Authentic Assessment and the Internet; AACE Presentation 2009

Authentic Assessment and the Internet… Matthew Allen ALTC Teaching Fellow Curtin University of Technology

The argument…
Assessment essential to achieving learning
Authentic assessment is particularly important
The Internet changes things in confronting ways
Assessment for online learning: less well developed field
One way forward is to embrace affordances of social media – new kind of authenticity

Assessment
Assessment “frames learning, creates learning activity and orients all aspects of learning behaviour” (Gibbs, 2006)
Assessment is, for me, the critical interface between the two interactants in the educational circuitry: educators and learners

Authenticity
Originally, and still to some extent assessment is authentic when…
there is alignment with the learning outcomes set by the teacher
More recently, and now dominantly assessment is authentic when…
it approaches the conditions of ‘real-world’ practice for which students are learning

Duelling Authenticities?
For alignment between learning outcomes, processes and assignments, authenticity achieved by rejecting the real world (to get educational perfection)
For alignment with real-world, “Authentic practices are ordinary practices as opposed to the ‘ersatz’ activity found in a school” (Jones and Asensio, 2002)

And now the Internet…
Interweaving, blurring, within same ‘screen space’ – Internet is every thing
Using the Internet is ‘learning’ (formal and informal)
The rise of social media…
‘ Produsers’ (Bruns, 2008)
‘ Read/Reflect/Write/Participate’ (Richardson, 2003)

Challenge for authenticity
We need to design assessment that is authentic, not just for educational goals and real-world work, but also to the life experience of people already involved in the Internet as co-created knowledge / social media
But, recognise: most people see the Internet as informal, not formal, learning

Affordances for authenticity
Social media…
demands and assumes an audience
fragments and distributes knowledge work
co-mingles mass and personal communication

Affordances for authenticity
Social media…
demands and assumes an audience greater or explicit public address … ‘consequence’
fragments and distributes knowledge work collaboration / sharing … ‘knowledge networks’
co-mingles mass and personal communication formal informality … ‘responsibility’

More info and contact… m.allen@curtin.edu.au http://netstudies.curtin.edu.au @netcrit http://netcrit.net and thanks to ALTC – http://www.altc.edu.au

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Authentic Assessment and the Internet; AACE Presentation 2009

by Matthew Allen on Oct 28, 2009

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Authentic Assessment and the Internet; AACE Presentation 2009 — Presentation Transcript