E- Network Assessors Community Services

Newsletter 2

2006-07-25T19:25:00.000-07:00

What’s Been Happening?
There has been a lot of preparation and discussion for the ICVET Conference 4th August. Looks like a great program with lost of interesting showcases. If you haven't seen what's happening go to the following link
http://www.icvet.tafensw.edu.au/powerhouse_2006/index.htm
News from the Edna Group WebsiteThis is our last week for using web tools and it would be great if everyone could try out one of the tools and give us a rating for the tool this will help with making decisions about choosing software for assessment. Have a go make a quizz and then share with everyone!
Chatting about E-Assessment
This network will be having regular chats to share ideas and discuss any issues that you may have. We will be using Breeze to have a chat!For our next chat I would like to get some experts in to discuss assessment issues. I will create a forum for you to provide ideas oif what are the issues for you and your section. Is it developing tools? Is it graded assessment? What would assist you with your decisions about assessment. Let me know so we can discuss.The breeze chatroom will be open for you to access on the linkhttp://webconf.det.nsw.edu.au/enacs/You will need a headphone set and speaker to communicate and if you want to be able leave notes and questions in the room I will need to join you up to the group with a user name and password. So just drop me a line and I will join you up.It seems as though the chats will be on Tuesday mornings 10.30am-11.30 with the next chat 8th August so plenty of time to get organised.Can you contact me if you have any questions or ideas.
Kind Regards,

First newsletter Sent

2006-07-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

What’s Been Happening?

There has been a great discussion at the main Edna Network regarding E-Assessment in particular :

What are the issues?
Sharing examples of good practice.
Generally an opportunity to share and discuss.

If you want to see what has been happening then got to the following link: http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=7357

News from the Edna Group Website

Section 1 Using Web Tools

A selection of web tools have been added to the site for you to try and review. It would be great if we could start to develop some examples to share and provide a rating to help direct others to the most useful and cost effective.

Section 2 Resources To Support Developing Assessment Tools

In this section you will find a range of resources that include NCVER research and guides for developing assessment tools. Important to consider that an assessment whether it be in an e-learning environment or not needs careful consideration. These resources will help support you in this. The discussion for this section is about developing a list of top ten tips for E-Assessment. Currently four have been listed it would be good to have more!

Chatting about E-Assessment

This network will be having regular chats to share ideas and discuss any issues that you may have. We will be using Breeze to have a chat!

Our first chat will be Tuesday 18^th 10am-11am. (So make a note in your diary) Don’t worry if you can’t make it I will tape it for those people interested! (I will attempt to anyway )

Hopefully this will be the first of many!!

This chat will be able to discuss how often we should chat and what topics we would like to discuss. So come along and have some fun. If you have a headphone set that would be great, if not there is always text chats. An email will be sent to everyone who is registered to the Network. (it is easy to use with no downloads necessary) We will use the same room for each chat so the link will be uploaded to the Edna group.

Survey Monkey

2006-07-08T05:59:00.000-07:00

Although a survey tool it can be used for quizzes!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/home.asp?Rnd=0.8833277

Web Quest

2006-07-08T03:59:00.000-07:00

http://webquest.sdsu.edu/

This site is designed to serve as a resource to those who are using the WebQuest model to teach with the web. By pointing to excellent examples and collecting materials developed to communicate the idea, all of us experimenting with WebQuests will be able to learn from each other. A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which most or all of the information used by learners is drawn from the Web. WebQuests are designed to use learners' time well, to focus on using information rather than looking for it, and to support learners' thinking at the levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation.

The quest garden allows you to save your work and go back to it! Excellent tool!

http://webquest.org/questgarden/author/

RubiStar

2006-07-08T03:51:00.000-07:00

RubiStar is a free tool to help teachers create quality rubrics.

http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php

What is a Rubric?

Heidi Goodrich, a rubrics expert, defines a rubric as "a scoring tool that lists the criteria for a piece of work or 'what counts.'"
So a rubric for a multimedia project will list the things the student must have included to receive a certain score or rating.
Rubrics help the student figure out how their project will be evaluated.
Goodrich quotes a student who said he didn't much care for rubrics because "if you get something wrong, your teacher can prove you knew what you were supposed to do."

Generally rubrics specify the level of performance expected for several levels of quality. These levels of quality may be written as different ratings (e.g., Excellent, Good, Needs Improvement) or as numerical
scores (e.g., 4, 3, 2, 1) which are then added up to form a total score which then is associated with a grade (e.g., A, B, C, etc).

Quandry

2006-07-08T03:26:00.000-07:00

Quandary is an application for creating Web-based Action Mazes. An Action Maze is a kind of interactive case-study; the user is presented with a situation, and a number of choices as to a course of action to deal with it. On choosing one of the options, the resulting situation is then presented, again with a set of options. Working through this branching tree is like negotiating a maze, hence the name "Action Maze".

http://www.halfbakedsoftware.com/quandary

Some examples

The Evil Landlady (an interactive adventure)
Choosing the correct article (a diagnostic maze)
First aid for an accident (a procedural example)
How computer-literate are you? (an example of a survey/questionnaire)
Castaway (a more sophisticated interactive adventure)
The Evil Landlady (an interactive adventure)
Choosing the correct article (a diagnostic maze)
First aid for an accident (a procedural example)
How computer-literate are you? (an example of a survey/questionnaire)
Castaway (a more sophisticated interactive adventure)
Investments (modelling financial transactions)
Complex transaction examples (demonstrating all the varieties of transaction in Quandary 2)

Hot Potatoes

2006-07-08T03:11:00.000-07:00

Hot Potatoes provides the opportunity to develop a variety of tests, quizzes and surveys.
Here is the link http://hotpot.uvic.ca/

Question Mark Perception

2006-07-08T03:03:00.000-07:00

The Questionmark™ Perception™ assessment management system enables educators and trainers to author, schedule, deliver, and report on surveys, quizzes, tests and exams.

This complete assessment management system enables you to create questions and organize them into exams, quizzes, tests or surveys. You can schedule people to take the assessments, deliver them in a variety of ways and then view the results in 11 different report types.

Questionmark Perception offers a cost-effective, easy way to not only to measure knowledge, skills and attitudes -- but also enhance the learning process.

Try it here http://www.questionmark.com/us/home.htm

Quia

2006-07-06T16:17:00.000-07:00

Quia is easy to use and provides the quiz into a web page link.
There is a 30 day trial.

The link is http://www.quia.com/

Here are some examples

http://www.quia.com/tq/387684.html

http://www.quia.com/sh/27740.html

http://www.quia.com/jg/507576.html

http://www.quia.com/quiz/794260.html

www.quia.com/quiz/794254.html

http://www.quia.com/quiz/794255.html

Quiz Game Master Brain Training

2006-07-05T22:35:00.000-07:00

Came across this quiz development tool

http://www.cybertrain.info/quizman/qmhome.html

Cost:

The Price is $US40 - single user licence. $US120 - 5 person licence.
Site licence by negotiation.Payment can be made by using the PayPal donation button below or by cheque.

Second Meeting with All Networks

2006-06-30T05:32:00.000-07:00

Well I had volunteered to by one of the facilkitros for this meeting and as luck would have it I had a bad e-day.

I had suggested that we have a Soccer theme to the meeting but oh dear the socceroos had been knocked out the previous day!!

Anyway carol and I had decided to make a quiz in Illuminate and trialled this with people in the group. It worked well and it it was really exciting to see the results as we went.

Good to hear how everyone was going and we look forward to the next meeting.

I will put up some instructions for how to use the quizz in Illuminate!

I have been in touch with TALO and asked if anyone has any tools to share. the following posts highlight some of these for everyone to try! This will form our discussion for July in the Edna groups!

Illuminate Chat

2006-06-26T05:29:00.000-07:00

Our first online chat with Hunter.....

It was a disaster with the technology... and that is all I am going to say

Adaptive Technologies Workshop Wollongong

2006-06-23T05:23:00.000-07:00

Had a great day at Wollongong with a conference on adaptive teachnologies. Some of the guest speakers were:

Alex Hayes: grat to hear about the mobile teachnologies! Alex raised some of the issues abut copyright, prviacy and child protection. Again as always a great presentation.

Other interesting speakers included: Marcus Ragus : M-Learning Innovations defeinetly going to find that AFLF Mobile assessment CD

Daniel Darcy from New England showcased some of the innovations they are working for mobile assessment! Hope to do more about this later on in the year!

Jo Kay presented about the Virtual worlds lost of interest generated here!

Cathy and Kerry also attend so it was great to catch up to them!!!

Network Meeting 20th June

2006-06-20T05:16:00.000-07:00

Our second meeting and we spent the morning in the computer room!

The outcomes were:

Join everyone up to the Edna group
Trial Quia (Web based quizz tool)
Use the Illuminate Chatroom

Everyone was very excited about using the Edna group but it is not that staright forward. I have removed the key to the group but it took more time than I expected! oh well, everyone joind and then spent time adding to the forums that are available!!!

Quia was a great experience, easy to use and everyone had lots of fun trying it out. These are examples of what we did in a very short time!

http://www.quia.com/tq/387684.html

http://www.quia.com/sh/27740.html

http://www.quia.com/jg/507576.html

http://www.quia.com/quiz/794260.html

www.quia.com/quiz/794254.html

http://www.quia.com/quiz/794255.html

Fortunately I have been well supported by the faculty and we have lots of head sets to use!!

Unfortunately e didn't have time to use them.... ofh well maybe next time!!!

Curriculum Centre Meeting!

2006-06-19T05:14:00.000-07:00

Had a meeting today with all Program Managers from the Curriculum Centre.

Lots of questions and discussion.

Seems really positive and they are supportive of the network! Yeah!!!

First meeting in Illuminate

2006-05-31T05:05:00.000-07:00

What a great idea for us all to meet up in that chatroom! Carole was an excellent facilitator!

There was lots of people and we had two great presentations:

Dorothy Waterhouse: Finding voice online, sounds like she is having a great time and the network is really moving ahead!

Dianna Khabaz: Online mentoring. This is a great newtork and they meet every Tuesday to discuss all things to do with e-learning. This is a follow up network from last year!!

It was interesting to use the chatroom with voice I haven't done this before so it was really exciting!

Great time had by all!!!

ENACS- Creating the Edna Group

2006-05-20T04:51:00.000-07:00

Creating the Edna group was easy! It was a community so this picture seemed to say it all!

http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/course/view.php?id=720

Build it and they will come....

I thought about this for a long time to try and create a place that would be interesting and exciting. I tried many different ideas until I thought...lets keep it simple until people started to become part of the network.

So there is a plan of what will happen over the next few months and of course a place to introduce and discuss.

The plan is:

June Kickstarting the Network
July Using Web tools
August Sharing Web Tools
September Assessing using Mobile Technology
October Evaluating and Validating Assessment Tools
November Sharing Assessment Tools

I started a wiki for dicussion at the Edna group and hope to participate in chats.

Getting the word out!

2006-05-19T05:11:00.000-07:00

NSW Community Services Meeting 19th May!!

Created a flyer about the Network today!

Seemeed to have some interest! Fingers crossed we will have some activity!

GETTING STARTED!

2006-05-16T23:22:00.000-07:00

Our first meeting to kick start the network was held today with the meeting being with a selection of community services teachers. This ranged from Hairdressing, Beauty Therapy, Sport and Fitness, Children's Services, Welfare and Nursing. We met to discuss the network including the objectives and what we hoped to achieve.

This included:

exploring e-assessment in a teaching and learning environment.
aims to support the sharing of ideas and resources
developing an online bank of assessment tools for the area of Community Services.
collect examples of good practice
exchange how-to stories
explore models, systems and tools

The network will focus on:

e-assessment tools that could be implemented in a variety of contexts.
online demonstrations from members and experts.
using online discussions
researching case studies and ideas from organisations who are using e-assessment approaches. experimenting with tools to use in current teaching practices. T
building a network of motivated and interested practitioners that will enable the sharing of innovative e-assessment concepts, ideas and experiences.

Who will be involved?

Teachers of Community Services from TAFENSW coming from SWSI and Hunter Institutes.

We had 20 teachers to our first meeting including the faculty Director, David Peters. there was lost of excitment and interest!

We finished the meeting with a great presentation from James Worner and Alex Hayes who provided an overview of the use of mobile technology and assessment. Everyone was very animated from this presentation. It wa truly excellent!!!

Induction Workshop

2006-05-06T04:21:00.000-07:00

What a great day it was to travel to the capital in Canberra!

It was exciting to meet so many people interested in E-learning and what a selection of networks.

Coach Carol was great and it was really good to finally meet the Digital Stody guru. I have used her Edna group so many times, I am not sure that I am going to be able to achieve what seh has but good to know she is the coach!

Everyone presented their network and what a selection there is. from mobile workers, to online mentoring, to ... just so many many... here is the link for all of the networks!

http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/flx/go/pid/103

The Edna group is great and I am really looking forward to colloborating with the other networks!

http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/course/view.php?id=662