I’ve been talking up the concept of self-assessment for students. I have a couple of posts on this (Self-Assessment and Self-Assessment (Again)). I passionately believe that there is a strong benefit in students reflecting and self-assessing.
Well, it turns out that there is real value in personal connections. I’ve been mentioning my quest in lots of places. I’ve posted on the Moodle Forums. I’ve chatted with people.
One of the things that developed from conferences was a Cross-State Moodle Group. (Mostly, this was started by the wonderful Jess Bryant, now at Moodle US). The group has representation from Bismark, N.D., Dearborn, MI, Rhode Island, Montana, and Maine.
So, I brought my quest up with the group. Bingo! One of the members sent me a link with a possible solution.
This looks like exactly what I’m looking for. I haven’t installed it yet, so I’m not positive that it will do all that it says. It also hasn’t been updated in a few years.
Still, the power of a network is strong. I’m very grateful to those who have assisted.
The excellent Mountain Moot allowed me to present “Differentiation in Moodle”. This was a fun presentation to deliver. Differentiation is important in education. I shared some tips and tricks that allow teachers to provide a variety of experiences for students.
Differentiation in Moodle covered the following topics:
Accommodations with Quiz
Using Restrictions
Using Group Choice to allow students to pick their path
Presenting remotely is a different experience. I usually like to “read the room” and adjust as I go. I didn’t get a ton of feedback, so adjustments were difficult. I did make sure to address a couple of questions as they came up.
Overall, I’m pleased with the how the presentation turned out. The feedback was extremely positive. The timing of the presentation matched with the time that I had. I felt as though I covered the topics that I wanted. The material had enough detail that it could be used to create material. Since it was recorded, the ability to review is present for the attendees.
Obviously, the corona virus is in the news. One of the latest features is that some are proposing that schools switch to “online learning”. I’ve long been a big proponent of online learning. However, this is not something that happens overnight. It takes time and talent to effectively provide online learning.
I do wish that the State of Michigan would have invested in providing a great Moodle experience for all teachers. More importantly, I really wish that there had been consistent, high quality professional development over the past few years. Michigan is a “GoOpen” state.
I fear that we’ll see school districts turn on Google Classroom and state that they are providing “online learning”. Now, this is certainly better than nothing at all, but we have the capability to do so much more. We have the capability to be so much better.
Online learning should be about much more than providing a “back-up” in a crisis. However, teachers need support. Online learning will not replace good teachers. Online learning can help leverage good teachers. It can help reach students and provide opportunities that would otherwise be missed.
Moodle Training
We also participated in some Moodle training this week. The training focused on the Assignment and Quiz modules. The training was well done. It really is a challenge though when teacher skill is heavily varied. I keep hoping that every step forward is, well, a step forward.
Moodle Multi-State Group
Our Moodle Multi-State Group also met this week. This is a great group of wonderful humans. The group includes representation from Montana, Rhode Island, North Dakota, and Michigan. We discuss our challenges and our successes. We’ve shared some great ideas. I find these discussions very beneficial. The long-term hope is to collaborate on creating and sharing resources. However, if before getting to that stage, I find these discussions incredibly useful.
SYNC Update
I had an update to the Ford Sync System. I ran through the download, extracting the files and putting them at the root level of the flashdrive. I took the flashdrive out to the car and, nope. No update. I was about to get mad at Ford when I stopped and explictily followed the directions. There was one step when you needed to extract the files using Stuffit Expander (who knew that was still being developed) instead of the built in file expander. Funny thing about actually following the directions is that things frequently work better. Stuffit expander did expand different files. Sync is still not working correctly, but at least it is updated. Oh, and when in doubt, try actually following the directions.
Baseball
Baseball is back. I still enjoy watching a good baseball game. Sunday was the first broadcast Tigers game training game. I allowed myself a bit of time to just kind of chill and watch the game. There is a long way to go until the start of the season, but it’s nice to start enjoying the game again.
I love the flexibility of Moodle. It is powerful and can have complexity. Let me give you an example of why.
Gapfill
I’m a big fan of the excellent Gapfill plugin by Marcus Greene. I’ve found this plugin extremely useful in a variety of use cases.
A quick overview:
Essentially, the plugin allows you to add a question within a quiz that creates, well, a gapfill question. The teacher writes a question and surrounds the correct answers with brackets. Thus, the [correct] answer in this sentence would be “correct”. Then the teacher adds some distractors (notice that the correct answer is NOT included in the distractors).
The student is presented with the question text (with the “correct” answers represented by a box). The student can drag and drop from the possible answers. The correct answer and the distractors are always shuffled.
I then took this concept to a different use case. Since spelling is a place where we could free up teacher time, I created a question where the teacher creates 13 empty boxes. The teacher then types in the correct spelling word by adding the appropriate letter. Thus, the question looks like this:
[s][p][e][l][l][i][n][g][][][][[][]
The teacher records the word (in this case: spelling), uses it in a sentence, and maybe says the word again. (The blanks function to not give the number of letters in the word away.)
Then, the teacher adds every letter to the distractors.
Here is an example that I’ve completed. Notice the recorded section that tells the students which word to spell. There are more boxes than the student would need. The distractors are all there, but not in any order. This adds complexity that doesn’t help me know what the student knows, just adds frustration.
The teacher could add capitals, but let’s not complicate this any further than I already have. 😉
Since this is to be used with elementary students, I don’t want the distractors shuffled. I want them in, well, alphabetical order.
I would want the “correct” answers (in this case, letters) to be selected from the “distractors”. I’m creating spots for answers that are intentionally left blank.
Note that I can also see some other use cases where I would want the distractors in a set order. When working with elementary students (and a wide variety of other students), it can be useful to provide a set structure.
Hard
This is why Moodle can be complex. A slightly different point of view (hey, I can create a great spelling experience that would free up teachers and let students be in control of their learning) can lead to a wide variety of complexity.
In my example, the answer is included (provided that I don’t add a space when typing), but how does the gapfill plugin know that? What happens if I don’t type exactly the same thing as the answer in the question and in the distractor? What happens if I forget to include the answer in the distractors?
Remember, the plugin was designed to add the distractors to the correct answer and shuffle those options. My use case if fundamentally different. I don’t want to provide just distractors, but all of the possible answers. While this is easy to understand as a teacher, it is more difficult to “explain” to a computer.
Marcus Greene
I huge shout out to Marcus Greene for even considering my request. I keep finding this willingness to collaborate and do what is best for students throughout the Moodle community. Mr. Greene is a terrific example of this community. I’ve never met Mr. Greene in the real world, but he is a hero of mine. His work has helped lots of kids learn.
You should also check out his WordSelect plugin. (And, yes, I use that one in a way that he didn’t intend too. See the part about identifying topic sentences, which is NOT a word.)
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.
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?
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.
Moodle has a variety of powerful features. One of the features is the ability to share. For example, if I (or a certain friend) create a great activity as a database in Moodle, that activity can easily be shared. So, let’s say that someone creates a Book Review Template. This Book Review Template allows students to, well, review books. Here’s the fun part, those book reviews, by students, can create a ranking, a review, and a video review.
As you can see in the example above, there is a rating, the genre is listed, a cover for the book as been included, the review is the main part.
If you have a Moodle install, you can use the zip file below to add this as a preset in your course.
Whoo Hoo! I’ve been awarded the “Particularly Helpful Moodler Badge”. It is an honor to help those in the Moodle Community. It’s also quite a great feeling to be recognized by the Moodle Community.
