Week 9: Last minute changes before we evaluate

Good week all. Although I am happy to see that some people wished to jump in and start using either one of the forms I offered last week, the goal of last week to to choose one of the forms and offer suggestions for improvements to either one. Based on the feedback in the discussions, it appears form 2 (the shorter form) is the one we will go with. 

Diana offered some changes and I added in most of those suggestions. I did refrain from adding in the suggestion about "Skills Addressed" for now. We currently have a narrative response called Usage in which reviewers can highlight specific areas in which the resource can best be used. If we would rather have a simple check list of "Choose all skills that might apply..." we could do that instead of the narrative, but I feel the quality of data we get from a checkbox option would not be as rich as what the short narrative might provide. What are people's thoughts? Stick with Usage as a narrative, Replace Usage with checkboxes for "Skills Addressed", or should we include both (please provide rational on this option if you desire this). 

Link to Evaluation Form

Some notes on the form. I have changed it so we have the following "features". Please comment on any you wish changed or added as you wish before we get cranking on evaluations.

  1. Each of our member names have been added to the drop down under Evaluator. Believe it or not, some people spell their name wrong at times and this prevents that from happening.
  2. In a similar vein I have added the resources from our Diigo list to a drop down for things to evaluate. If people would like to add more to the Diigo list, I will add those choices in on this dropdown. The idea is to have everyone using the same name when referencing a resource. Trying to tabulate data in which even a space or a capitol letter can be interpreted differently is a pain. These drop downs prevent processing errors and we don't have to type in names all the time :)
  3. After someone does an evaluation, there will be a link in the confirmation message that allows one to do another evaluation. This makes it easy to do a number of evaluations in one sitting without having to always try to figure out where to go to get the survey. 

If you have any last minute edits or would like to have us rearrange any of the items, please share that now before people start getting into evaluations. 

It may be best for people to hold off on doing evaluations until Friday this week to allow for any last modifications people may suggest. It is very hard to go back and "fix" existing data once we make changes. For example, we have three evaluations people have already spent time doing and that data may not easily fit with the drop down changes and the additions of the Suitability option that was just made today. 

Link to the evaluation Form for you last editing before we begin to evaluate.

Perhaps everyone can simply hit the Like button on this post if you feel we are ready to start evaluating with this current form version and when we get over half of our members approving we could start off? In this way we don't need to wait until Friday? In any case, I hope that by the weekend, we are all able to begin evaluating any resource on our list. 

Comments

Thanks, Ed, for pulling this together! Looks unintimidating to use, and with useful info for folks. I really like the inclusion of personal experience - I think that'll be appreciated. Personally, I'd advocate for the skill(s) focus in case searchers are looking for something in particular and they could look it up quick and dirty. Just my 2 cents. 

Diana and others, if we were to include skills, what would that list look like? I tried to come up with options but I continually was confused about what skills would be included. I was able to see how a list of content areas might be helpful for academic resources like lesson plans or activities, but it was unclear how it might apply to a tool that might apply to most any content area. I thought that maybe if I looked over the items we had in Diigo a list might jump out at me, but it seemed the majority of the items in our list could be used for so many skills/areas. It got me thinking that if the majority of items in our list could apply to most any skill then how effective might this filter be. Can anyone help offer some clarity on this for me? I am not against it at all, I am just not seeing it yet and need some perspectives. Do we have a list of finite skills we feel would work well in relationship to the items we have in the collection so far? Maybe they might apply to items we just don't have in the Diigo list yet? I look forward to any clarifications people may be able to provide.

Hi Ed and others,

I am not sure what Diana had in mind, but here is a possible skills list:

1. Basic skills (including ELL skills)

  • Listening
  • Speaking
  • Reading
  • Writing
  • Numeracy/mathematics
  • Presentation skills
  • Basic technology skills
  • Information finding/evaluating skills
  • Study skills
  • Higher order thinking skills (e.g. Bloom's Taxonomy)

2. Work-related Personal Success Skills/Soft skills/Job-readiness Skills

  • Basic job readiness self-management skills/learned character traits such as arriving to work on time, being dependable, taking personal responsibility, asking questions when you don't understand, calling a supervisor when illness or emergencies prevent coming to work, following directions, knowing when and how to take initiative, knowing when and how to seek help, etc.
  • Self-directed, work-related learning skills
  • Communicating effectively at work orally and in writing
  • Teamwork skills
  • Career management skills
  • Work-related problem solving skills

3. General Personal Success/Non-Cognitive skills

  • Persistence/grit
  • Self-discipline
  • How to delay gratification
  • How to stay focused
  • Self-confidence
  • Teamwork skills
  • Self-organization skills
  • How to seek help
  • How to stay on task

David J. Rosen

djrosen123@gmail.com

 

 

Thank you for the concrete examples, those do help me a ton. Would you see these all in one question that allowed checkbox responses (click all that apply)? 

Hi Ed,

Yes, one question, possibly with the three (or more?) sub categories I suggested, and under them the specific skills and checkboxes to check those that apply.

David

David J. Rosen

djrosen123@gmail.com

After all of our talk early on about how nice it would be to have OER and other educational items available in some online access that was set up like Amazon does, well, it appears Amazon also thought that was a wonderful idea. Just yesterday, they released news that they are creating an education portal to free OER resources out on the internet. I feel this is a great move and will allow for teachers to easily share experiences and find resources that are rated higher by the community all by using a system that is already popular with online shoppers. 

Link to the news is here

What do you think?