Skip to content

Posts tagged ‘assignment’

26
Jan

Common Assessment in ENG102 – Evaluating Web Sources

For two years we’ve been discussing a common assessment tool to use in all of our freshman composition courses at GCC, from ENG071 all the way up to ENG102. I participate in the ENG102 assessment group since I teach that course every semester. The course competency that we decided to focus on was: Find, evaluate, select, and synthesize both online and print sources that examine a topic from multiple perspectives. Our course competencies are so broad, as you can see, so we started by writing several Student Learning Objectives (SLO).

We then choose SLO 3: Locate at least one online source and determine the credibility of it by evaluating the validity of information contained within each source. We came up with a few tools that we could use for this assessment in our individual classes. This semester we have started to collect data from this common assessment, but I think we still have some ironing out to do.

Screen shot 2013-01-26 at 6.20.43 PM Read moreRead more

22
Jan

What Do Students Learn by Using Social Bookmarking Site Diigo?

Initially students don’t care too much for Diigo when I introduce it in an assignment in Week 2 of the semester. They’re still trying to get used to all the other new technology in the online course, and Diigo is almost the stone that breaks the camel’s back. But not quite. They warm up to it as the course moves on. I’ve questioned whether having students use yet another technology tool is too much for them to deal with, but the advantages of what they learn and experience by using it out weighs any reservations I may have had.

So, what exactly are the advantages of having students use this social bookmarking tool? First, they are in the exploratory phase of their research projects. They’re still trying to figure out what good topics are, so in order to not have them wondering alone in this process, I have them sharing ideas. Diigo allows for students to share bookmarks with each other in a group area. All of the sites saved in the group show up for all to see. Screen shot 2013-01-22 at 10.59.01 PM

As shown in the image above, I teach students about taxonomy. Taxonomy is a way to group things together using tags. It makes it easier for students to find common topics within the group posts. Students are supposed to use the class theme tag: “personal+freedoms” along with 5 of their own tags based on the subject of the site bookmarked. Diigo then creates a tag list (right below) for the group so students can look at the most popular topics that emerge during the search process. Rights, laws, health and the constitution are all popular with students. Read moreRead more

5
Feb

Assignment #4: Dailyshoot Redux

This is an easy one. I started doing Dailyshoot over a year ago but grew bored when the assignments seemed to repeat. As a result of not participating, my photo production dwindled to almost nothing. Every time I wanted to take a picture of something I had to go searching for my camera. Before I would always have one with me. So I’m enjoying getting back into photography mode. I’m going to try to not be so obsessive about this time though. 🙂

Some other cool places to participate in daily shoots are on Flickr 365 Project and 365project. There are lots of great photographers out there, and participating is a great way to practice your own skills. Below is a slideshow of my 199 Dailyshoot photos on flickr.