Technology: Friend or Foe
My experiences with technology this week have been positive and negative. To start off with the negative (so I can end with the positive :)
I teach online and this week was the first time that I have incorporated an online midterm into my class. To be honest, I have had a sick feeling in my stomach about this for the last few weeks, unable to anticipate the problems that could occur. It seems that every problem that could have happened, happened. So I spent over 20 hours trying to 'fix' the problems - changing properties in the online exam, answering emails, manually changing students marks... A hugh amount of my time (time I do not have) spent fixing the technology that was supposed to save me time and make things easier. I also had my midterm in my on-campus class yesterday. My students wrote their exam, I walked it over for marking at IST and all I will need to do is enter the marks in once I get the marked exams back. The "old school" way definitely prevailed for me this week.
One of the positive interactions with technology I experienced this week was at my in-laws for dinner. My husbands cousin had his little girl there who is four. We don't see them all that often, and she is growing up so quickly it seems. He was able to show us videos of her at her dance class, and at a party on his Iphone. She was able to show me how to play her favorite games on the Iphone (she is 4 years old and knows how to play the games better than me!). In this case, technology acted as a wonderful tool to keep us connected.
Hi Kristen -
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry you had all those problems with your exam! What a nightmare! I'm thinking the issues were with ANGEL - is that correct? Wow - what a series of problems there have been lately... I think it all stems back to project Rose and deciding to 'cut-back' on some of the great IST support we used to have for the program (i.e. Sol Chu.
Do you feel any disconnect when a machine marks your student's exams? I'm used to marking all of mine by hand, and last year, for the first time, I gave a multiple-choice test and had it marked by IST. The time-saving convenience was amazing (I had the marks in two days), but I did feel a bit disconnected from actually looking at the student papers. That said, I will keep it as part of my course because it is a different form of evaluation from everything else I do in the course, and I think it tests student's knowledge in a different way. I feel like I need a balance between some of these evaluation methods to help me be efficient and yet also stay connected.
I wondered though whether instructors 50 years ago would ever have trusted a machine to mark exams? :-)
Hi Theresa,
ReplyDeleteThe problem was with Desire to Learn (D2L) which is a new learning platform that U of M is looking at. U of W and Red River both use D2L right now. I would agree with you though that you can feel the cutback in support... (Sol was awesome!)
With the exams, to be honest I do not feel a disconnect. The course I am teaching right now has always had m/c exams, so I do not have the comparison. My other course does have a short and long answer component to the final exam, however I am converting it to m/c this year (as the number of students now prohibits the short/long answer component).
I have assignments in the course that are marked by hand which gives that balance that I think is needed.
Even I have had times where I am not sure I completely trust machine marking... If those bubbles are not filled in just so, does the computer read them correctly? And what instructor is going to go through all of the bubble sheets to make sure it has? For my first few years, I used to choose a few from the pile and hand mark to compare to ensure accuracy, but have not done that for years now...
Oh wow, 20 hours working on fixing the problems! That is so frustrating! The cliche of when it works "good, it's really good, and when it's bad, it's really bad" applies to technology for sure, especially in this case.
ReplyDeleteGlad you had a good experience in respect to your relatives as well to hopefully counteract some of the issues you experienced with the midterms!
Out of curiousity, when you did pick a few from the pile to hand mark, did you ever find any discrepancies?
the only time there were discrepancies, it was related to the bubbles being filled in incorrectly (way too big, only half filled in, now erasing a bubble properly, etc).
ReplyDelete