Your task here is to consider the following scenario and discuss how you would deal with one or more of the issues arising (numbered below). After your discussion, please summarise your response in the reply box below (remember to cite the number of the issue in your reply).
Scenario:
Your assessment requires a class of 30 students to create pages in a wiki. The aim is to develop a helpful resource that others could use in the future.
Issues:
- Would you have the students create pages alone, or working in small groups?
- (assuming groups) How would you organise the groups? (topic interest, self-selection, skills balance, randomly?) How would you allocate the marks between the members of each group?
- (assuming students working alone) In addition to creating their own articles, some students have enhanced others’ pages with helpful edits. Do you award extra credit to these students, or penalise those who had their pages enhanced?
- As a super-administrator of the wiki, would you comment on or edit pages during the assessment period?
- What privacy settings would you use? Would wikis be visible to other students (or a wider audience) during their creation or after their completion?
As an administrator I would not touch pages during the process.
As a tutor I give clear guidance on requirement for a minimum spec for the number of times people are expected to contribute on their own wikis and on those of others within the group.
Sometimes students complain that the staff introducing them to systems are too ‘techy’and confound them – the technology then gets in the way of students achieving and engaging. What are we assessing with these – their ability to use the technology and/or their ability to know the material?