EdTech provides consulting, training, outreach and educational services
for faculty, instructors and staff using educational technologies.
EdTech provides consulting, training, outreach and educational services
for faculty, instructors and staff using educational technologies.
Now that we've upgraded our Illinois Compass software, instructors and students for Fall 2007 will find a number of excellent tools that facilitate writing, collaboration, and scholarly sharing of information. The traditional Compass discussion board ("threaded topic") now includes a blog format (chronological entries and comments) and a journal format (individual writing that can be private, shared with the instructor, or public to the entire class). Any of these writing tools in Compass can be set up as "gradable" by the instructor; a setting which provides a great interface for reviewing, commenting upon, grading, and crediting student postings inside Compass. With a graded discussion board, instructor grades will post directly to the Compass grade book and students can quickly see feedback and grades, without having to wait to pass hard copy comments back in class. Other new writing-supportive features in Illinois Compass include a tool that allows instructors to create learning rubrics or goals that can be applied to discussion boards or assignments. Also, instructors can enable student peer review options for online writing. The Internet and online writing tools can help transform traditional course writing assignments into more dynamic, social, and manageable exercises, for both students and instructors.
- Robert Baird
Is it possible to give multiple graded writing assignments to a class of 200 students in one semester without sacrificing weekends and nights to reading and grading papers? How about for a class of 600 students? Absolutely. With the help of Calibrated Peer Review (CPR), a free online software package developed at UCLA, instructors can give multiple writing assignments in a semester without substantially increasing the amount of time grading or reading papers. To make this possible, the CPR program facilitates student grading of written work. Through strict rubrics, instructor oversight, and a good measure of social engineering, the system ensures that this student grading is both rigorous and meaningful.
To learn more about CPR, check out: http://cpr.molsci.ucla.edu/.
- Al Weiss
For college-level instructors and students working toward writing proficiency there is no better online resource than Purdue University's OWL web site. OWL provides the standard composition and rhetoric tools, tips for brainstorming, MLA and APA writing guides, help for writing resumes, discipline-specific writing advice for the sciences and others, English as a Second Language support, and so forth. An important note, there are actually two outstanding OWL web sites, the older site that is still being migrated over to the newer site. As of this writing, the older site is the only one to provide single page listings of all the OWL PowerPoint lessons, handouts, and topic-specific articles. The PowerPoints and handouts may be used by students and teachers following the Fair Use guidelines posted at the OWL site. Some highlights from the OWL site include outstanding MLA, APA, and ASA formatting and style guides, as well as entire sections devoted to discipline-specific writing practices: professional, technical and scientific writing; engineering; social sciences; creative writing; English as a Second Language; literary analysis and criticism. Whether a freshman tying to develop her college-level writing skills or a professor of rhetoric, the OWL web site (sites) provide numerous resources and inspiration.
- Robert Baird
Screen-friendly
page
Printer-friendly page