Google Apps Eportfolio Online Rubric and Assessment Form

For a quick example of Google Apps Eportfolio Assessment via Online Evaluation Form click here.

Our school is planning to implement a Google Apps ePortfolio using the entire Google Apps suite, Docs, Picassa, Youtube, Google Video, maybe Blogger, and the like for artifact collection. For artifact presentation and reflection we are planning to use Google Sites.

One of the key elements of this plan is that it will encourage formative assessment. Formative assessment meaning ongoing evaluation and feedback between instructor and students, and perhaps peer review as well. To aid in this process Google Docs has a very powerful feature called Forms. An online form can be easily created around a rubric and then embedded in a Google Site Eportfolio for viewers to fill out. Results are then tallied by Google Docs with a spreadsheet and data summary page automatically created for the owner of the form.

This is an incredibly simple process to go through, makes assessment very efficient, and provides useful feedback for the student to make improvements. It also make providing information about inter-rater reliability of the rubric and can be applied to automated data tracking by an institution. How to coming soon.

How to customize Google Sites for Google Apps Eportfolio (or other purposes)

The saga of making my eportfolio using Google Apps continues.  I am using Google Sites for the presentation part of my eportfolio.  I was happy with my artifacts and reflections on my Google Site but I thought all the themes were kind of lack luster. It was time to add a creative, aesthetic element to my Google Site.  Here's how I did it:

Google Sites Announcements as Blog for a Google Apps Eportfolio

I have been creating an eportfolio using the google apps suite and especially google sites for presentation of my learning artifacts.  Currently, I am trying the announcement page tool in Google Sites to see if it can be used as an acceptable blog for eportfolio formative development. It has good basic functionality but I would like it to incorporate an rss feed for porting to other sites.  We are currently using Elgg as our Eportfolio solution and for blogging it is superior.  It allows tags and make its possible to have community blogs which is nice for a getting a broader view of student learning and for more institutional wide summative assessments. It also is excellent for exporting different parts of the blog.

This Announcements tool is however very easy to use and students can get right into it and start keeping notes and collaborating with their teachers and perhaps peers. Placing something like this right on the home page of their Google Site would demonstrate their learning process. Having an outside blog, such as blogger, imported via rss with a google gadget is another solution but it may get too technical for students and instructors not familiar with rss and make viewers have to go all over the place to review artifacts that should be easily accessible on the student site without having to anywhere.  So in sum, not portable, does not have a broad social element where everyones post can be seen at once and grouped according to tag or community, but it has the basics and is ideal for collaboration.

Google Apps Eportfolio System

For a quick example of a Google Apps Eportfolio click here.

I was recently very excited by a rumor suggesting Google Apps was coming to our school. We are currently using Elgg software, a similar code to Mahara, as our eportfolio system and it has been successful in terms of blogging and establishing learning communities, but has not entirely caught on as a platform for demonstrating and assessing learning through the curriculum. The Presentation Tool in Elgg Classic, which supposed to tie blogs, files, and other learning artifacts together makes a simple not too appealing list without user friendly navigation. The new version of Elgg has Pages which may be better for presenting artifacts and reflections but still does not tie everything together in an ideal fashion. While I will be sorry to lose the community blogging feature of Elgg (thinking of moving to Blogger but it only allows 100 authors, Google really needs to integrate a blog in the Apps suite) I can't help but be excited about the possibility of using Google Apps as our eportfolio platform. The great thing about Google Apps is there is less need to deal with the technical side of servers and updates and backups, and more time to be productive with easy to use integrated tools and all in the same place with a single sign on.

Google Sites, basically a wiki, provides a great tool for presentation of artifacts and reflection and can be adopted for formative assessment. The great thing about Google Apps is that it allows for collaboration. You have the option to share any of your docs, spreadsheets, calenders, presentations, and sites. Google Sites in particular has a convenient place at the end of every page to leave a comment or attachment. I can easily foresee a teacher student dialogue guided by a rubric resulting in successful formative assessment all within a students eportfolio site. Previously I stated that Google Apps does not have a blogging tool, but within Google Sites, which is part of the suite, there is an announcement page that could easily be used as a journal of sorts.

After reading Dr. Helen Barrett's posts about Google Apps as an eportfolio and reviewing her creation, I gave it go. I already use a lot of Google's products so it was easy for me to integrate them into a Google Site. Please check out my work in progress.

Purposegames.com - how to make a map quiz fast and easy

I searched long and hard for an easy way to make a map quiz for my Academic ESL World History class and I came across a website that's pretty cool. Purposegames.com a is website that lets you create and publish your own quizzes on the web. This has been done before, but what is unique to this site is that you can upload images, put dots on your image, and ask quiz game takers to match inputted text with the dots. Put all of this together and you get a custom map test fast and easy. Check out the one of the Middle East I made for my class:

http://www.purposegames.com/game/world-history-cp-quiz

How to upload and post document in Moodle video tutorial

Here is a quick and easy video tutorial that shows you how to upload and post a document in moodle so that your students can see it. This is a fast way to post syllabi or other documents that will open with desktop software such as Word. Another way to display text, that is completely in the browser is to compose a text or web page, but we'll save that for another tutorial.

Click the link below to watch the video:

How to upload and post document in moodle

How to add graphic to moodle video tutorial

Here is a beginner video tutorial for those of you wondering how to add a image, graphic, or picture to a moodle course.

Just click on the link below.

How to add picture to moodle course

How to back-up moodle course video tutorial

This video tutorial shows you how to back-up a moodle course so that you may dowload and restore it at some later time or on another moodle installation. This simple procedure is useful for instructors worried about losing all their hard work and student grades, and should be done routinely. Do not make the mistake of assuming your institution is backing things up for you!

Just click on the link below.

How to back-up moodle course video tutorial

Elgg Presentation Tool Video Tutorial

This video tutorial demonstrates how to use the Elgg presentation tool to tie student files, blogs, pictures, videos, and anything else they have collected into one coherent, structured, and logically ordered presentation. This tool is ideal for self-assessment of eportfolios because students can reflect on their work in a timeline-like fashion to demonstrate progress. It also will create a link to their collective work they can show prospective colleges and employers. Follow the link below to view video.

http://surfingdream.com/video-tutorials/elgg-presentation-tool/elgg-presentation-tool.html

Introduction and Overview of Moodle Video Tutorial

This video is especially for instructors new to Moodle who would like to see a basic overview as it is used at Hawaii Tokai International College. Some of the features quickly passed through in this video include online quizzes, uploading or creating online syllabus, glossaries, rss feeds, uploading and posting audio, uploading graphics, and more. Just follow the link below to view the video!

http://surfingdream.com/video-tutorials/moodle-intro/moodle-intro.html