Thursday, May 15, 2008

What's new? Assessing Learners with Enterprise (am)

Quick report on the morning's session of the post-pre-conference workshop on 'What's new? Assessing Learners with Enterprise'. Arriving tired after being kept awake by police and ambulance sirens during the night's city centre violence, the workshop aims to cover the Self and Peer Assessment and SafeAssign tools, the Grade Center and Scholar.

The session is facilitated by Pepijn (Pippin) Kalis (Blackboard Training Manager) and supported by Jennifer Matthews (Director of Blackboard Training). There are 3 attendess: a teacher from Delft University (which burnt down last week - http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/105731/46ccb8cd/bouwkunde_gebouw_delft_stort_in.html), a Blackboard systems administrator from the United Arab Emirates and myself. Interesting mix.

So far we've looked at the Self and Peer Assessment tool. We've explored it from the student perceptive and it seems easier to use and more fun than I anticipated. The Instructor view and creating self and peer assessment items is much more complex and involves a number of discrete steps. And Jennifer herself admitted it can be quite difficult and easy to miss out crucial steps. The session is not all about point-and-click, but there's plenty of opportunity for discussion and sharing experiences which works well being such a small group.

Will be starting with SafeAssign after lunch.

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