Free Online Books About Online Teaching

Even though web sites are a wonderful reference sometimes it is nice to read a book. I keep a list of free online books about online learning and am sharing. If you have any suggestions please share them.

http://www.col.org/resources/crsMaterials/Pages/edDigitalWorld.aspx Harper, David G. Education for a Digital World: Advice, Guidelines, and Effective Practice from Around the Globe. Vancouver: BC Campus, 2008

Things about browsers I need to know http://www.20thingsilearned.com/home

 

Teaching with Style http://ilte.ius.edu/pdf/teaching_with_style.pdf

 

Books online http://www.elearningguild.com/content.cfm?selection=doc.545

 

Theory and Practice of Online Learning, 2^nd Edition http://cde.athabascau.ca/online_book/second_edition.html This is a major book. 

Learning and Teaching in Cyberspace http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/chapts.htm (not a true book but there are links included).

Bloom’s Taxonomy Original and Revised http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=85752

Assessing Student Work

Assignments and Quizzes in Online Learning

Teachers have a choice to make when they want students to demonstrate what they have learned in a one-to-one fashion. They can construct an assignment or a quiz/test. These are both assessment tools which are seen only by the teacher and the student, but they have very different functions.

The assignment is poorly named because some students use “assignments” as any activity that they are required to do for a grade. However, in Moodle, Blackboard and other Course Management Systems (CMS)  the “assignment” has a different meaning.  It means that students submit text answer to questions. This function is ideal for papers or essays. It really isn't suitable, despite its name, for short answer questions. Since other students cannot see work submitted it is not useful for discussions.

To me, the Quiz tools should be used for mostly formative evaluation unless there is a need for mathematical operations. I pick questions that the computer can grade, and often, if the information is important, I let the student retake. I like the feature to scramble question order, and if I use multiple choice, I also use scrambling the order in which the choices are presented provided that one of the choices is NOT “all of the above.” I think the quiz feature does not do a good job with fill in the blank or essay questions, and I do not use them.I use multiple choice, True False, and matching. There are other types of questions such as the "hot spot' in Blackbord that may be appropriate in certain circumstances.