AssessmentThere were four components of the assessment process for this
test case of the Networked Student Model: (1) Ongoing performance
assessment in the form of weekly assignments to facilitate the construction and
maintenance of the personal learning environment, (2) rubric-based assessment of
the personal learning environment at the end of the project, (3) written essay,
and (4) multimedia synthesis of topic content.
Points were earned for meeting the following requirements:
Identify ten reliable resources and post to social bookmarking account. At
least three new resources should be added each week.
Subscribe and respond to at least 3 new blogs each week. Follow these blogs
and news alerts using the reader.
Subscribe to and listen to at least two podcasts (if available).
Respectfully contact and request a video conference from a subject matter
expert recognised in the field.
Maintain daily notes and highlight resources as needed in digital notebook.
Post at least a one-paragraph reflection in personal blog each day.
At the end of the project, the personal learning environment was
assessed with a rubric that encompassed each of the items listed above.
The student's ability to synthesise the research was further evaluated with a
reflective essay. Writing shapes thinking (Langer & Applebee, 1987), and the
essay requirement was one more avenue through which the students demonstrated
higher order learning. The personal blog provided an opportunity for regular
reflection during the course of the project. The essay was the culmination of
the reflections along with a thoughtful synthesis of the learning experience.
Students were instructed to articulate what was learned about the selected topic
and why others should care or be concerned. The essay provided an overview of
everything learned about the contemporary issue. It was well organised,
detailed, and long enough to serve as a resource for others who wished to learn
from the work. As part of a final exam, the students were required to access the
final projects of their classmates and reflect on what they learned from this
exposure. The purpose of this activity was to give the students an additional
opportunity to share and learn from each other.
Creativity is considered a key 21st century skill (Partnership for 21st
Century Skills, 2009). A number of emerging web applications support the
academic creative process. Students in this project used web tools to combine
text, video, audio, and photographs to teach the research topics to others. The
final multimedia project was posted or embedded on the student's personal wiki
page.
Analysis and assessment of student work was facilitated by the very
technologies in use by the students. In order to follow their progress, the
teacher simply subscribed to student social bookmarking accounts, readers, and
blogs. Clicking through daily contributions was relatively quick and efficient.
Carmen Tschofen on 13 Sep 10Could teachers and lecturers instead supply these personally relevant and meaningful learning experiences? Diana Laurillard, in her inaugural professorial lecture at the Institute of Education, points to the impossibility of teachers on their own supplying a personalised learning experience.[1] Indeed, the impossibility of supplying learners with personalised learning experiences is, in general, a self-evident truth to those of us who work in the education sector. The only course that remains, then, is for learners to construct these learning experiences for themselves. In fact, self-directed learning is the only economically feasible means of providing a personalised and meaningful learning experience on any kind of massified scale. Whatever the brouhaha about what a PLE is, the thing that underpins and unifies the PLE movement is that it is about learners doing it for themselves; learners taking control of, directing and managing their own learning. A PLE provides the infrastructure for that kind of learning. Of course, infrastructure is only part of the solution; the other part is achieving the pedagogic revolution. This relies on students unlearning their current learning practices and adopting new practices in a guided and supported fashion.
