I definitely found this chapter to be less informative than the previous chapters in this same book… in fact for much of this chapter my main response was “of course.” I mean, yes, multi-media is going to be beneficial for teaching ESL students, and yes again in general terms “students with disabilities have a greater need for accessing technology than their non-disabled peers,” . I also agree that the inverted classroom idea of having the students listen to the lectures online- at home- and then come to class to get instructional help with the homework is inspired and has real possibility to transform education as we know it.
Then when it did start introducing new ideas, it gave me very little more than enough interest to whet my appetite. For instance, I would have liked more information about Graham Stanley’s idea of using podcasts for creating interactive listening mazes. However, although the book mentioned him and his mazes, it then went on to discuss something else without even giving the reader a link to Stanley’s Blog about them. (Of course the wonderful thing about the internet is a quick search led me straight to it)
For me, the most exciting part of this chapter was the idea of “authentic assessment” and of how the technology of web 2.0 is creating opportunities for creating electronic portfolios which could be used not only for “assessment OF learning” but also as “assessment FOR learning”. As an advocate for mastery-based learning these ideas were quite intriguing to me, and yet again although the chapter dedicated many pages to the idea (as opposed to the one paragraph given to interactive listening mazes) I was still left wanting more.
However, I will give it this; the book did give me hints of places to go. For one, it mentioned the website of ELGG which is described as social network software for education. However the site they sent me to www.elgg.org was rather opaque, and again it took a web search to find this article in ReadWrite where the authors of Elgg are interviewed , for me to even begin to understand what Elgg was.
Additionally this chapter named Henry Tuttle and Helen Barrett as researchers who are looking at how educators and students can use common software and web 2.0 tools to create electronic portfolios which support authentic assessment “of” and “for” learning. Still in Tuttle’s case there was no information on where to go to find out more. While in Barrett’s case the book did provide some sites to go for more information,however these were in the references section as opposed to the main text.
So, while this chapter did inspire me to ask some questions like:
How can I learn more about authentic assessments?
And, how can social network software be used to create “a truly learner centric environment”?
It did not give me enough information about any of the subjects I was interested in to create any sort of thoughtful response.
Then when it did start introducing new ideas, it gave me very little more than enough interest to whet my appetite. For instance, I would have liked more information about Graham Stanley’s idea of using podcasts for creating interactive listening mazes. However, although the book mentioned him and his mazes, it then went on to discuss something else without even giving the reader a link to Stanley’s Blog about them. (Of course the wonderful thing about the internet is a quick search led me straight to it)
For me, the most exciting part of this chapter was the idea of “authentic assessment” and of how the technology of web 2.0 is creating opportunities for creating electronic portfolios which could be used not only for “assessment OF learning” but also as “assessment FOR learning”. As an advocate for mastery-based learning these ideas were quite intriguing to me, and yet again although the chapter dedicated many pages to the idea (as opposed to the one paragraph given to interactive listening mazes) I was still left wanting more.
However, I will give it this; the book did give me hints of places to go. For one, it mentioned the website of ELGG which is described as social network software for education. However the site they sent me to www.elgg.org was rather opaque, and again it took a web search to find this article in ReadWrite where the authors of Elgg are interviewed , for me to even begin to understand what Elgg was.
Additionally this chapter named Henry Tuttle and Helen Barrett as researchers who are looking at how educators and students can use common software and web 2.0 tools to create electronic portfolios which support authentic assessment “of” and “for” learning. Still in Tuttle’s case there was no information on where to go to find out more. While in Barrett’s case the book did provide some sites to go for more information,however these were in the references section as opposed to the main text.
So, while this chapter did inspire me to ask some questions like:
How can I learn more about authentic assessments?
And, how can social network software be used to create “a truly learner centric environment”?
It did not give me enough information about any of the subjects I was interested in to create any sort of thoughtful response.
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