An Interview with Portal Front about Educational Technology

I recently had the opportunity to talk with the folks at PortalFront Hosting about educational technology.  The Q&A can be found at http://www.portalfronthosting.com/blog/andy-petroski-educates-us-on-educating-with-new-innovative-technologies.

How would you answer these questions?

What are some of your favorite tools that you have used in the past 5 years in the field of education?

Are there certain ways that technology is changing the way we teach and learn that you could explain to us? Why are these new ways beneficial?

Do you feel like there are certain technological tools out there right now that are changing the face of how we do business, for instance Microsoft Sharepoint, Cloud Intranets or Extranets, what are some of your favorites and why?

When you are working in corporate consulting what are some of the common areas you see that need work to bring companies into 2012, how do you fix them?

If you could offer educators advice on upping their use of technology in the classroom, what would it be?

Where do you see educational and business technologies headed in the next few years?

Digital Citizenship Curriculum/Videos from YouTube

I've been working with the PA Hybrid Learning Initiative over the past couple of months to design and deliver training for teachers who are implementing hybrid learning in their classrooms this fall.  It's a great opportunity for students and teachers, but there will be adjustments that need to be made.  I've shared the following resource with the hybrid learning IU trainers and teachers as a resource they might be able to use in the collaborative station.  But, it's a good resource for any teacher who's asking students to research on the web, synthesize that information and create a new product.

YouTube has created a curriculum for secondary students (approximately ages 13-17) that teachers can use to help educate students on digital citizenship topics.  Lesson plans, presentation slides and videos are available on the Google in Education > Teachers page.  You can also subscribe to the YouTube channel for the initiative.

The videos have been available for a couple of years, but I think the curriculum is new.  Has anyone used the videos with students before?  If so, have you found the videos to be helpful with developing students' digital literacy skills?

Adaptive Assessment

I attended a thought-provoking session facilitated by @chrischampion yesterday(11/12/11) at EdCamp Harrisburg. The session focused on “doing different things” versus just “doing things differently.” Chris pushed the audience to really think creatively about the possibilities for technology’s impact on learning and to go beyond the immediate efficiencies realized by using technology. One topic that Chris explored was adaptive testing. I tweeted:

#edcamphbg instead of online quiz with immediate feedback, try adaptive testing @chrischampion

The following tweet thread ensued:

lauriev88
@apetroski "Adaptive testing" ? Can you explain? #edcamphbg

apetroski
@lauriev88 short version of adaptive testing for twitter = student's answer to question determines their next question . . .

lauriev88
@apetroski Hmmm...would love to hear more. #edcamphbg

So lauriev88, this blog post is in response to your request. I’m not an adaptive testing expert by any means, but it is a topic I’ve investigated in a number of classes I teach (LTMS 510 and LTMS 608 in in the HU graduate program) and in a couple of projects we’ve pursued through the Center for Advanced Entertainment and Learning Technologies at Harrisburg University.

The common assessment approach is to provide the same test to each student. Adaptive assessments dynamically adjust for each student based on their performance as they answer questions in the assessment. The question sequence and difficulty is based on their performance on previous questions.

Adaptive assessment goes beyond randomized assessment. In a randomized assessment, students might receive the questions in a different order than another student or receive a random set of questions from a question pool. Another randomized approach is to present the answers in a randomized order for each student. In all of these cases the assessment is still not adaptive. The assessment doesn’t change based on the student’s performance. In an adaptive assessment, a student who answers question #1 incorrectly will receive a different question #2 than the student who answers question #2 correctly. In the session, Chris also gave an example of a student being able to complete an exam in a short series of questions by answering the most difficult questions correctly while another student might experience a longer series of questioning or even be directed to remediation before completing the assessment, based on their performance.

Here are links to just a few of the resources to provide a more in-depth exploration of adaptive testing.

- Computer-adaptive testing: an innovative tool for teachers, students
- C.A.T Central
- JATT Special Issue on Adaptive Testing: Welcome and Overview
- SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium
- Computer-Adaptive Testing Poses Challenges
- Adaptive and Interactive Assessments with E-Learning

As Chris emphasized in the session, adaptive testing is most often experienced in certification exams. A number of the educational publishers (e.g. Pearson, Edison, etc.) also employ versions of adaptive testing as an assessment option. In these cases there is a large investment of time and dollars to create and validate the assessments. But, there are ways that you can begin to use the basic constructs of adaptive assessment in the classroom without a large dollar investment (time will still need to be invested).

- Moodle Lesson (Lesson in Moodle: An Illustrated Guide, Adaptive mode in Moodle Quiz is not truly adaptive assessment)
- “Go to Page Based on Answer” in Google Forms
- Assessment Center
- FastWeb
- WebExaminer

I hope that’s more lauriev88. Thanks for asking. It was good to go back and reference some information about adaptive testing that I hadn’t looked at in a while. And, it’s got me started on preparation for LTMS 510: Learning Technologies and Solutions for the spring semester. And, thanks again to @chrischampion for the session that got this discussion, and blog post, started.