Digital Tools for Feedback and Assessment

We had great participation at our workshop on Digital Tools for Feedback and Assessment–one of the things I love about giving workshops to the larger UBC community is that it gives me an opportunity to hear about other types of courses and other things going on outside of the courses I work with, which are largely in the Faculty of Dentistry.

In talking about the challenges of assessment, it was also interesting for me to hear just how much this juggling of instructor time/effort and providing good feedback and fair assessment is a challenge. This has certainly been my own experience this year while teaching 3 online courses, but I generally find assessment to be challenging, period.

The morning was largely a guided conversation on some of the thinking behind assessment practices as they relate to course objectives. Jan provided some great handouts that guided participants through creating an evaluation plan for their course, which lead to some interesting revelations on the part of some of the participants about their own courses.

We had several break-out sessions in the afternoon –Brad gave a demo on concept mapping and using Track changes, Jan got a few people going on creating assessment rubrics, Jeff and Brian got participants excited about wikis and Writely, Kele shared her expertise on e-portfolios and ELGG. I attempted a demo on voice tools, with a few (predicatable) technical blunders on the way. But the day was fun, and the feedback has been both positive and constructive.

There are 2 wiki pages that have been set up a reference to the day–it’s not terribly informative, but it gives an idea as to what was covered, with some links to the tools.
Digital Tools
Voice Tools

Elearning Institute

The Elearning Institute registration is now open and there is a great list of topics for this year’s session, which is taking place the week of February 13 to February 17. This is a great opportunity to get some hands on experience with some teaching and learning technology tools, or to at least learn a little more about them with other members of the UBC community.

You’ll notice that one of the proposed Lunch and Learn topics–Digital Tools for Feedback and Assessment–has evolved into a full day workshop. We’ve structured this as an informative dialogue session in the morning, with a hands on workshop session in the afternoon, where you have a chance to learn about some of these tools from some of the ‘experts’. I’m thrilled that some members from the Faculty have registered for this session, and even more thrilled that we’re almost fully booked!