Play at being an assessor
Halfway through February 2006 I showed six of my project students some of last years CDs containing ETD (Electronic Theses and Dissertations) style reports, and asked students to assess them.
They simply had to say what the project was about, what you had to do to use the disc, and comment on what they found. Finally they had to make some form of assessment of the piece. My aim was to get students to realise the importance of a readme.txt file on the CD. Without that information an assessor is up a gum tree.
"What do I do now?" was precisely the unsettling experience I wanted students to feel.
And through that discomfort, realise that care and attention must be paid to this unseen person - the assessor. Giving your assessor a little bit of help would pay dividends.
It was an interesting session and a great time was had by all. But it was not until I read Pritesh Mistry's blog on the event that I realised how deep the lesson had gone.
Nor had I realised how much students had got from the incidental comments and asides. This was apprentice style learning.
Having to articulate their assessment on the piece of work they were looking at was very revealing to both us and the assessing student herself.
They simply had to say what the project was about, what you had to do to use the disc, and comment on what they found. Finally they had to make some form of assessment of the piece. My aim was to get students to realise the importance of a readme.txt file on the CD. Without that information an assessor is up a gum tree.
"What do I do now?" was precisely the unsettling experience I wanted students to feel.
And through that discomfort, realise that care and attention must be paid to this unseen person - the assessor. Giving your assessor a little bit of help would pay dividends.
It was an interesting session and a great time was had by all. But it was not until I read Pritesh Mistry's blog on the event that I realised how deep the lesson had gone.
Nor had I realised how much students had got from the incidental comments and asides. This was apprentice style learning.
Having to articulate their assessment on the piece of work they were looking at was very revealing to both us and the assessing student herself.
posted by Dr Brian Morris at 6:52 AM
2 Comments:
13 February 2006 - Busy with Assignments
Dear Blog
Things are getting very busy with assignments for other projects. During the last week I have hardly got a chance to work on my project and with the database deadline approaching, time will be very precious. So I hardly have to say much about my project.
However at a very small project meeting we got a chance to see other peoples work on CD in the Mac labs. We all got a disc and evaluated the report and artefact as if we were the examiner. A couple of things became clear such as:
Presentation
The layout and the look are very important – this is what people see first, before the marker starts reading and first impressions count!! Although this is slightly unfair – but we humans judge by looks at first then personality – and this also applies to our work. Having a clean, clear good design will also help the reader marking the report so it is something worth considering. You could say that the presentation is almost as important on what you have written.
Keeping to the point
When I was reading some of the projects I found that my attention was starting to slip and I was skipping onto the next pages. So keeping sentences short and sharp and to the point is very important. I could have some very interesting things to say, but take to long to say it then the reader/marker might not even bother getting to it.
Adding video to the report
Video just made the report come alive. It also backed up what they were talking about. It is true that a picture can say a thousand words – so I guess that video can say even more.
It was a shame that on the Mac’s the default program to view the PDF is Preview not Adobe Acrobat Reader on which it is intended to be viewed on – so the video do not even show, just showing an icon tell you that there is a video here. Also the Acrobat Reader on the Mac’s are very old – versions which do not support video playback or interactivity like reader 7 which can handle more interactivity and what is required to create a rich interactive PDF. I think that is a shame that all the effort which goes into creating the video and just hope that the marker would have the most recent software.
Clear instructions on the ReadMe
Having a ReadMe is like the most important thing on the disc as it should tell me what file to open and the contents of the disc. In the disc that I played it did not have a ReadMe but six files all with the same title except “– report or – appendix.” You had to read all of them to make sure I opened the correct version. In addition having all instruction on the CD or over printed then handwriting as I had two identical discs with a little handwriting comment telling which disc contains what. The handwriting was very posh and in s script style which I couldn’t read properly. Luckily I guessed the right one!!
Creating a PDF of the document
Creating a PDF of the Word document is a must. Not only does it keep everything as you laid out and the typefaces used in the original program but it will work and look the same on both platforms.
Making the content of the disc and the disc it self playable on both Mac and PC
Work created on all operating systems is vital as you do not know what the markers system is – and from Brian’s comment: “I can’t be bothered to go to the PC room to mark the work if it does not play on my machine.” On new software versions you can create projects/playback files for both Mac and PC platforms on the same machine on any platform which until recently impossible.
I was a little confused why in the Mac labs the Flash (.swf) files always try to open in Illustrator which has got nothing to do with Flash and therefore bring up an error claming it cannot play the file. You have to direct the file to play in the Flash player which is a pain. I hope that they sort this out soon.
Over and out
posted by Pritesh Mistry @ 22:58 1 comments
Pritesh wrote the section "Dear Blog ....to ... Over and Out"
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