I have been thinking about assessment and where we need to head with this for a while. This is the second draft and I would appreciate comments, suggestions etc. Many thanks to Nick and Brett for their comments.
Assessment, in the form of examinations, has be a constant feature of education since the 18th Century. Some [...]
In my last blog on assessment I looked at some of the key words we use in assessment and the fact that these are often Lower Order Thinking skills (LOTS) rather than the Higher Order skills (HOTS).
So I went on to the NZQA (New Zealand Qualifications Authority) web site and downloaded a paper [...]
I have never been a huge fan of examinations. In fact, many current forms of assessment leave me cold. We are required to assess our students; to measure their progress, to track their learning, to identify weakness and perhaps to measure our own performance as educators.
But do they do our students justice?
We know that [...]
This session was a little on the edge. The three presenters (two real and one virtual via skype) were pushing the boundaries of their presentations - they had a wiki they shared, google documents and forms, presenting ucing google presenter and skyping into the presentation to video conference. The bandwidth and wireless was flaky [...]
Well day one went well. The open source lab was interesting - I attended a session using Blender a 3D image and animation tool. A good session, a little to big for really good learning but it was a good taster and one I will follow up on.
I continue to be impressed [...]
The Otago Daily Times reports on Saturday 21st June that “School opts for free Software”
The school has decided to stop using the ministry’s SMS (School Management Software) and it hope to be the first school “to exclusively use free ‘GNU/Linux’ software on school managment and classroom computers”
But the best thing about this statement is this. [...]
Yesterday I had the privilage of attending and presenting at the Waimarino Cluster Conference, held at Bethlehem College in Tauranga. Overall I found the experience to be a positive one.
The evening before we had a very pleasant meal out with Richard, Sharon, Rocky, Allanah and Jamin. Having time to network with other enthusiasts is [...]
One of my favourite presentations is “A handful of the best” and I am presenting this workshop on Friday at the Waimarino Cluster conference.
The presentation is looking at a handful of cost efficient tools that you can easily integrate into the classroom to enhance learning.
Its my favourite because there are some many tools that you [...]
This last week has been quiet on the blogging front as I have been busy with examinations and marking. It is fair to say that I have been reflecting on my own marking and the comments colleagues have been making too.
As our curriculum gears itself towards 21st century education and the 21st century learner, assessment [...]
A colleague just sent this through to me. He was doing so research using wikipedia for science and scientists.
The entry has been edited with rather juvenile additions. This is disappointing as we don’t need this sort of vandalism.
However, as a teaching opportunity this is useful, it does highlight the risks of a trust based model [...]
