© 2012 sherston software ltd.. speaker : mr matt wingfield managing director tag developments


Speaker :

Mr Matt WingfieldManaging Director

TAG Developments


Using Social Networking for Learning & Assessment

Matt WingfieldManaging Director – TAG Developments

Diane Mayers Yen Jia Teng, Jeffery Independent Consultant English Teacher, Yusof Ishak Secondary


Session Agenda:

1) Social Media in the Classroom – Prof. Stephen Heppell

2) Introducing the Collaborative Online Learning Tools Project and the MAPS Social Media Collaboration and Analytics tools - Matt

3) The pilot schools’ perspective of using MAPS – Diane

4) Hands-on Session – using the software as a student – Matt &

Diane

5) A Secondary School Teacher’s Perspective – Jeffery

6) Questions & Answers


Professor Stephen Heppell

If we were seeking to develop water safety we wouldn't keep children away from water until they are 14 and then throw them off the pier and hope that they can swim…

…similarly with social media, blindly banning them is inappropriate and equally dangerous.

http://www.heppell.net/facebook_in_school/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01y6stowvEs&feature=relmfu


The Collaborative Online Learning Tools project is a joint venture being undertaken by:

The Project & PartnersCollaborative Online Learning Tools

Co-funding the project and providing oversight & monitoring of the project as a whole.

Working with TAG to localise existing tools and develop new tools. Providing local project management & support to pilot schools.

Provision of existing MAPS e-assessment tools, gathering user requirements and creating the technical specification for the new tools.


Collaborative Online Learning Tools Setting the Scene – Why the CoL Tools project?

To address perhaps the biggest challenge in e-assessment today…



Can we machine mark evidence based assessment?



Progress to date in e-assessment:

E-Testing works well – highly robust & reliable

but high reliability can come at a cost…


Collaborative Online Learning Tools e-assessment: At what Cost?

ValidityReliability


Collaborative Online Learning Tools Meanwhile… in the world of Social Networking

There are lots of advantages to using social media to support formal and informal learning…

BUT…there are challenges…

Engages learners – the hidden hooks: a familiar medium that they are

already using; highly collaborative; provides equal opportunity.

Encourages Real Life Skills: sharing knowledge; dynamic/adaptive learning.


Collaborative Online Learning Tools Makes it even worse for teachers!

Specific to assessment the challenges of social media include:

Lots of disparate tools…

Lots of evidence…

Difficult to untangle…


Collaborative Online Learning Tools

…evidence based assessment cannot compete because it is hard work; online testing is simple, quick and AUTOMATIC…

This is all very time-consuming for teachers…


Collaborative Online Learning Tools

The solution…


Collaborative Online Learning Tools The Solution: A New Approach

Robots!


Collaborative Online Learning Tools The Solution: A New Approach

Advanced text/data mining techniques allow us to model teacher marking behaviour…

- we teach the machine to mark like a human; - then teachers validate the marking.


Collaborative Online Learning Tools How it will Work:

The project builds on TAG’s existing MAPS toolset / framework, adding automated text/data mining capabilities to:

Provide teachers with a suite of social media analytical tools to validate marking/ tagging and inform future teaching, which will…

…be accessible to them either through MAPS or via their LMS


Collaborative Online Learning Tools How it will Work:


Collaborative Online Learning Tools The Solution: Based on Existing Tried & Tested Tools

IDA was impressed by TAG’s existing evidence based assessment toolset and services based approach to the framework behind these.

A fully featured ‘e-portfolio’ that includes: - a blogging tool - with the ability to ‘tag’ evidence - APIs for social networking tools – e.g. Facebook - facility to capture evidence via mobile devices

Award winning on-screen marking tool: - contextually tag evidence to assessment criteria - can be used with multiple criteria sets - compatible with wide range of evidence types

Designed to support project-based learning: - capture of dynamic ‘as it happens’ evidence - facilitates collaboration as part of a task - provision for tagging individual evidence


Collaborative Online Learning Tools Hand’s On Session

Let’s Have a Go!

Go to: http://tinyurl.com/liveassess

Login as:

Username: newuser80 …newuser81; newuser82 ; etc…

Password: password

Check you have the latest version of Flash here:

http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/


Questions?

Matt Wingfield

Managing Director – TAG Developments

[email protected]

Tel: +44 203 176 0394

www.mapsassessment.com

www.tagdevelopments.com

Contact Information & Useful Links


Speaker :

Diane MayersIndependent Consultant

© Sherston Software 2012

A quick guide

Collaborative Online Learning (CoL Tools) Project

Diane MayersConsultantiGine

JefferyYenEnglish Teacher Yusof Ishak Secondary School


Collaborative learning

Peer Assessment


Facebook MAPs App


iGINE~ MAPS Microblog


Social Networking

Analysis


Marking assistant makes suggestion based on previous experience

Teacher now marks the pieceThe teachers mark is final and overrides the MA.If the teacher agrees with MA then the MA suggestion is reinforced. The MA can therefore “learn” that this work matches/does not match the criteria.

Latent Semantic Indexing


Hands-on session


These tools have made independent as well as collaborative learning. Pupils are more engaged and self-directed.

… increased pupils' engagement during tasks/helped them go through tasks more independently

… encourages collaboration between peers, thus building that inter-dependence culture and fostering the habit to learn from one another.

… it can be used in project work, science experiments also non academic subjects such as PE and CCA’s to monitor pupils' progress and also be used as a reflective tool to build 21st century skills.

… the micro blog tool enable students to comment on each other’s work so that they can improve their work

… it actually has helped students by getting and giving constructive feedback especially from and to their friends and colleagues

Primary and Secondary Teachers Comments


What did you like or dislike about using LiveAssess?

• Easy to use

• What I like is that LiveAssess is very interesting

• What I like about using LiveAsses is that I can work with my group without meeting them and I can just use the LiveAsses to complete my work or project...

• I like the microblog

• I get to use the computer, using LiveAssess is a lot more fun than the normal lessons.

• I like Live assess because the teacher follow through with us the following...

• I like sharing things that i have done with my partners


What did you think about commenting on each others work. What do you think was good and /or bad about the experience?

• Easy to improve the on the work, as other classmates are working on the same thing, they might discover or find a way to improve that I have not.

• It was good as it is better to work this way than in class.

• I think by commenting on each other work is very useful because their work can be an example for me to look at and improve on my work. And also, I can advice them about what they can add on or in other word, to improve on.

• It was fun, we get to improve our work easily. Our teammates help me out.

• It is good, because our friends will give their comment and we will get better in our work.

• The good thing is that they will know on what they need to improve on and the bad one is they will think that I am saying bad things about their work

• It is a good experience because you can help improve your partner's work.

• I think commenting on each others work was great as we all had positive comments.


Teacher’s view

Teacher can intervene in the Microblog or Facebook at anytime and delete posts if they wish Teacher can see which boxes

have been completed and which box each student is accessing Teacher not only can see the

individual portfolios, but also the class contents of individual boxes


Assessing

When marking Web 2.0 posts, students work is highlighted in main posts to show context.

Using tools like Red Pen Tool the teacher can write, audio record comment, underline and tag text and pictures.Teachers can look at students self

assessment. The work can be marked, graded or handed back.

Teacher can track when the work was submitted.


Next steps …If you would like further details of how to join this project please contact –

Contact Matt Wingfield at [email protected]


Speaker :

Mr Jeffrey YenYusof Ishak Secondary School

Social Media Assessment in the

Classroom

Jeffrey YenYusof Ishak Secondary School

What students did•Extension of CoL tools project

allow students to go to facebook.com (a FB app)

•Attempted task (reviewing friends’ work) by typing their thoughts into discussion threads

Observations

•Students were familiar with the user interface of Facebook

•Interested in completing the tasks

•They don’t feel that it’s ‘work’

However...Issues faced

•You are competing with the rest of the Internet: Facebook, Twitter, websites etc.

•Students were tempted to go off-task OR

•They did the task successfully but were engaged at the same time with the ‘other windows’

Dealing with this...• ‘House rules’: only one window allowed

• (Then again, maybe teachers shouldn’t be too hung up about this: re-examine ‘rules’)

•Ensure that activities are relevant and instructions are specific

•A ‘privilege’ to use aircon comp labs: If students are not on task, no more interesting ICT lessons!

Benefits of assessment using

social media• Students are on Facebook all the time;

• There is potential to let Facebook be a platform for communications and homework at all times too!

• Mobility of social networking may increase authenticity of task

• for eg, doing a concert review while walking out of the concert hall v.s. finishing a piece of work at home

Facebook as assessment platform

possibilities of assessment

•Students are already familiar with Facebook

•They use it without need for coercion

•Formative assessment can be integrated in such a way that it becomes a regular Facebook experience

• If you have a hundred ‘likes’ for your Facebook task, it’s going to change perception of ‘tests’ in general

What you can do today

•Create a Facebook group each class, or join a group already created by the Form Teacher

•Use this as a channel to communicate

•But, can you really run ‘assessment tasks’ using Facebook?

•Yes, formative assessment. eg. students respond to a topic by typing into a thread

•The space issue: the class group can be ‘school space’

What you can do today

•Twitter

•Students can tweet using #hashtags to label conversations

•Eg. Write a proposal to school management to suggest improvements at the canteen.

•Students go to canteen at recess time, and post short Facebook responses

•Very authentic, contextualised task

•Questions?

Thank you

© 2012 sherston software ltd.. speaker : mr matt wingfield managing director tag developments

Documents

sherston software

existing tools

new tools

col tools project

disparate tools

analytics tools matt

cost slide

validityreliability