal, […]
Continue reading SWOT and E-Portfolios Posted in: Uncategorized, Week 10: Product-Based Assessments
Hi David. You make a very good point about templates. Mahara does offer a great template, but it is restrictive…..however, I imagine that you could always link or connect other artifacts to Mahara to offer a larger perspective? I need to play with Mahara more to fully undertsand its capabilities….
Thanks for your post,
Verena:)
Hi David,
Mahara is a nice (free) product, and you are welcome to test it out on my server at your leisure. Please contact me privately if you would like to keep using it for an extended period of time for experimentation.
Mahara is very much for institutional e-portfolio use, and it ties in pretty well with Moodle installations. You can set it up to use a single sign-on for both products. If a person has time and a web server, individuals can install their own Mahara and create their own e-portfolio. Or they can take it a step further and use Mahara for their own teaching. And it extends onwards from there…
Hi David,
I like the idea of using a SWOT analysis in evaluating tools. It is so often used in corporate settings but here it proves to be a very effective method of analysis across sectors and instruments.
Kerry-Ann
Take a moment to write your final post about which PBA future emerging market tool (product or service) you have used and which one you would like to see more of. As some of the coursemates have mentioned in their posts, I would also like to see more of blogging. Blogging is the area that […]
Continue reading Final Post: Blogging and Cloud Computing are Ways to Go Posted in: Week 10: Product-Based Assessments
Hello Deb,
I agree that next steps could be developing rubrics and assessment for PBA assessment tools. Creating a Web 2.0 tool that offers examples. That would be an interesting business opportunity….
Verena:)
Deb & Ver
Very interesting take on the issue. The rubric would certainly add some form of standard even the aim is not to standardized these assessment. The aim is to keep them as informal and authentic as possible.
Everton
Hi Deb,
I also agree that blogging should be used more frequently in classrooms for students to use. I think it’s a wonderful way for student’s to be creative and express their thoughts and learned knowledge.
Jenaca
I’ve really enjoyed the PBA discussion so far. One question investors always want to know about new ventures is where “recurring revenue” will come from. In short, if you do some work and get paid for it, that’s a ‘service business’, which means you have to perform the service again and again to get […]
Continue reading Product-based PBA Posted in: Week 10: Product-Based Assessments
Hi David Vogt,
Thank you for making clear the distinction between ‘service business’ and ‘product business’ and I was thinking about an example I came across during research for assignment one. The woman who had designed the Globe Theatre on “Shakespeare Island” in the virtual world of Second Life probably intended her design to have recurring revenue. Supposedly, users would log in and pay to see live versions of the play acted out by Resident actors. It must have been a lot of work to get scenes (not even an entire act, let alone the play from beginning to end) ready for audiences each performance. Her last-ditch effort to make the island an educational resource failed, and by now all of her work has been deleted from Second Life.
In her final message as the Resident Ina Centaur, she blogs a story that could have been her way into a ‘service business’ for her virtual Globe: an anonymous benefactor mails her an iPhone 3G, suggesting that her Second Life project would have been more marketable through the iTunes store, as Steve Jobs (the supposed benefactor revealed) had “created iTunes so that independent creators could share their creations and even turn it into a viable business.” (Centaur, 2011 Oct, para. 5) App as product-based PBA may be the most lucrative way into the educational market.
Kyle
Centaur, I. (2011, Oct.) Our magic and our passing – Goodbye from the SL Shakespeare Company, Primtings, and sLiterary [blog] SL Shakespeare Company Blog 2009-2010. Retrieved on Nov 11, 2011 from http://twelfthnight.mshakespeare.com/blog/2011/10/22/our-magic-and-our-passing-–-goodbye-from-the-sl-shakespeare-company-primtings-and-sliterary
Hi Kyle,
Your observations here reflect what I have noticed as well. When ‘products’ emerge that are targeted specifically to educators (or students via educators), they often have big start-up work commitments for the developers, and are often then behind the times of what is emerging out of non-education specific social (peripheral) development. In other words: a lot of educational products require a lot of investment, and quickly become dated and duplicated. It seems that any emerging product – in order to be profitable -needs to emerge quickly, be very targeted to a specific element of the ‘need’ in the market, and be usable on the devices that are already in hand. It seems that App-based products would be lucrative right now.
Emily
“Hello David! I appreciated your distinction between product and service…..Having a “theory” as the foundation for an emerging market left our group really questioning what the “products” and “services” would be…..I can see how some of our PBA examples which we may have seen as “products” are actually services…..The few PBA Emerging products would probably be m-portfolios, books (as long as it was just updated), e-portfolio software like Mahara and possibly employee assessment software. All four offer possibilities……
Thanks again for your help with product/serviceclarification….
Verena:)
It’s an interesting idea David. Clearly some people are marketing PBA products as tools for accountability, and it makes sense that they would do this. It seems like most of the policy frameworks published these days are about accountability. Sadly, I feel that in many ways it is a thin veil that says we would like to track learning, when in reality if you look behind the veil it is about tracking spending and tax payer’s money. But I believe there is a huge market for products that want to do good, not evil. One thing we really looked for was PBA ventures that were tying themselves to SIS. There isn’t much (any?) out there right now, but this is an area where there is huge upside for both recurring and non-recurring sales along with easy accessible buyers.
cheers
Doug
Hi David and all,
David, I echo appreciation for the clarification.
Great example Kyle. I agree with Kyle and Emily that apps are the way to go to have that recurring revenue. However, the app must fill a need and as such will not become ‘outdated’. As more insights on learning and systems become available, or when changes are made to systems, then buyers/consumers can purchase upgrades. There can also be tiers and levels associated with different costing packages. For example, a progress tracking app would be a viable venture.
Kerry-Ann
Re product vs. service business…
The issue of scability is interesting when it comes to services, but it’s also an issue with products (consider how Amazon or Apple ran out of manufacturing capacity with initially popular products).
Perhaps you’re focusing on IP-related products… theoretically they can be distributed widely and cheaply after production. The problem is that ignores the required services of maintaining them, providing customer support, marketing to attract and maintain attention, etc.
While scalability is interesting, so is the issue of margins and value. IBM shifting to services from products, for instance, and HP’s desire to do the same, to pursue higher value transactions. As a lawyer, I can hand out precedents but the true value is in asking you questions to determine your goals and fashion a custom solution. Do I want to be a McDonald’s drive-thru lawyer who hands out pre-fab precedents, or do I want to be considered a valued member of the team who helps you see beyond your preconceptions?
In a way, this discussion highlights some of my problems with “product-based assessment” and constructivist learning practices. Sometimes the focus is too much on production of something, and the actual critical thinking and accountability for results to a client are completely lost. Consider group presentation seminars in grad school… if we’re relying on the groups to educate us and those groups spend all their time at the bottom of Bloom’s taxonomy and bore us to tears, how are we getting value for the thousands we’ve spent on our education?
Before I participate in Activity #1, I’d like to compliment the Week 10 group for your awsome work! I especially like the SWOT Analysis. Moreover, PBA is a great topic to discuss as assessment is the area that my colleagues at my school are paying a lot of attention to this year. As there is […]
Continue reading [ACTIVITY #1] My PBA Experience Posted in: Week 10: Product-Based Assessments
Hi Deb,
First, thanks for the compliment! 🙂 I agree that assessment is difficult — for me, it’s probably also the most challenging area. As a MET student I’ve also learned so much about authentic assessment just through experiencing the value of it. We learn how to *do* school very early, and PBA-style assignments can push us to do new things and think more creatively because we have to. Did you find any adjustment to the PBA activities popular in MET, or did you immediately feel comfortable with it?
Andrea
Hi Andrea,
I wasn’t familiar with the PBA activities in MET at first, but I soon became comfortable with it.
You just need some time to get used to it. This requires time and effort as well. Once you get used to it, everything becomes pretty much a piece of cake. 🙂
Deb
Take a moment to write your final post about which PBA future emerging market tool (product or service) you have used and which one you would like to see more of. Well I have used quite a few but blog tops the list. I have been using it even before I started MET and think […]
Continue reading Final Post Posted in: Week 10: Product-Based Assessments
Hi Everton,
I also like blogs for PBA. I’ve used a blog mostly for my classes, but haven’t used it for social features. Some of my students have used it for discussion and socialization (They still need to work on blog etiquette though). I’d also like to see more of it for the educational use.
Deb
Deb,
That is the route I would like to see blogs go too. Maybe they could also upgrade it to an LMS to facilitate the complete learning experience in a single package.
Everton
I agree with you all – blogs have such potential!!! They can also be “created” and designed in so many different ways as demonstrated by the ETEC blog project group…Using blogs for advertising (products and services) and paying for an online course that uses blogs as a learning tool (like ETEC522) offer two ways blogs can make money….I think accepting that blogs offer a service and have the potential to influence profit makes them so powerful….
Verena:)
As I’ve read people’s responses over the week, I’ve been reflecting on how… natural… PBAs seem to me.Then I realized – in my youth, I trained in classical music for 13 years. I’m sure that *lots* of us took music lessons. Classical music education has historically and continues to be about learning repertoire (in addition […]
Continue reading PBAs in/as music education and other non ‘academic’ learning Posted in: Week 10: Product-Based Assessments
Hi Allie!
Excellent examples. It is truly ironic how as educators we are searching for alternative methods of learning and assessment…as the traditional way, being used as the “only way” just doesn’t work. That’s why I included Sir Ken Robinson’s video as well at the end of our project…he is a true advocate of the arts in Education…but really I think he looks at the way the arts are assessed, just like you pointed out so well in your post.
Thanks for your post!
Verena:)
Allie,
Thanks for the great examples! It is funny that it makes so much sense to have a final product in some subject areas but in others it seems as if tests are the only option. PBAs make so much more sense because you are actually demonstrating that you can do what you are actually learning to do.
Tamara
(I am posting this earlier because I am travelling tonight) From The PBA future emerging market tools listed on the “Future Ventures” page I have used the followings: Blogs. Wikis. Cloud Computing. I would like to see more of services that offer the PBA pedagogy to the world. One of the major issues in Chilean […]
Continue reading Final Post-Week 10 Posted in: Week 10: Product-Based Assessments
Angela,
Thanks for your thoughts and input, and I think I can speak for our entire group when I say that I’m pleased that you found this week’s presentation to be useful.
I think you touch on a very important aspect of PBA and professional development: these things take time and educators need resources (perhaps time more than anything) in order to properly implement assessment systems, of which PBA is one style or theory.
Your post also makes me think of a connection between PBA and PLNs (personal learning networks). I have no doubt that in the next few years we will see a proliferation of social network PLN development, and the flexibility of asynchronous communication could possibly enhance our ability to discuss and improve PBA and assessment pedagogy in general. So there is is a lot of hope for the Chilean Education System I think. Not only can PBA be successful but with connectors, mavens and salespeople, there surely are many venture opportunities for PBA products and services.
cheers
Doug
Hey Angie,
You hit a critical note when you mentioned collaboration and knowledge-building. All of us in the MET program can attest to that. This is the first time I am actually building knowledge in such a way where I can collaborate with my classmates to explore various topics. PBA has really changed the learning game.
Everton
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khenry 8:05 pm on November 12, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Conroy,
Like you i have also introduced many other PBA emerging market tools after experiencing or being exposed to them in the MET programme. I think also that more PBA tools indeed should be used but I think even more so by the students themselves in creating and assessing products. I would like to see PBAs that directly reflect and/or support the product/products.
Kerry-Ann
Everton Walker 9:36 pm on November 12, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Conroy,
That is true but the sad thing is that a lot of educators are not aware of these tools. I think we will have to go on a public education drive to get the message across.
Everton
kstooshnov 10:27 pm on November 12, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Everton,
Sad, sort of… As a relatively new teacher on call still hoping to land a permanent position, I am counting on a majority of the teachers not being aware of the latest tech tools. Having a MET degree will be an advantage over the good teachers who unfortunately struggle setting up a digital projector and don’t know what to do with a SMARTBoard.
Once hired, of course, I would want every one of my peers to be technologically savvy :-1
Kyle
Doug Smith 9:23 am on November 13, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I’m planning on doing some in-school lunch sessions later this year, to showcase various web2.0 tools that teachers can use. Many teachers will be aware of some of these tools, and for others it may be the beginning of a new journey. But let’s always keep the pedagogy in mind and at the forefront!