It is finished....The end of Capstone

Just as JC said, it is finished, so to is the Capstone course that I am taking.  Writing this blog post is the final activity I have to do for the course, assuming my portfolio is approved.  I think it will be.  Looking back on my experiences, if I were going to redesign it here is what I would do. 

• Do a better job of getting participants to begin planning for their portfolios in the introduction course.  Everything I did in intro, I couldn't use for Capstone I or II. 
• Increase the time of the Intro class and shift some of the work from Capstone I into the Intro class.  I found Capstone I to be the most work intensive of all three courses. 
• Change the way the portfolios are done so that Capstone I creates about half of the Capstone II portfolio at the proficient level.  Then have the Capstone II class finish the portfolio.  
• Figure out how to have better discussion prompts that actually lead to discussion rather than people posting information.   
• Cut down on the busy work and increase the challenging cognitive thinking work.  This course was way to repetitive in what they asked you to do.  I want a challenge, not busy work.    
• Put all the information for an assignment in ONE PLACE!!!!!!!  I went crazy having to read three different things to try and understand what was expected for all these assignments.  
• If it is important, make sure it is in a rubric.  I had a couple of instances where I lost points because I failed to do something that was not listed in the rubric.  
• Require facilitators to have grades submitted by a certain time or students get an automatic A.  I had a professor do that with a class once.  I think its a fair exchange.  I had some issues with a facilitator and grades in Capstone I.  
• I am still waiting to find out what the difference is between Personalization and Customization.  In the world of education those two are pretty much the same thing.  
• I would make sure that all the links work properly, BEFORE sending students to them.  
• I would also pick either an ITRT type indivual or a teacher and design the course more towards them.  This course squence seems to see-saw back and forth between the two making it more challenging.     
• Finding better articles on technology integration.  Too many articles I read had a great idea in the abstract, but did not provide the kind of practical examples that give me ideas on how to incorporate it into my own teaching. 

Ok a couple of things I did like about the course:

• I learned more about technology integration and the NETS-T/S
• The curb cut idea is a really good one.  See universal design in learning for more information. 
• Forcing us to blog has been good because I can look back on my posts and see learning taking place.  
• The discussion board rules are great.  Forcing people to actually say stuff that enhances the conversation rather than just agreeing.  Requiring a post by a certain time was also good.  It keeps the conversation moving.  Also, the idea that everyone has to have a response before you add a second comment to someones post.  That was another good idea.  
• I also liked how we were required to keep a digital bookmarking file.  I am going to keep using mine once I delete all the Capstone 1 or Capstone 2 tags. 
• The courses helped me bond with my new co-workers as we lamented the course and its work.

Final recommendation to people thinking about taking the Capstone course is to say its not worth it.  I would have been really mad if I had to pay to take these courses.   

Share the Wealth Presentation for Capstone II

This is a quick five minute video explaining what the Capstone Sequence is and what I learned from it.  I created it using PowerPoint and PhotoStory 3.  It highlights the positive aspects of the course. 

Yes it was a class project called Share the Wealth. 

I also want to take a minute to talk about some of the negative aspects of the Capstone sequence that I am almost finished with. 

1.  Repetitive busy work:  I felt like these courses repeated themselves with the work that they asked for between the three courses and with in the courses themselves.  The course felt like it was designed by committee.  I would have liked some more efficiency.    

2.  Poorly organized:  The course did a terrible job of putting everything you needed to know about an assignment in one place.  You had the directions from the course timeline, the rubrics, and then they syllabus.  I even had instances where points were taken away for something I had no idea needed to be included.  They have too much information spread out.  They need to consolidate.  

3.  Too dependent on the faciliator.  For two of my three courses I had an excellent facilitator who really helped to make these shortcomings less of an issue; however, for one of the courses I had a bad facilitator who only exacerbated these issues.  I think this course can be better designed to eliminate some of those issues.  

I don't think I will be recommending this course to other teachers.  Too much work for too little learning gain.  I got a better handle on technology integration in the classroom and the NETS-T from one 12 week course I took in graduate school than I did with this thirty week sequence.     

Grades are so 20th Century

To change our current educational outcomes, schools need to change the way they collect and use data.

The current model starts with students completing assignments handed out by a teacher.  The teacher grades those assignments and then enters the grade into a gradebook.  As a grading period progresses the teacher creates a collection of  graded assignments which form an overall picture of a students progress and knowledge.  These grades, both for the individual assignment and for the grading period, represent the bulk of the recorded data collected by teachers about students.

Additionally here in Virginia, students will take a Standards of Learning (SOL) test for certain subjects upon completion of those classes.  This serves as an additional form of data collected on that student, but those tests are not designed to compare a students individual progress from year to year.   

The problem with this data is it can be subjective.  It is dependent upon the teacher to create these assignments in such a way as to properly evaluate the students knowledge.  Yet so many other factors come into play with this data.  Grades encompass more then just what students know.  For example, a homework grade might be influenced by when a student turns it in.  Many teachers that I know take points off from students who do not turn in homework on time.   That grade then is not merely a reflection of student knowledge, but also a measure of a students work habits.  

Another issue with the current grade system, is the lack of consistency between a grade from one teacher and a grade from another teacher even when they teach the same subject.  Each teacher creates their own system for grading.  One teacher might say that tests are worth 50 percent of an overall grade while a different teacher might say only 35 percent.  One teacher might give zeros for late homework, while another might give students two weeks to turn it in for a reduced grade.  This creates discrepancies between students.  One students A might be another students B.   

We take all of these pieces of information put it all together into a messy formula and come up with one letter or number grade that is supposed to represent the students understanding of the knowledge being taught to them. 

We can do better....

Instead lets move to a system that actually shows student performance in each of these different measures rather than one letter or number grade with a couple of comments to denote a students knowledge.  We should use technological tools to collect data on what students know coming into a class and then what they learned coming out of it.  That way we can actually measure true learning gains.  Lets harness the powers of technology to create learning environments that let students explore topics at their own pace.  We can use a model like that of the School of One or of the Khan Academy.  Then instead of showing a student has a C+ we can say that they have mastered the Reformation, but are still struggling with the French Revolution and the Interwar period.  Additionally, we can include non-learning information on work habits like showing how often a student turns their homework in on time.  Wouldn't parents want to know this kind of information?  Wouldn't teachers want to have this detailed information on their students?  

The tools exist to implement this kind of schooling.  Some are already doing it.  I think the education profession (myself included) should be doing more to make this a reality for education as a whole.

Do you agree?             

Capstone II Session 5

The theme for this session is Bloom's taxonomy.  For those of you who are not of the educational world, Bloom's taxonomy is six levels of cognitive thought moving from the low knowing and understanding something to creating and evaluating on the higher end.  I was asked to read an article entitled, "The New Bloom" by David Cochran and Jack Conklin with Susannah Modin.  It provided an overview of the updates to Bloom's taxonomy, the original was writen in the 1950s, and briefly touched on how the taxonomy needs to be connected with to technologies use in the classroom.

Next on the agendaI was a blog post from Steve Hargadon entitled, "Long handled spoons and Collaborative Technologies".  I really liked Steve's line of thinking about Web 2.0 tools and thought some of his inisights on early adopters and then company adopters of these technologies were very astute.  I agree whole heartedly that this new world is relying more and more on trust and authenticity.  I loved his line, "First of all, ideas have always been easy--it's the execution that is hard." because it is so true.  I am full of ideas, but executing those ideas, that is actually making them happen, is incredibly hard to do.  He follows that up with another astute observation, "I've also found that my really good ideas don't end up actually being really good without input from others."  He is actually making an arguement I have heard already from Seth Godin.  The idea of gathering together a "tribe" of people to create good works.  Seth's been promoting this idea for some time.  I am curious now if Steve is a reader of Seth's. 

The final article of this session was one called "Communication and Collaboration 2.0" by Anita McAnear.  Nothing shocking in this article.  She does make an interesting point that the two most valuable skills needed for our culture is what she calls collective intelligence or the ability to work with others in a smart fashion and negotiation. 

Comparing the two articles, I felt like Steve had a lot more interesting and creative ideas, whereas Anita was just kind of throwing some stuff out there in a short little one page article.