Learning about assessing online learning

During the class I felt like I was just barely keeping my head above water (I was taking 2 UWStout courses – 2 graduate semester classes in 8 weeks – what was I thinking?) 

But now it’s almost over, and I will miss my class colleagues and our daily conversations.  I will miss the helpful feedback.  We helped each other with so many things this summer.  I’m so glad Mary Hopple has created a Ning (No Facilitator Left Behind)  to help us stay in touch.  I just realized I’ve joined the Ning twice – once with my “normal” email and once with my Stout email!  I guess that means I want to stay in touch :>

But I am looking forward to some down time before I start teaching in a few weeks   ;>

I have already received valuable feedback and have modified my presentation, making the table and picture smaller to make them more easily viewable by a variety of viewers. 

Then, reading others’ presentations, I got other ideas.  For instance, Hoop talked about his students as adult learners with jobs and families; I realized that this was part of my planning, but that I hadn’t put that in my description of learners.

Then I heard from Datta Kaur, who suggested that I focus on different tools than discussion.  This crystalized my thinking and I moved “discussion” into a separate page, expanded what I had written about the rubric as a tool, and made the rubric my fourth tool. 

Now I’m putting the project aside for a day or two.  I want to go back and look at it fresh and right now I am just too close to it.

I am very impressed with people who used Google sites to showcase their projects.  I just found it too difficult to work with, but so many people were successful, I think I’ll have to go back and give this tool another look when the time pressure is off.