Feedback

Interactivity #4 Feedback

All spreadsheets and blogposts comprising Interactivity #4 have been formally assessed and final scores have been posted to your Engrade account(s). The average score of submissions was a low 7 out of 10 points:

You can find very good examples of Interactivity #4 spreadsheets and narrative blogposts at the following links:

• Pop Art (Grade 8) [view blogpost]
• Audio History of a Musician [view blogpost]
• Design, Adminiser and Analyze a Gender Gap Survey [view blogpost]
• Solid, Liquid, Gas  [view blogpost]

Below is the scoring checklist for this assignment (The checklist was also posted in the Interactivity #4 guidelines). It is worth re-viewing as you contemplate the score you earned.

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If you'd like a breakdown of points for your individual Engrade score, please email me. Note that I curved the final set of grades (to your advantage), so the numbers on your individual rubric will most likely add up to a lower score than the one you were finally assigned within Engrade. We did this to acknowledge that aligning technologies, strategies and standards (also known as "technology integration") is a challenging activity, particularly since some of you have not yet worked in depth with lesson plans; neither have many of you completed your methods courses within your pre-service program. Please know that we are sympathetic to this fact and made accommodations in ways that are appropriate to the assignments.

Overall, the writing was mixed—some very good entries, and more than expected very poor entries.  You were asked to write your blog as if a future employer might read it.  Yikes.  For some of you, it was clear you did not reread your writing before posting it—loads of bad grammar, typos and unclear thinking.  

The most common mistakes made on this assignment were (in rank order):

• Spreadsheet not fully labeled with all the required information.
• Selected technologies did not align with the teaching strategies.
• Standards were not identified and supported.
• The lesson plan lacked a clear curriculum goal.
• Many of you mentioned a content for technology - not the technology itself
• Narrative blog post failed to do any or all of the following: provide a rationale for choosing lesson plan; identify gaps in the lesson plan; or did not explain the necessity of the technology.
• Lack of clear identification of (language for) teaching strategies in the spreadsheet.
• Identifying gaps... if you find gaps... in the future, fill them.

Those who earned 5 points or less on this assignment most likely did one or more of the following (in addition to making the mistakes listed above):

• Made their spreadsheet inaccessible by failing to change the settings to "public."
• Did not include a narrative blog post to accompany the Google Spreadsheet.

Moving forward, you will have one final opportunity to engage in technology integration (the alignment of selected technologies, with intentional strategies,and required curriculum standards) in the final project of the semester (worth 25% of your grade). Guidelines for the final project will be posted on Friday, Nov. 30th.

Note: You must pass this module with a final grade of B- or better on your transcript in order to be eligible to complete your Fieldwork next semester.

 

Interactivity #3 Feedback

All group spreadsheets and blog posts comprising Interactivity #3 have now been formally assessed and final scores have been posted to your Engrade accounts.  Please note that due to Sandy's bad attitude, I did not deduct points for late turn ins.  I hope you all are returning to normalcy.  It's taking me longer than expected—apologies for the late return of your grades on this project.
The average score was quite high (86%). Some individuals and groups excelled at this assignment; other individuals unfortunately missed the target or did not participate at all.  However, most groups worked together very well to create an organized, content-specific inventory. Well done.

If you had points deducted from your individual score, it may have been for one or more of the following reasons:

• Your contributions to the group spreadsheet was minimal, last-minute or less-than substantial (up to 2 points). As mentioned above, the "See Revision History" feature enables us (and all of your group members) to view the date and time of each individual contribution in addition to the exact information you contributed. There were two groups where I was unable to access the 'revision history' feature—thus couldn't tell who did what.  The Interactivity #3 guidelines directed each person in the group to contribute approximately 10 content-specific technologies. (In this regard, listing general technologies such as Blackboard or Engrade without relating them to your content area were inadequate). It is understandable that repetition of technologies may have occurred during the group process; therefore, I did not deduct points for repetition. However, if you contributed fewer than 6 unique content-specific technologies or media then we deducted a point from your score. 

• The group spreadsheet lacked a coherent organizational structure (1 point). Chapter Three in the course text provided you with a possible structure for categorizing your technologies (e.g., content management, authoring tools, collaboration, etc.). While you were not required to use this particular structure, you were required to organize your technologies into some coherent structure. It was unacceptable to organize your inventory according to individual group names or to have categories assigned to specific group members. The group assignment was to produce one cohesive inventory—not multiple ones. Organization was worth 1 point according to the assessment rubric.

• Your narrative blog post was outside the scope of 200-300 words in length (1 point). Your task for the narrative was to meaningfully address any of the three questions listed in the assignment guidelines. If you used less than 200 words, it is highly likely you were too vague in your reflection. For example, it is insufficient to merely state: "Group work is difficult" or "These technologies are useful" or "I can see the connections with READ 411." Instead, what specific characteristic(s) of group work make it difficult? What specific technology did you find useful? Or what specific connection did you draw with READ 411? No need to write a lengthy post; simply provide detailed evidence of your thinking. On the other end of the spectrum, some of you exceeded the 300 word limit by a large number. I recommend that you copy and paste your blog post draft into a Word document and use the "Word Count" tool to check the length of your narrative posts.

• You were not logged into Blogger/Google when contributing to your spreadsheet and therefore your username did not appear in the "See Revision History" (up to 4 points deducted). This was the only acceptable evidence of your individual contribution. Without your username in the Revision History, there is no way to attribute any work to your identity. It was invalid to claim your work by putting your name directly in the spreadsheet or by using someone else's Google i.d. In this case, you may not have sufficiently explored the features of Google Spreadsheets prior to participating in this assignment and therefore may not have fully understood how this feature enables real time collaboration and for teachers to get a first-hand view of the group process among students. If you are still confused about this, go to the File menu within your Spreadsheet and select "See Revision History" and you will see that to which I am referring.

If you were docked points, please re-view the original Interactivity #3 guidelines and your Google spreadsheet prior to contacting me with questions or concerns. If you are still confused about your assigned score then send me an email with your specific concern to set up a phone discussion to discuss your concerns.

It is important that you understand the basic functionality of Google Spreadsheets, as each of you will use it for Interactivity #4 and also for the final project of the semester. If you are curious as to how Google Spreadsheets can support your teaching, [this is a good starter resource].

 

Interactivity #2 General Feedback

**NOTE THAT SPECIFIC FEEDBACK ON YOUR INDIVIDUAL SUBMISSIONS WAS SENT TO EACH OF YOU THROUGH ENGRADE. 

The average score was a low C (70%) for this second interactivity. 

There were many excellent (10-point) submissions that magnified all of the requirements of the assignment. You did not need to be particularly creative to earn 10 points, you just needed to understand and follow precisely the technical guidelines for this assignment. Here are a few excellent examples below. Notice they are all different and approach to assignment a bit differently, yet they all fulfill the requirements:

• Art and the Slide Projector
• Chalkboard-Writing and Teaching Math
• Camera/Photos and History

The most common mistake was including an additional narrative (or in some cases, multiple paragraphs) to "explain" your ideas. Instead, your image and caption should have been able to stand together as one coherent message. Perhaps you interpreted the guidelines of "Successful upload of image and caption as a blog post" to mean something more than creating a single post with just an image and caption? It's hard to tell (This is another reason why emailing me ahead of the deadline with any questions of clarification will make the biggest difference in your submission scores).

Another common mistake was including in your caption and/or image a technology that was post-1990 (your parameters were the years 1820-1990). Keep in mind that schools are much slower to adopt new technologies, so although the personal computer may have been invented in the 1980s (larger computers in the 60s and teaching machines in the 50s), computers were not a major influence on schooling until fairly recently. Depending upon your subject area, they may not have been a major influence at all in schools. So school-based specificity as well as content-area specificity was essential for this interactivity.

Interactivity #1 Feedback


Scores for Interactivity #1 have been posted in Engrade.  You all truly love your phones and laptops.  So do I!  The average scores were high, but I confess, you were lucky.  I didn't post the scoring rubric for this first assignment.  It's below.  But it will show you what I was (and will) look for.  Clear writing.  Reflective thinking.  Following directions...

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The most common point deduction was in the REFLECTION category—specifically the lack of reflection on the negative aspects of your 3 chosen technologies.  Without identifying the negative trade-offs of using a particular technology, you aren't truly being reflective (and arguably in denial about its influence).  I read waxing tributes to technology, but few thoughtful concerns and criticisms.

The second most common reason for point deduction was not comparing your experiences with those of the students in the videos. Remember, you had 750 words (some of you went way over... please don't) to play with to provide evidence that you viewed the videos and were reflectively contemplating your own uses as compared/contrasted to what you viewed. If you only posted around 300 or 400 words, then chances are your post sorely lacked in all areas within the rubric above.

I was surprised that many of you focused on only the fairly recent technologies that you "can't live without" as opposed to thinking about those technologies that have influenced you the most across your entire lifespan. Haven't books, pens and paper, and TV made a major impact on you as well? One of you commented that no interesting technologies developed in the 60's, 70's and 80's.  Really?  I also notice that many of you throw around the word technology without any real meaning attached to it. Hint: Technology does not simply refer to computers. But we'll read more on that topic a bit later.

If you are confused at your score for Interactivity #1, then please do the following (in order):

1. Review the assignment guidelines for Interactivity #1
2. Review the general feedback above
3. Review your own post for Interactivity #1