Assessment for Learning and Blogs: fits like a glove

I've just been cutting together Marc Prensky podcasts for the MFLE and three blogs came springing to mind as great examples of Assessment for Learning in action through blogs.

The first is Progress Report, a blog initiated by mum but run entirely by her two private English students. This pair have taken quickly to writing creatively when the urge takes them - at first it appeared that they were waiting for 'permission' from their teacher or waiting for an official red pen to cover their work. Thankfully, that didn't last long. They redraft previous paragraphs based on comments as they go. The comments come from teachers, writers and admiring readers. The writing has made huge improvements in relatively little time. Why don't the girls correct each other more is all I wonder. Maybe they will if they read this.

The second blog is the ever successful Talking Teddies blog. I was delighted to read this morning that Lynne at Tobermory is helping, along with her students, to shape the curriculum of students miles away. It shows that blogging has enabled student-led curricula - even if it is just in a small way at the moment. This is what students want - read Annita's perceptive comment below:

i also agree with what you're saying about the students having a say on 'how' lessons are taught and not 'what' is being teaught.

The third blog is to do with peer assessment: from student to teacher. The Thomas Adams School, where I was podcasting last week, have started an ICT subject-specific blog, where students can respond to both survey type questions and, most interestingly of all, they can tell the teachers how they would adapt the delivery of teaching to better suit their needs.

Yes! This is what it's about. If you're a teacher reading this,
would any of these teaching / blogging ideas (or all of them) appeal to you?
What about convincing your colleagues to take part?
Are teachers ready for some honest feedback from the people that matter?
Would you spend time with one of your students every week planning how the next week would be taught?

Comments

[Miguel GUhlin]

Ewan, I'm wondering if you wouldn't weigh in on the conversation we've been having at the Blue Skunk Blog, especially in terms of assessment and new technologies. You can find Doug Johnson's "straw man" online at:
http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2006/4/7/is-experimentation-ethical.html#comment324567

I'm also responding at my blog.

Miguel Guhlin
http://www.mguhlin.net/blog

[Bob Griffith]

Ewan, just a quick note to add that as a result of the work with the year 10s at Thomas Adams and after some of our staff had been up to see what was happening we will be able to extend the number and variety of blogs run at the school. We have now scheduled an Inset session for 2 more departments and the idea of a regular pupil produced podcast on our website is being pushed forward as well - even better it is not being driven by the ICT department now - the other subject leaders are the ones who are pushing things forward.

cheers

Bob

[Dean Shareski]

Thanks for working at making the link between Assessment for Learning (AFL as we've been calling here in Sask.) and blogging. I understood the link but am glad you are bringing it more to life. I'll definetly pass this post on to others.

[Tim Curtis]

Thanks for the ideas and links Ewan. I have tinkered a little with blogs but I'm still trying to get my head around the best way to use them in a classroom context. I like the look of the Thomas Adams example, but what about the nitty gritty of moderation and open access, or am I just being a little over cautious?

Cheers!
Tim

[Ewan McIntosh]

Well, you can always use premoderation, where you receive a mail with the comment or post and YOU decide if it goes live, gets an edit or is deleted in one click.

After a while, if you find that you can trust your students and those reading the blog, you can remove the premoderation.

I've never premoderated and never had any problems. Maybe a half dozen comments removed out of a good 2000 or so.

[Bob Griffith]

On the ICT blog at Thomasadams we do moderate the comments, but the main aim of that is to stay within the school's policy on identifying students based on their postings - we ask students to use their school usernames when posting but some forget and this is where we may edit a posting. It is rare so far to delete postings and only happens if someone makes a posting which is either insulting to another pupil (very rare - only a couple of times since we started) or a comment which has no relevance at all to the blog item (usually the result of a mis-posting by the pupil and easily corrected by asking them to repost under the correct item). Moderation does have the benefit of 'reassuring' other members of staff etc but the drawback that there is a delay between posting a comment and it appearing on the blog. Eventually we will move to no moderation of postings but with the option to go in retrospectively and delete a posting that causes a problem.

I think the overall experience is that in spite of the fears of staff and others the pupils actually respect the medium and want it used appropriately.

[Lynne]

On my class blog I tried a little experiment with S3 - we usually write our criteria for success on the board, but this time I typed out their suggestions and posted them at the beginning of the period onto our blog, it was then very easy to record their talks as mp3 files and upload them and get pupils to go back and comment on how they had done.

Very easy to do and pupils would then be able to access these at home. Really looking forward to developing this when we go back after the Easter holidays.

[Suzie]

Very interesting ideas - would like to know more about getting involved in setting up a class blog.