Personal Blogs

The competence I chose was experience of audio and visual facilities of the web and the evidence I chose the podcast created in Unit 5.  Podcasting is a skill useful for teaching practise, as a means of communication and involves using specific software.  The content of the podcast was a critique of using forums with online groups and therefore can be mapped against this criterion also.  To create a podcast I used Audacity, a piece of software I have used before, so I was able to explore the editing functions a little more.  The podcast was hosted on Podbean which meant getting to know a new hosting site and exploring is functions. 

I consider my level of competency to be above average as I was experienced to know that I needed to script it, read through to identify tricky words and phrases and work in pauses to keep the pace right. I was able to edit the podcast, adjusting the pitch and amplitude and filtering out noise to create a sound I was happy with.  My experience of other hosting sites, such as Wordpress and Youtube meant I was quickly able to find my way around Podbean and provide a link from the H808 forum. I didn't assess as myself as strong, or expert because I still think there are things to learn about podcasting, such as frequent summaries and better use of emphasis and tone.   There are also still things to learn about audacity.

In this self assessment I have not only decided my own level of competency, but also have defined those levels myself.  Others may have different views on what constitutes below or above average and strong and on my view of my own level. 

Link to Unit 3 grid  https://www.dropbox.com/sh/n0rvuogky0122dc/C7vjiL2ve-

Link to podcast http://kimlesley.podbean.com/.

How can collective work be fairly presented for individual assessment as evidence of competence. Would less technically adept group members be justified in claiming that their own competence had been enhanced by working together on this with others who were more proficient? How could they evidence such a claim?

The assessment of group work has long been under discussion given the more recent interest in collaborative and group learning.  Group work especially prepares learners for the workplace where teamwork is the most usual way to undertake tasks.  However, education also must meet the needs of assessment and the individual's achievement.  There are several models around to assess an individual's contribution to group work, however two difficulties may arise from the fact that the product may be more than the sum of the parts and that it can be difficult to weight the relative roles.  Is the research as important as the person who put together the presentation, in the case of the recent activity?  What about the person who undertakes several small roles compared to someone who makes one larger contribution.  How do you weight the person who encourages and drives the process against the person who makes more concrete contributions?

Belbin (cited in Belbin Associates, 2012) suggests there are nine key roles in a team, Plant (Creative, problem solvers), Monitor Evaluator (Maintains an overview, weighs up the group's options), Coordinator (maintains focus in objectives, draw out team members and delegates work), Resource investigator (looks at the opposition and makes sure the team's idea has relevance), Implementers (plans a workable strategy)' Completer finisher  (Looks for errors and polishes the final product), Teamworker (helps the team to gel), Shapers (provide the drive to keep things moving), Specialist (has area of expertise).  Within our own team we had slightly more defined roles, leader and coordinator, researcher, which was my key contribution, content writers (which everyone did), presentation creator, production person, reviewer (which several people including myself were involved in).  My main contribution was early on, reviewing the literature, adding synopses to the wiki and suggesting questions for the presentation.  I took one idea to write content for and then at the end proof read and made suggestions to improve it.

Laufenberg (2012) suggests that groups work better when individuals know that they will get a fair assessment. She grades work in two parts, one for individual work and one for the group.  Students are assessed on 5 areas, individually on research, knowledge and process, and the group on design and presentation. She also has space for self assessment.  In my own teaching I have also used peer assessment where each person comments on the roles played by others. This would be difficult to apply to the recent collaborative task as without further evidence it would be diffcult to assess the three individual criteria just from the forum discussions.  An addition to this unit it might be useful for  an individual journal of the activity to be uploaded to the blog for the tutor to assess.  From the forum, however, it would be necessary for the tutor to identify the individual contributions and grade them based on the quality of that contribution, eg how would the researcher be graded, or how would the presentation be graded?  It would also be instructive to allow some peer assessment and feed this in. In addition a grade could be given for the whole project and then a weighted final grade given.  My argument would be that the group project should have a slightly higher weighting than the individual contribution to address the difficulties of assessing different kinds of contribution.

However, can the technically less adept group members claim their own competence has been enhanced?  In the case of our own group project I would suggest this is problematic.  One of our group put together a PowerPoint presentation from our combined contributions, however, anyone not knowing how to use PowerPoint would not have learned any technical skills from this, though they would have seen a good example of a presentation. Additionally another member of the group recorded this using Camtasia Studio 7 and again, any who did not know this software would have learnt anything. What group members did learn was a considerable amount about ePortfolios in Lifelong Learning and had the experience of working in a team. Therefore to claim that technical competencies have been enhanced would be hard to substantiate, in this particular exercise.

References:

Belbin Associates (2012) 'History and research' Belbin.com found at http://www.belbin.com/rte.asp?id=3 [Accessed 24/11/12]Laufenberg, D. (2012) 'Group work doesn't have to suck' blog post 1 November 2012, The Innovative Educator found at http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/group-work-doesnt-have-to-suck.html?m=1 [Accessed 24/11/12]

Laufenberg (2012) 'Groupwork doesn't have to suck' Blog post, The Innovative Educator. Available at http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/2012/11/group-work-doesnt-have-to-suck.html

Creating a podcast.  The activity was relatively straightforward as I have done podcasting (and vodcasting) before.  I already have audacity and have a reasonable amount of experience using it, including some of the advanced features.  The best way to do a podcast is to have a script and I break it up into clear sections so that the podcast isn't rushed.  I also do about three or four practices sorting out the difficult phrases - it's surprising the words that suddenly become tongue twisters - for example H808.

Having got a version I was happy with I adjusted the amplitude and the pitch, just so it didn't sound quite like me. Setting up Podbean took longer.  I did this before doing the podcast so I could explore it a bit.  Setting up an account was straightforward.  I then played with the theme and worked out how to do things and where to upload files.  I discovered that it was similar to Wordpress and that made it easier.  Uploading the mp3 was therefore pretty straightforward and then I published it to the site with a little bit of an introduction and took a copy of the url to post onto the course wiki.

There was a big thing about podcasts about 3-4 years ago and as a college we were involved in the JISC MoleNet project  (Mobile Learning Network).  We were partnered with several colleges across the south west. The project involved funding for podcasting equipment and training for staff and the setting up of a podcast hosting site, which was our role.  Several podcasts (and vodcasts) were created and uploaded to the site covering a range of subject areas.  I can't say they were of any great quality or particularly engaging which raised a fundamental question about creative skills in this area.  It is not just about having the equipment to create them and the will, but they have to be good learning objects in the end.

The best podcasts in terms of learning were the ones created by the students themselves where they discussed things they had been learning in class.  It made their learning more interesting and having to explain something meant they had to understand it very well.  They also put it into words that their peers understood.  For me this is the best use of them.  As teaching tools they work if they are short and sharp, but they are essentially passive and so best used sparingly.

I've been in education both as a student and teacher for many years and believe that reflection is an important aspect of both.  Being able to reflect on one's learning develops strong independent learners and being able to reflect on content promotes deep learning and real understanding of a subject.  Reflective practice helps a learner build a much clearer picture of their own strengths and weaknesses and to develop strategies to improve.  However, as Moon (2001) suggests this does require some training to help the learner develop good reflective practice, including clear and constructive feedback on their work to inform their reflection.  As Moon also suggests, explaining the value of reflection and providing examples is also important.  On two modules I teach for the OU students have to do a 'self reflection' of 50 words at the end of their assignment on a specified aspect of the experience and this enables me to guide their reflection a little.  In H808 reflection is a large part of the module activities and assessment. Blogging is a useful way to reflect and I've started adding a weekly post to the blog on my eportfolio about how I'm feeling about the module so far and where things have gone well and why things haven't gone so well.  Moon made a very good point about emotion in reflection which I believe is thoroughly underestimated in all learning theory.  Much of my learning and work does involve quite bit of frustration and anxiety, as well as pleasure and elation at times, and I intend to also explore my emotions with regards H808 as well.  My reflective blogs remain private however as I think that if I know they can be read by others then they won't be true reflections as Crème (2005) suggests with regards assessed reflective activity.

References

Moon, J. (2001) ‘PDP working paper 4: reflection in higher education learning’ (online), The Higher Education Academy. Available from: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/resources/resourcedatabase/id72_Reflection_in_Higher_Education_Learning.rtf [Accessed 23 September 2012]

Crème, P. (2005) ‘Should student learning journals be assessed?’, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 287–96. Available from: http://libezproxy.open.ac.uk/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02602930500063850 [Accessed 23 September 2012]