Assessment in Open Spaces

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THANK YOU… I am so honoured to be here. I thank David for the invitation, and to you all for being here.I’ve followed eAssessment Scotland with interest over the past couple of years, and am so happy to final be able to participate.. Such a gathering of educators is an engine of creativity and inspiration, so it’s an honour to speak today.

For those here who are tweeting… here’s my Twitter name & my slides are here!There has been a great Twitter presence of the conference for the past few months – with tweets of all registrants. If you are new (or new-ish) to Twitter, tweeting at a conference is the best place to start – we are speaking and sharing here, but others can follow the conversations. Not just via video link & EDUtalk radio, but via our tweets. So you can tweet to summarise points that interest you, but also to share with otheres…. I encourage you to tweet away!

I work at NUI Galway…I know that many of you are active in open online spaces as well, and many more are thinking about using more open practices.Not an expert, but a peer.

Not just at conferences, but throughout the year… through Twitter & other channels.These are Twitter hashtags…

“Networked Individualism”CONTEXT = 3 Revolutions:SOCIAL NETWORKS – (more than FB!) existed for a long time… fluid changing networks, not groups, sometimes communitiesINTERNET… baked-in ethic of OPENNESS, freedom & innovationMOBILE… affects our sense of Time and Place… Presence… Social Connectedness… “hyperconnectivity”We (people & institutions) exist now in Information & Communication Ecologies that are strikingly different from the ones that existed just a generation ago.We live in a different media landscape than the one we lived in and were educated in. (learn anything, anywhere, any time)

David Wiley has said that OPENNESS is the fundamental value underlying significant changes in society.But what does OPENNESS mean for us as educators?I’ll ask you the first Q: please talk with the person next to you (in 2s or 3s):But what does OPENNESS mean for us as educators, for our students?And would you consider yourself an Open Educator?Many definitions – it’s complicated

TOOLS – software, OS, apps Linux, Moodle, WordPress, Mozilla Firefox, AndroidAdd: COMMUNITY!….. to improve access to and quality of Learning

I read this quote by Joi Ito in an article in the NYT in December 2011 & created this slide (using a CC-licensed photograph) I have probably shared it in every presentation I’ve given since. I think it says so much about where learning is already going… and where education has the potential to go.Not connected/limited by geography, space, time... but connected by our own ideas, passion, commitment via open practices & social media. This is one of the best definitions I’ve seen of Open Education… and its future possibilities.

ADULTS:72% of all online adults (Pew, 2013)67% of online adults use Facebook 18% of online adults use Twitter 13% of online adultsuse Instagram

Diagram created by Alec Couros…. 2006 (when uptake of SM was much lower & mobile not as widespread).

Created by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano… based on Alec Couros’ diagram (one of many versions, in many languages!)

81% of online teens use social networking sites (Pew, 2013)94% of those use Facebook 24% of online teens use Twitter 11% of online teens use InstagramI dropped my daughter off to a friend’s a few days ago (she’s 20), just a 5-minute journey. While we were driving she was texting and then held her phone up to film out the windscreen. I said “are you SnapChatting?” and she said “Yeah, I’m SnapChatting, WhatsApping, Facebooking and texting.”

So what happens when Networked Educators meet Networked Students?

What are the affordances of these different spaces?Classrooms & Bounded Online Spaces are safe and creative spaces for learners to develop & to share their work -- with their teacher, and sometimes with one another.But… they are PRIVATE! No role for our networked connections.MESSAGE: School/Education is separate from Life; Formal learning divorced from rather than integrated with Informal learning.

David Wiley & John Hilton have called this the Daily Divide.The well-known phrase “digital divide” describes the gulf between individuals who have access to information technology and individuals who do not.Also a Daily Divide…Connected students may, of course, choose to “go rogue” outside of class and usetechnologies and their skills outside of class, but this only serves to reinforce the feeling of disconnection and disorientation on in-class exams.

We can share our networks!! This doesn’t mean all learning moves here, many of us teach in Classrooms & VLEs… but if we experiment with activity in the open, the potential benefits are enormous.Kris Gutiérrez-“Third Spaces” of Learning. Informal learning spaces, Formal learning spaces, and a combined space.Although the research by Gutiérrez et al relates to children learning across languages & cultures, concept of “third space” is helpful in thinking about the possibilities of open online spaces for students and staff. Not limited by rigid identities in Open Online Spaces, or third spaces…

CLASSROOM  Teacher / Student (architecture, history, etc.)Bounded Online Space  Teacher / Student (LMS = grades/admin)Open Online Space  Students *and* Teachers as LEARNERS; potential to be “social peers”Students develop their own voice, their own identity/identities

Danahboyd defined NETWORKED PUBLICS… networked, open, online spaces (a new kind of public space)Global networks, different audiences… data is PERSISTENT _ REPLICABLE _ SCALABLE _ SEARCHABLE The audience is unknown… Context Collapse.

DI = online persona  very useful to help students to understand and discuss this, and to experiment! (they are doing it anyway)This photos captures some of the ambivalence that many of us feel about our digital identities. Students are creating and experessing their DI’s every day… using SM such as FB, Tw, Instagram, SnapChat… etc. etc.Many students already have a confidence social digital identity, but developing an identitiy as a learner, a writer, a scholar, a citizen…. these are the essential tasks of us as educators. In the classroom and online, together.

In open online spaces, we have to give up some control… and we have to embrace play!Moodle/BB = students are themselvesTwitter / SN’s = anything they want to be  value here, but we must be willing to accept & engage.Web *IS* a place for play & experimentation... pseudonyms, avatars, different IDs in different placesWe *ALL* do this to a certain extent!We must allow our students to do the same.

PERFORMATIVE – constituted through practicesQUANTIFIED – clicks, follows, @s, likes, Klout, etc…. Like it or not!PARTICIPATORY – merging of production and consumptionASYNCHRONOUS – beautiful thing of creating your own moment, your own space to respond to othersENMESHED – atoms and bits, Nathan JurgensonNEOLIBERAL – ME, Inc. to what extent are we a BRAND?

People talk about Digital Citizenship, but I agree with people like Alec Couros, Keri Facer and Anne Collier who point out that DC is just Citizenship.Being a good citizen in this time, is to be an active, empowered participant in Networked Publics. Emerging Networked Publics constitute a new site for citizenship (KF), i.e. developing social & civic identities. As educators we must nurture and model democratic practices in online spaces, particularly Open Online Spaces –and-Support our students to improve the quality of public conversations about THEIR FUTURE. (KF)Help young people move from Participants  Critical Readers  Active Agents (KF)ALEC COUROS: How do we develop kind & caring citizens, those with integrity in both online and offline spaces?”

How to use social media intelligently, humanely, and mindfully. Network Literacies - essential literacies for a world of mobile, social, and always-on media: attention, filtering, participation, collaboration, and network know-how. The effects of these literacies can both empower the individuals… improve the quality of the digital culture commons.

So how do these ideas around innovation, openness and sharing affect Assessment Practices? Some great examples of initiatives at all levels of education… Effective assessment can contribute to learner’s understanding of the curriculum, their own meaning-making (if you like),as well, of course, as determining their ability to progress – though it is the latter which we often focus on within education systems.Can also be used to obtain feedback from studentsthat improves your teaching strategies, provide students with more experiential learning opportunities, and teach students to self- evaluate thereby increasing their independent learning skills. Opportunities for that FEEDBACK DIALOGUE are excellent in open online spaces.

Early 1990s... educators and social critics (like Kozol) noted exclusion of student voices from conversations about Learning, Teaching & Schooling – in educational research and reform.US, Canada, UK, Australia... Challenging dominant images of students as silent, passive recipients of what Others define as Education. Late 1990s/early 21C... Many educational research & reform efforts encompass Student Voice. But what do they mean?Student voice = SOUNDS, PRESENCE, POWER, AGENCY

The following examples are of teachers and students, at all levels, who are working in open online spaces – how this has changed feedback, assessment and learning. They use a variety of social media: Twitter, blogs, image-sharing, video, etc.

Class of 32 5th class students (P7)One year ago, put into computer lab… knew nothing about social media, etc. I work closely with schools and had facilitated a workshop at the school the previous spring, on social media and learning, so Maire decided to embrace the change.She set up on Twitter during the summer, connected with other teachers using the #edchatie hashtag, and created individual blogs for her children using KidBlog.

KidBlog  100WC 2,250 posts4,250 comments159,000+ views

MEANING, ENJOYMENT, CONNECTIONFeedback from around the world! Could be parents, could be teachers, could be other children – fantastic to have authentic, timely feedback on writing!

The experimental project which I began last September – to work online as much as possible – grew and developed in ways I never thought possible. It allowed my class to access the curriculum in new and exciting ways which really engaged them and made their learning more meaningful for them. The studentsparticipated in 34 weeks of the 100 Word Challenge for which they received comments from all over the world. Writing for an audience other than the teacher was a great motivation to improve in all areas. Online learning also contributed significantly to the development of a number of children’s self-esteem as they became more confident in their abilities to learn online and to present their work online via their class blog. I began to see huge improvements in individual children’s confidence. The whole learning experience was transformed and children were active agents in their own learning with one child commenting “I learned how to learn”. Maire knows students writing has improved, on state exams. She has met inspectors who do not want to hear about Twitter or blogging, but she has made the decision based on what she learned… Maire is taking on the Daily Divide – rather than her students!

Ciaran Cannon – Minister of State for Training and Skills

5 universities running courses in Social Media & Mobile Media Making… Salford (Helen Keegan), Ilona Buchem (Berlin), Mar Camacho (Barcelona), Thom Cochrane & Averill Gordon (New Zealand) & me (Galway)Students ever more independent, more choice.My students created presentations – Helen & Averill’s students looked at those presentations for ideas – gave feedback & used those pres to create their own ideas.** Social Media breaking through the artificial boundaries of modules, term times, geography, time differences, culture & more! ** Their own digital identities, their own media, their own choice of tools, etc.

This is not a MOOC.This is not an open programme.This is a typical BSc programme, UG, mostly school leavers

We agreed to use Twitter as a tool throughout the course… class Twitter account and hashtag. In a study of US undergraduates, Steven Thorne found that email was considered a tool for communication between power levels and generations… not a good tool for relationship-building & social interaction.Invokes digital identity immediately! Must discuss and explore first... privacy, identity in online spaces, etc. Who am I on Google? Who am I here? In this class? Who is the audience?

#cel263 Academic Staff – learning technologies moduleThrough activities like these, I encourage students to begin creating their own Personal Learning Networks (use SM in a new way)… so that they leave with this! (education, degree, friends, memories & PLN!)

ASSESSMENT: Students in this module assessed on their presentations and their digital media project. I did not assess how many posts they made, tweets, etc.Many of the SM activities were not assessed… but students developed skills for using in later projects. However, we created the rubrics together for these assignments, students owned the criteria, and those who made use of the feedback they received DID WELL.Hashtag use enabled students to share their work with a wider audience (e.g. #edchatie)

How we improve access to and quality of LearningWHO? WHAT? HOW?

Learning is social & connected.Blast out of the classroom – move into open online spaces (small scale, with a purpose, in your own comfort level).When people who use Twitter or Google+ enthuse about using these tools, it’s not the tools themselves… it is the connection with PEOPLE, the CONVERSATIONS, the RELATIONSHIPS we build.We must provide opportunities *in educational settings* for our students to do this. Not only as “Student” but with the identities they choose, and the identities they are becoming.Build our own PLNs – Share our PLNs – Help students build their PLNs

Let go of control!It’s like the layers of an onion… Use as many opportunities as possible for students to CREATE & CHOOSE: e.g. topics, tools, media, teams, assessment, rubrics, etc.

HRH: “We’re richer if we teach each other.”David Wiley: “There’s no education without sharing.”

Where and when appropriate… choose OPEN (you can decide based on your students age, and with your students)Use Open Educational Resources, use Open images, open music…Create Open resources (writing, images, music, etc.)SHARE openly!

We are living through a moment of great change in education. EDUCATORS and STUDENTS must become involved in creating more flexible, networked & open educ systems & educ technology.This is the time, and we are the educators. WE ARE HERE!!!Is it risky? It sure is. But the most important things in life often are.As Stephen Heppell says: “Learning prepares you to deal with suprises. Education often prepares you to deal with certainty. There is no certainty.” Schools, colleges & universities will become inc’ly IRRELEVANT if we don’t embrace the possibilities or participatory culture & social media.INSTITUTIONS can be more open, in a number of ways.INDIVIDUAL EDUCATORS can also choose to be more open without waiting for insitutional programmes or changes.We need to move towards our students. Colum McCann (Irish author): “We have to build our half of the bridge… no matter who or where we happen to be.”

Catherine Cronin , Educator, Researcher, PhD candidate at NUI Galway
@jchall00 Thank you, Jane - delighted to receive that feedback from you :) I look forward to connecting with you as we further explore these ways of learning with our students throughout the coming term.
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Jane Challinor , Subject Lead/Principal Lecturer in Health and Social Care at Nottingham Trent University at Nottingham Trent University
Indeed a very inspiring presentation - love your use of visuals and how you talk about the fun and joy involved in this way of learning.
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Catherine Cronin , Educator, Researcher, PhD candidate at NUI Galway
Many thanks, Theo. The eAssessment Scotland conference was a great event -- many educators sharing ideas about open learning and assessment. I will be writing a blog post this week summarising my talk and some of the other from the conference.
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Theo Mensen , Innovation Support and Talent Management at HRDS Innovation Support
Thanks for giving access to your inspiring slides presented (while I'm having lunch in Maastricht at the same time:)
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Assessment in Open Spaces

Catherine Cronin

Assessment in Open Spaces