Group items tagged

A computer science professor at an Australian University is doing something revolutionary with YouTube - he's offering students who can't attend his classes college credit for watching his videos. Richard Buckland, a senior lecturer at the University of NSW in Sydney, Australia, was frustrated that high school students with a passion for computing and capable of studying at the college level were not able to make the commute to the university fit into their school day. Buckland then decided to turn YouTube into a remote classroom where the students could attend lectures virtually and then complete coursework just as his other students do.

"The contrast here was for me pretty stark: One the one hand, you had two computers set up outside which received minimal maintenance, and which anyone could use from 9-5 each day. There was no direction on how to use this equipment, but that didn't stop kids from figuring it out via trial and error (or, more often, from other kids). On the other hand, you had a dozen computers locked up in a school just a short walk away, gathering dust for lack of 'qualified teachers' to use them, and direct their use."

21st century skills, its not about computer skills, its about skillfulness using communication tools.

"The three general categories for computing interrater reliability introduced and described in this paper are: 1) consensus estimates, 2) consistency estimates, and 3) measurement estimates. The assumptions, interpretation, advantages, and disadvantages of estimates from each of these three categories are discussed, along with several popular methods of computing interrater reliability coefficients that fall under the umbrella of consensus, consistency, and measurement estimates. Researchers and practitioners should be aware that different approaches to estimating interrater reliability carry with them different implications for how ratings across multiple judges should be summarized, which may impact the validity of subsequent study results."

"A student majoring in computer science at San Jose State University said he fought against a professor who had tried to force him to remove his homework from the Internet, and won..." For computer science assignments where a working solution to a specific problem is the expected response, the implications are clear. But what are the implications for assessment (and for higher educaiton generally)?

Describes a "meta-versity" concept based on cloud computing shared by HE institutions. Although the article focuses on the institution level, many of the considerations also occur in department-level movement toward the cloud.

The implications for feedback issues are pretty clear.

"The emergence of the networked information economy is unleashing two powerful forces. On one hand, easy access to high-speed networks is empowering individuals. People can now discover and consume information resources and services globally from their homes. Further, new social computing approaches are inviting people to share in the creation and edification of information on the Internet. Empowerment of the individual -- or consumerization -- is reducing the individual's reliance on traditional brick-and-mortar institutions in favor of new and emerging virtual ones. Second, ubiquitous access to high-speed networks along with network standards, open standards and content, and techniques for virtualizing hardware, software, and services is making it possible to leverage scale economies in unprecedented ways. What appears to be emerging is industrial-scale computing -- a standardized infrastructure for delivering computing power, network bandwidth, data storage and protection, and services. Consumerization and industrialization beg the question "Is this the end of the middle?"; that is, what will be the role of "enterprise" IT in the future? Indeed, the bigger question is what will become of all of our intermediating institutions? This volume examines the impact of IT on higher education and on the IT organization in higher education."

Consumerization and industrialization beg the question "Is this the end of the middle?"; that is, what will be the role of "enterprise" IT in the future? Indeed, the bigger question is what will become of all of our intermediating institutions? This volume examines the impact of IT on higher education and on the IT organization in higher education.

"much of the thinking and hype surrounding cloud computing is built upon fallacies while ignoring the market realities. Let me outline those fallacies here." Especially note Fallacy #5, which includes a discussion of "trust".

"As smartphones and handheld computers move into classrooms worldwide, we may be witnessing the start of an educational revolution. How technology could unleash childhood creativity -- and transform the role of the teacher. "

Benefits and Risks of business use of cloud computing

Some considerations listed here are relevant as CTLT looks at cloud computing

In surveys, students have shown much greater satisfaction reading e-books on their computers than they did on the Sony Reader. Interactivity - the ability to annotate and take notes - were the main factors cited by students, rather than the size of the devices.

most of history, only the wealthy have been able to afford an education geared to the individual learner. For the rest of us, education has remained a mass affair, with standard curricula, pedagogy, and assessments. The financial crisis will likely change this state of affairs. With the global quest for long-term competitiveness assuming new urgency, education is on everyone's front burner. Societies are looking for ways to make quantum leaps in the speed and efficiency of learning. So long as we insist on teaching all students the same subjects in the same way, progress will be incremental. But now for the first time it is possible to individualize education-to teach each person what he or she needs and wants to know in ways that are most comfortable and most efficient, producing a qualitative spurt in educational effectiveness. In fact, we already have the technology to do so. Well-programmed computers-whether in the form of personal computers or hand-held devices-are becoming the vehicles of choice. They will offer many ways to master materials. Students (or their teachers, parents, or coaches) will choose the optimal ways of presenting the materials. Appropriate tools for assessment will be implemented.

"When the CLA results arrived eight months later, the UC team compared the outcomes of the two assessments. "We found no statistically significant correlation between the CLA scores and the portfolio scores," Escoe says. "In some ways, it's a disappointing finding. If we'd found a correlation, we could tell faculty that the CLA, as an instrument, is measuring the same things that we value and that the CLA can be embedded in a course. But that didn't happen." There were many factors that may have contributed to the lack of correlation, she says, including the fact that the CLA is timed, while the rubric assignments are not; and that the rubric scores were diagnostic and included specific feedback, while the CLA awarded points "in a black box": if a student referred to a specific piece of evidence in a critical-thinking question, he or she simply received one point. In addition, she says, faculty members may have had exceptionally high expectations of their honors students and assessed the e-portfolios with those high expectations in mind-leading to results that would not correlate to a computer-scored test. In the end, Escoe says, the two assessments are both useful, but for different things. The CLA can provide broad institutional data that satisfies VSA requirements, while rubric-based assessment provides better information to facilitate continuous program improvement. "

Another institution trying to make sense of the CLA. This study compared student's CLA scores with criteria-based scores of their eportfolios. The study used a modified version of the VALUE rubrics developed by the AACU. Our own Gary Brown was on the team that developed the critical thinking rubric for the VALUE project.

"The CLA can provide broad institutional data that satisfies VSA requirements, while rubric-based assessment provides better information to facilitate continuous program improvement. " This begs some questions: what meaning can we attach to these two non-correlated measures? What VSA requirements can rubric-based assessment NOT satisfy? Are those "requirements" really useful?

Introduction to the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education's "Spaces for Interaction" program. AACE runs conferences, and they are asking how technology can improve the posibilities for interaction at and around conferences.

An article on budget cuts by Ed Lazowska, who holds the Gates Chair in Computer Science and Engineering at UW. Dr Lazowska states that "the principal role of great public universities is to provide socioeconomic upward mobility to the citizens of their states," and claims that the "capacity" of UW and other bachelor-granting institutions is insufficient and shrinking. Many questionable assumptions