Kardash Rich Media

I'm working mostly with the Rich Media Blog now: kardashrichmedia.blogspot.com. Come visit me there!

On a hiatus

I am no longer posting to this regularly. I wanted to try out a professional blog. I'm still undecided on whether or not it is valuable. What do you think?

Off-campus Assessment is about Growth

On Monday, I met with the off-campus folks to lead them in similar activities as we did on-campus. We held an audio conference while using Elluminate because some folks could hear more easily on the phone and one person did not have a internet connection where they participated.

Abram's "nutshell" was a very interesting take on how the balloon could be a reminder of assessment.

The balloons made it to almost everyone by the time class met. Lucia and Rick send me photos of their balloons. I love those teeth on Lucia!

I'm sending out another small "prop" this afternoon that I hope reaches them by Monday.

This next week, I will meet with the off-campus folks first for the first run of my lesson. Last week, I had met with the on-campus folks first and that resulted in some changes to my next lesson. One change is evident on the screen below - I did not give the on-campus folks specific sections in the texts to look at in terms of assessment...I directed them to certain chapters, but not page numbers. I found that many on-campus students chose activities instead of assessments for their work. For the off-campus folks, I DID provide specific pages where they could look for support for their plans which worked much better. I also plan to put up my reflection for the students to read on Blackboard.

The video stream of Thank you, Mr. Falker did not go as well as I hoped. I cut the video up into episodes that were too short. Also, some students were unable to download the streams at all. I did ask everyone what their capabilities were in terms of video conferencing and only 2 out of the 6 would be able to to that easily. Maybe next year, everyone will have that capability.....

Testing, Testing...

I found a setting with the blogger with which I can post to the blog via email...I'm interested to see how this looks on the blog..

Diane Kardash

fndlk -at - uaf.edu

University of Alaska, Fairbanks

School of Education

Box 756480

Fairbanks, AK 99775-6480

FAX: 907 474-5451

Sending off to the Off-Campus folks

For the Assessment is about Growth seminar with the off-campus folks on Monday, I sent off balloons and a short note. The postal clerk told me that it may take 7-10 days for them to receive the wee packages - 10 days to travel within state????? I hope that she was just giving me the worst-case-scenario and that the interns will receive them by Monday.

I am looking forward to the time when we can easily do video chat with the interns who are off campus. Seeing faces makes such a difference when you are talking with people. I wonder if we can now with those interns who are capable....can Elluminate handle that?

This week I have also been working with Skip to create a video stream of a book I annually share with my ED411 interns: Thank you, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco. I didn't think the impact of the book, the author's autobiographical telling of her own struggle to learn to read and the teacher that stepped in to help her finally in 5th grade, would be as strong if I read to the students over an audio conference. I discovered that Patricia Polacco created a video sharing her book and thought that would be perfect to share with the off-campus folks. It would be my favorite ED411 book read by the author - perfect!!! Well, it turned out to be much more involved than I thought. After going back and forth with the publisher to obtain permission to share with the interns over the internet, I spent the afternoon down at the OUP computer lab with Skip inputing the video to the computer to create a digital copy. Then, that file needed to be broken into segments - 19 episodes in all - to make the video file manageable for folks to view. The original LARGE file would just take toooo long to download in one piece. Once split into the 19 episodes, Skip transferred it to the ED server and I put up the links on Blackboard. It works well at UAF....I can't get the video to play at home though. I'm concerned that my students will also have trouble at their far-flung locales....the saga continues....

Assessment is about GROWTH

Skip Via has encouraged us in the School of ED to think about asking interns to develop professional blogs to chronicle their learning and understanding. I'm mulling it over and trying it out myself first.

Today I met with the interns for our second session together - the theme, Assessment is about Growth, was taken from one our texts: If you're trying to teach kids how to write, you gotta have this book by Marjorie Frank.

This fall, Dr. Deborah Hedeen from Idaho State University presented to the UAF-SOE faculty and staff, sharing about how she planned for professional development relating to NCATE. She talked about giving her folks little toys/tinkets to encourage everyone to be more engaged.


I followed her lead and brought in balloons this morning. After the interns blew them up, I asked how balloons might relate to our theme for the day: Assessment is about Growth. The interns offered great answers:
Our instruction grows as we assess more and more.
We "fill" the students heads with knowledge like we fill the balloon with air.
Just like the balloon can show us how much air it holds within, assessment shows us how much learning each child as gained.

I posted information for the interns "old school:" on posters......

...and using the white board (isn't is amazing that the WHITE BOARD would be "old school?" What happened to the chalkboards?)I set up the instruction for the day similar to the structure of instruction in an elementary school classroom language arts program. The students were divided into 3 groups and rotated around the different work areas. At one of the work areas, the students met with me in a small group. When they weren't with me, they worked with their texts, websites and Blackboard to explore the Alaska Grade Level Expectations and the Northwest Regional Educational Center's Scoring Practice for the 6+1 Writing Traits. Students posted their work on discussion boards I set up on Blackboard. I'm very interested to read what they learned.

Most didn't have time to complete the work in class so I assigned it for homework- just like an elementary teacher might do with her students. I also created a lesson plan for today based on the guidelines we give the interns for their lesson plans. I shared the lesson plan with the students, explaining more about how they will write plans. I also wrote a reflection that I've made available to students on Blackboard. Let me know if you'd like a copy, and I'll email it to you.

I'm impressed with how well the photos turned out for this post...they were taken on my phone!!! With Bluetooth, I am able to transfer the pictures to my computer with no wires - very nifty.