Month: December 2019

Self-Assessment in Moodle

December 17, 2019 / Troy / 2 Comments

I love the flexibility in Moodle. Usually, I can find a way to provide an experience for learners that meets our needs. Sometimes, these could be improved visually, but, usually, I can find a way.

Except.

I’m still not finding a way for students to do self-assessment cleanly. The idea here is that self-assessment is a powerful activity. Having students self-assess is just good pedagogy. Being able to do this through Moodle would be fantastic.

I have tried a variety of methods.

Quiz

Ultimately, this is the winner so far. The teacher creates a quiz with the rubric as the questions. This allows for a grade to be derived. The student can easily see his grade and his assessment. However, this certainly doesn’t look or feel like a rubric. This can also be visually quite lengthy.

Assignment

This is my second-place finisher. I can get incredibly close with Assignment. The only caveat is that students can not be in any groups. Here is the process:

Course must be set to “Separate Groups”

This is where the caveat of students can only be in one group comes in. If students are in multiple groups (e.g. they are in a first-hour group, and a self-assessment group), they will see the results of everyone in all of those groups. Thus, students would be able to see all of first hour. To combat this, one could make a class just for self-assessment.

Create an Assignment.

Give it a name.
Uncheck all Submission types
Uncheck all Feedback types
Set grading to Rubric

Locally assigned roles

Adjust the Locally assigned roles for this assignment only. Make each student a Non-editing teacher.

Adjust permissions

Make sure that students can NOT “Access all groups”

Questionnaire

Again, close with this one, but two issues come up:

No “score”
Groups remain an issue: students can only be in one group.

Database

This can be pretty. It is easy to limit to one student. However, no total score is generated.

Workshop

Workshop is geared for peer assessment. However, it is geared for the whole class. Part of the Workshop system is that the entire class moves from one phase to the next. There are five phases:

Setup
Submission
Assessment
Grading evaluation
Closed

The entire class moves from one phase to the next. Additionally, you can restrict the activity by Group. However, this means that you would need to create the Workshop Activity, with all the settings and then Duplicate the activity times the number of students. So, if you had 98 students, you would need to Duplicate the activity 97 times. Additionally, you would need to reset the Group on all 97 of those duplicates. (Now you can automatically switch from the Submission to Assessment phase – which saves a ton of steps).

So, that’s a quick overview of our goal of having students self-assess. There doesn’t appear to be a simple way to make this happen.

Did the State Sell My Data?

December 16, 2019 / Troy / 0 Comments

The sale of Instructure, the maker of Canas, to the Private Equity Firm Thoma Bravo, seems to include all of the data that Instructure collected.

The State of Michigan bought into Canvas to provide Edupaths (don’t worry, they got a great deal for three years*). I took classes through Edupaths. So, what happens to my data? Does Thoma Bravo now have a good bit of data about me?

I’ve reached out to the State of Michigan asking if they exempted our data from being collected and sold by Instructure. I haven’t heard back yet. If they haven’t/didn’t/don’t, Thoma Bravo has a great treasure trove of teacher data. My data would be included in that.

*Canvas was well known to always be peddling a “great deal” for three years. Their stated intention was to turn those accounts into profit by raising prices after three years. This short-sighted thinking always kind of bothered me. Let’s be honest about what things cost. It seems somewhat unlikely that the Canvas model worked out as planned (though it did work out – they were purchased for $2 billion) as they never actually made money.

Comics

December 7, 2019 / Troy / 0 Comments

I find RSS very useful. I utilize Feedly to gather RSS feeds. (Basically, instead of going to a variety of websites to see if something has been updated, new updates come directly to the RSS feed reader. (This is kind of like Facebook but without the invasion of privacy and putting me in control instead of Facebook. Of course, this would mean that other people would have to set up a site to post their content. It would also mean that other people would have control of their content.)

Anyway, one of my categories is Comics. I enjoy reading comics. Usually, this is a late-at-night activity for me. I’ve used Dark Gate Comic Slurper for years. However, I noticed the other night that there were no new comics.

I waited a day (or two, it’s a busy time of year). In checking Dark Gate Comics on the web, I get a 500 error. Not good. Either Dark Gate is gone, or something is happening.

So, off I go to find alternatives. This is where I found Comics RSS. Comics RSS looks to have most of the comics that I like to read (I enjoy a mix of classics and modern comics). One advantage is Comics RSS is that each comic is on a separate feed. (Dark Gate Comic Slurper would create one feed with all of the comics that you picked). This will make it easier to add and delete individual comics. (This really wasn’t that hard with Dark Gate).

Comics are back. Now, I’ve got some catching up to do.

Buying an LMS

December 4, 2019 / Troy / 0 Comments

It’s been an interesting week for LMS providers. Instructure (the owner of Canvas – an LMS (Learning Management System)) just announced that it will be acquired by Thoma Bravo, LLC, a private investment firm for a cool $2 billion.

This news follows closely on the heels of Schoology being purchased by Powerschool (which is also held by a private investment firm).

Keep in mind that private investment firms are designed to do one thing (hint, it isn’t supporting student success). Apparently, there are some smart people who are expecting to make a lot of money from schools.

I’ve written before about Canvas. They were working hard to increase their market share so that they could then raise prices to make money. This seems to be a very real part of the economy right now, collect as many users as possible and somehow figure out how to make money later. This seems to be the plan for many, many companies, not just LMS providers in education.

Powerschool acquiring Schoology makes some sense to me. Powerschool provides an SIS (Student Information System). Powerschool wants to be able to provide a full-featured solution for schools. Powerschool having an LMS as part of that is good marketing and could provide some economy of scale to schools.

However, I remain concerned about investing in a company that pretty freely acknowledges that they want to build things up so that they can sell it off for a profit. I’m not in education for a couple of years, I’m in for the long haul.

The purchase of Canvas makes less sense. (The selling of Canvas makes total sense). The Board acknowledged their goals by gaining customers at a loss to eventually make money. Canvas was losing money last I knew. In their Q2 report, they noted:

“We’re excited by our prospects for 2019 and beyond and we remain focused on executing on our strategy, which we expect will sustain our revenue growth, help us achieve profitability, and generate shareholder value.”
emphasis added by me

For the second quarter ending June 30, 2019, Instructure expects revenue of approximately $61.8 million to $62.4 million, a non-GAAP net loss of ($9.2) million to ($8.6) million, and non-GAAP net loss per common share of ($0.25) to ($0.23).
Emphasis added by me

So what does Thoma Bravo see in Canvas? From the Press Release:

Thoma Bravo will support Instructure as it increases investment in education technology innovation and expands internationally.
CISIon – PR Newswire

Readers of this site will note my passion for Moodle. Moodle is open source. They have a financial revenue stream that makes sense. They have passed on being purchased several times. Martin Dougiamas is pretty dedicated to open source (while still being able to support the project financially).

Apparently, I’m missing out on something. I need to create an LMS and lose a ton of money while gaining market share. Does anyone have many millions that they would like to lose?

Spelling Words

December 1, 2019 / Troy / 0 Comments

While I’m working on a full write up, I thought that I’d share a Moodle opportunity with you. Elementary teachers seem to spend a good bit of time on spelling words and tests. I thought that this could be streamlined.

Basically, this involves creating a gapfill quiz question (actually, as many questions as you need). Record the spelling word by reading it in the question text area (use the microphone button to record). Enter the letters of the spelling word in the Question text area (each letter goes between a square bracket), paste the entire alphabet in Distractors area (copy and paste the string below:) a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,o,n,p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z

Duplicate the question, re-record the new word, replace the new letters for the new spelling word (between the square brackets: [ ] ) in the question text area.

*Note that I created additional blank spots by typing the opening square bracket [ and the close square bracket ] with nothing between them – if you add a space, students would need to type that space.

I have a full write up is currently in development.