EduBloggerCon2007
The first EduBloggerCon was quite an event and many interesting and passionate conversations have occurred. There is so much to think about. We know change needs to occur but how to get that change in motion is the tough question. After the sessions I reflected on the many good ideas and thought about all the energy in the rooms, the good ideas, the good discussions. A nagging thought kept lurking somewhere in my mind and got in the way of my thinking of all the wonderful possiblilities that could occur for student learning with some needed changes. High-stakes testing is the cloud that I could not get cleared away from my thoughts. I still think that high-stakes testing continues to be our biggest obstacle for needed change in education. Until we can change that I fear we are going to keep spinning our wheels in all other areas.
Here’s the podcast from Chris Lehman and Will Richardson’s session on “Getting Our Blogs in a Row: Crafting a Compelling, Cogent Message for Change”: See the wiki. Then check this excellent follow-up post by Christopher Sessums. Check out the group picture at EduBloggerCon The sessions were great and Steve Hargadon has done an absolutely terrific job putting it all together. Thanks Steve for making it happen!
The conversations were great! A real highlight for me was having lunch with Kevin, Sheryl, Diane, and Christopher. What a great day! I couldn’t help but think back to NECC in Seattle and compare the numbers - wow! Let’s keep increasing those numbers! Our voices will be heard!
Note: There is a problem loading the podcast. I’ll figure it out later and put it up.
June 26th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
Anne, it was such a pleasure meeting you - I so admire the work you are doing with your students!
That “cloud” you mention rumbled on the horizon of many of our conversations. Lots of times, when we talk about testing as being an obstacle to education reform, I think we are suggesting that we just do away with it. I can’t see that happening in the near future, can you? The accountability movement isn’t just going to go away. It does however need to be re-focussed.
In a former life :-), I was a development team leader for Ontario’s Education Quality and Accountability Office, (EQAO), - Ontario’s testing agency. At that time, we were creating performance-based assessment tasks. These tasks were rich enough to:
-motivate students to demonstrate their skills and knowledge;
-allow for scaffolding of demonstrations of learning;
-allow for demonstrations of learning to emerge at all (four) levels of achievement.
These rich tasks were very time-consuming to develop and hence very expensive. My team could easily spend several days developing (and refining) one task. It was also time-consuming, (read expensive), to train teachers to score these assessments. I think the cost was justifiable in terms of teacher professional development alone. The professional learning that happened throughout the development, field-testing, and scoring of the performance-based assessments was immeasurable!
While Ontario still calls upon the expertise of its teachers to develop and select test questions, and score assessments, I have seen a change in the nature of the assessment tasks. They are shorter, more “content” focussed, rely more on multiple choice questions, and are lacking in richness. They take less time to develop, less time to administer, less time to score and are therefore less expensive. In my opinion they also yield less valuable data.
What if we were instead to provide students with a rich context and challenge them to use any tool(s) at their disposal to demonstrate how they explore information, engage with “texts”, process ideas and create products? Would it follow that richer tasks completed over a longer period of time would lead to richer demonstrations of learning? And if so, would those richer demonstrations of learning yield more valuable data? And what if we used that data, not to “measure” schools but to inform instruction?
Can’t you just picture using a rich “text” such as a story, video clip or podcast with students as a jumping off point, with the challenge to demonstrate their understanding in the most effective way they could? Some students might use multimedia software to create another part to the “story”. Others might pull in RSS feeds and repackage critical information related to the “text”. Others might use their blogs to engage in a series of interviews or commentaries. And yet others might choose to create a virtual world to breathe life into the characters and settings. Any one of these scenarios would allow students to demonstrate the breadth and depth of their understanding, the effectiveness of their thinking skills, and the complexity of the connections made between the “text” and the world beyond the text. Now that’s an assessment! Why can’t we do that on a large-scale?
June 28th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Diane,
Thanks so much for the thoughtful comment. I agree with you on everything you said. You should see the pictures I am making in my head. They are great.
I think I will move a copy of this comment over to my obstacles wiki which I really need to work on. It belongs there.
It was great meeting you and I look forward to continued conversations. Best to you….
Anne
July 2nd, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Anne, I have been running since NECC and just now had the chance to find this pic and the post you promised to write. I must tell you, I have never worked so hard at a conference, and have never felt that (despite the great work we did in the Second Life playground) I *missed* a conference I actually attended - until now.
Our lunch was a perfect example of the kind of connection that seems so elusive in the digital age, a real connection, breaking bread, sharing potatoes, breathing the same air as someone you have “known” but never met. I will say this much, San Antonio will be different! Please hold me to that! And, keep up the great work!
Best,
-kj-