Kay Bond
Faculty of Engineering
Computer Aided Engineering (MM3CAEUK) (AUT 12-13), Advanced Engineering Research Preparation (H14ERP UK) (AUT 12-13) and Advanced Engineering Research Project Organisation and Design (H14POD UK) (SPR 12-13)
Apart from one, assignments in modules MM3CAE, H14ERP and H14POD generally had non-`text?-based files attached (they were code files, e.g. Creo 3D solid model CAE, MATLAB, Excel), as well as reports so Turnitin wasn?t really the best option as it is intended for text. We still needed to use electronic submission of these so that staff could interrogate or run code - very necessary for assessment. To some extent we only really use the submission aspect of the Moodle assignment function, rather than marking or returning marks and certainly this will be the case this coming year.
I have used Moodle assignments. I used the rubric option on a couple, which would be good for marking as it indicates what aspects gives the student a particular mark and there is an option to add further comments, thus good for feedback. The rubric is a little unwieldy to set up but not impossible, however it would have been beneficial to have been able to use a rubric for one section and free marking for another then combine the mark, but this wasn?t an option.
The display of the rubric within Moodle.Nottingham Have youUoN moodle is almost unworkable and is poor for students too – it doesn?t use the fact that we have widescreens, so staff and students alike end up scrolling up and down and back and forth.
For electronic submission it was reasonably good and it is possible to download all the submissions in one compressed file which is better than WebCT. The problem is that Moodle renames the submissions and uses first name for some bizarre reason, rather than last name, so then I had to go and strip off the first part of the filename so that we could actually sort them alphabetically by surname. I won?t be using the rubric – I?ve created a spreadsheet that pulls in student names and ID, creates a marks/feedback sheet from the list for each student, this is part automated rubric (that generates comments based on the mark given) and part free marking, it populates the student list with a final mark column, etc. and then will generate an individual pdf for each student that I am likely to email out automatically. I will then use the spreadsheet to populate the marks in Moodle so that they have a record of the mark but the feedback is given separately. Unfortunately, I can?t find a way of uploading the pdf?s to each student without doing it manually – for 160 plus this is not trivial.
The students don?t mind on-line submission because of the nature of the subjects, however Moodle can be a little confusing because they don?t always remember to submit and often just upload what Moodle terms a draft. They then panic after the deadline and hit submit, then Moodle will then show this as a late submission. We had to check a couple of `histories? to verify whether they were actually late submissions or had been inadventently `submitted? after the deadline.
Tips and recommendations
For electronic submission it was reasonably good and it is possible to download all the submissions in one compressed file which is better than WebCT. The problem is that Moodle renames the submissions and uses first name for some bizarre reason, rather than last name, so then I had to go and strip off the first part of the filename so that we could actually sort them alphabetically by surname. I won?t be using the rubric – I?ve created a spreadsheet that pulls in student names and ID, creates a marks/feedback sheet from the list for each student, this is part automated rubric (that generates comments based on the mark given) and part free marking, it populates the student list with a final mark column, etc. and then will generate an individual pdf for each student that I am likely to email out automatically. I will then use the spreadsheet to populate the marks in Moodle so that they have a record of the mark but the feedback is given separately. Unfortunately, I can?t find a way of uploading the pdf?s to each student without doing it manually – for 160 plus this is not trivial.
Presentation
Using wikis to create student knowledge hubs - Peter Kirwan.ppt
Video
Peter Kirwan
School of English
Shakespeare and Jonson (Q33601 UK) (SPR 12-13)
Peter wanted to use a couple of different tools to extend classroom conversation, to explore what he likes to term ?third-space teaching?, creating an environment which is genuinely collaborative, genuinely owned by students, but which also intersects with the live experience of the classroom and locates what we are doing in a wider community of independent responsibility and gives them a sense of empowerment. He used Twitter on one module and Moodle wikis on another.
The module is Shakespeare and Jonson, a comparative early modern theatrical literature course. Important to this is the idea is now that we are entering the end of a period of relative textual stability and that when Gutenberg invented the printing press we replaced a culture of primarily oral transmission / scribal transmission with fixity printed texts. Digital media is reversing that, taking us back into a culture where people were more inclined to scribble, to compile, create multiple kinds of texts, none of which has more authority than others.
Peter decided to use wikis as a way of replicating the ?commonplace book? – a personal log of one?s own experiences into which people would ?copy and paste? quotations, references, texts, etc. Commonplace books were objects owned by individuals but always intersecting, often shared, often passed around. The wiki is a really interesting way of replicating these ideas – a wiki does not need to be authoritative (don?t cite Wikipedia!)
The wiki was used to give students a chance to become experts in a particular contextual area of the course, log their ideas and share their ideas at an early stage. The course has two classes of 20 students, and two students in each class were given a research specialism, such as The Blackfriars, the Globe, Shakespeare?s life, Jonson?s life, boy actors etc. The students were told from day one they would be the class?s knowledge expert (?go-to person?) on this subject.
Wikis provided the commonplace book which supplemented them. All students have access to all the wikis, with the `experts? taking responsibility for editing a particular one. Peter gave them starting suggestions, and specific seminar sessions which they were to contribute to, then week by week they were required to put together wikis online. As they built up ideas they created a digital commonplace book, bringing in pictures, article reviews, summaries, diagrams and computer modules, and began critiquing the materials.
This level of research was in the past carried out at the end of the module when preparing their individual essays – very contained individual sequence of tasks. The students started this in the knowledge that it would contribute to their individual essays – their research questions. The students responsible for each wiki did not meet in person, so the wiki was a third space where students in different seminar groups collaborated on these wikis, reading each other?s work, supplementing it and building together a collaborative research base much broader than any of them would have been able to achieve individually.
And as the class went on, they continued building up the wikis, using them in class. Peter could also pick up on them in class, to introduce the kind of work they?d been doing.
The alchemy example shows pages representing several thousand words? worth of writing.
The students could:
Peter gave more firsts than he?d ever given before – because essays were written from a much deeper research base not created at the end
For students:
Presentation
Using wikis to create student knowledge hubs - Peter Kirwan.ppt
Video
How to achieve this:
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