The Latest Assault on Academic Quality

An article in today's New York Times (free subscription required) reveals the new problems created for scholarship and admission committees by a new breed of high school diploma mills.

This just in . . .

I'm told that KDLT in Sioux Falls aired a story last Sunday on my macro-grading, active rubrics, and flash-video help. On Monday, I received a question from a speech pathologist who hoped to utilize some of my audio feedback techniques. And that night, one other person mentioned he had seen me on TV.

I'd link to KDLT, but the story is not to be found on their website, mainly because very little is to be found on their website; it's not searchable!

More on this breaking news as information very slowly becomes available.

beyond bullets

Granted, Cliff Atkinson is trying to make a buck, but his companion site encouraging a more visually-rhetorical approach to the tired, old power point is worth some exploration. What a relief to have some design behind what for some has become a form of same-frame water torture. In fact, with our university looking at story-boarding as a class in the near future, Atkinson would offer a little welcome continuity between courses.

Not a pretty sight.

I had this idea, see, that students might benefit from seeing me grade and reading and hearing (so turn your speakers on if you want to see the preview) a PG rated version of my train of thought as I grade, so that they begin to grasp how I look at their essays, what I look at first, what sort of errors are most egregious versus most annoying, and so on. So I began to make a video to let them in on the process. For a few, glorious moments, it had potential, before sarcasm began to win the battle. By the end of the video, a drunken pirate has taken the helm. I don't envy the poor student.

Disclaimer: No real students were emotionally wounded, nor were any tender self-esteems deflated, in the production of this video. I still think the idea has merit, but next time I need to maintain focus a little more soberly.

The doctor is out.

The Master of Education Tech's Mad Agayne . . .

Okay, so I've butchered the Eliot allusion. Nonetheless, Mad Master Dan over at DanToday has a brilliant little offering on making use of text analysis software in his composition class. His video-audio alignment could use the help afforded by the instant-demo software I blogged last week, but his idea for using the text analysis software is excellent.

Easter Egg Feedback

My feedback methods for Composition I students allow me to be more flexible, thoughtful, and sometimes playful.

In one recent essay, a student remembered a time when he had been king of the foursquare game for ten "minuets." In the text comment balloon I opened, I asked him which ten minuets, and told him I like this one.

In another, one young lady's tangled typing fingers caused her to err while describing, fondly, her volleyball days. She wrote that the "volleyball ream knew what challenges awaited them." My comment teased her that Scooby Doo had commandeered her keyboard, and offered her this playful clip.

In class, I sometimes show students samples of this sort of thing, telling them they may discover such an "easter egg" in their own feedback. They seem to enjoy the possibility, and appreciate a little levity in the work.

Instant Demo Software

Version 5.0 of Instant Demo has been released. This software is the simplest, most straightforward demo software I've used. The latest iteration seamlessly embeds mp3s that you can record at any point in the creation of your demo, which makes audio instructions much, much simpler. My advice is that if you're during a full screen capture, always export the final project to 80%; any larger and your viewer has to scroll around to follow your instructions.

And best of all, it's free, so long as you don't mind that they advertise at the bottom of any demo you create. The full version has some nice additions, but not for the 3 to 4 hundred dollar pricetag. Ouch.

I used version 4.0 of this software to make the demo videos on active rubrics.

The software is available here.