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| masonf | hey im just looking atschool tool can someone point my in the direction of a tutorial that would show me how to insert grades? | 01:15 |
|---|---|---|
| th1a | Hi. | 01:17 |
| th1a | Can't do that yet. | 01:17 |
| th1a | We're just starting to write that part now masonf. | 01:18 |
| masonf | looks good so far. | 01:20 |
| masonf | are you gonna stay with ZEODB for the backend? | 01:20 |
| masonf | not mysql? | 01:20 |
| masonf | Ive heard ZEODB be called a 'toy database' on some mailinglist somewhere | 01:22 |
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| th1a | masonf: As an object database, ZODB gives lots of flexibility and aids rapid development. | 01:52 |
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| erchache | th1a: are you here? | 11:41 |
| erchache | what is a CanDo meet? :-S | 11:44 |
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| erchache | what is a CanDo meet? :-S | 13:03 |
| erchache | mgedmin | 13:06 |
| erchache | aiste | 13:08 |
| mgedmin | erchache! | 13:09 |
| mgedmin | long time no see | 13:09 |
| mgedmin | CanDo meet is when CanDo developers come to IRC and talk | 13:09 |
| mgedmin | CanDo is http://www.schooltool.org/products/cando | 13:10 |
| erchache | ahhhh cando program | 13:11 |
| erchache | i have a jobmate are working on that | 13:11 |
| erchache | not on cando but its similar | 13:11 |
| erchache | he works on formation personel on my job | 13:12 |
| erchache | and has a stadistic php class to do that | 13:12 |
| erchache | to get corrects values of stadistics.....for each item calcs his proof to make a correct test | 13:13 |
| erchache | bye | 13:15 |
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| povbot` | /svn/commits: * vidas committed revision 5559: | 15:19 |
| povbot` | /svn/commits: Minor modifications in real time attendace form. | 15:19 |
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| povbot` | /svn/commits: * jinty committed revision 5560: | 15:38 |
| povbot` | /svn/commits: If a command fails, divert its stdout to the error logger. | 15:38 |
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| th1a | OK, let's try this again. | 16:30 |
| th1a | Good morning everyone. | 16:30 |
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| th1a | Or evening. | 16:31 |
| mgedmin | hi | 16:31 |
| th1a | Is it dark in Vilnius? | 16:31 |
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| srichter | good morning | 16:31 |
| alga | hello! | 16:31 |
| mgedmin | I think it is past sunset here | 16:31 |
| th1a | Hope everyone had happy holidays. | 16:32 |
| srichter | yep | 16:32 |
| srichter | (went skiing the last three days ;-) | 16:33 |
| th1a | Nice. | 16:33 |
| th1a | OK. So the main question is when we'll be ready for the snapshot. | 16:34 |
| srichter | depends on what you want in there. :-) | 16:35 |
| th1a | On your end, I'd like to have the tutorial done. | 16:35 |
| srichter | I think jinty has the nightly TAR balls running, so at least we could create a release | 16:35 |
| srichter | ok, this week it will definitely be done | 16:35 |
| alga | we're done with our part | 16:36 |
| srichter | I have to check in the Zoep 3 trunk fix into Zope 3.2, so I can reactivate some tests | 16:36 |
| alga | in fact, we were aiming at Friday, and had it all done by the end of it | 16:36 |
| alga | srichter: so ignoring buildbot was not a good idea after all ;-) | 16:37 |
| srichter | what do you mean? | 16:37 |
| * mgedmin doesn't understand either | 16:37 | |
| alga | never mind then... | 16:37 |
| mgedmin | (actually, buildbot does not use 'make update' -- that one turned out to be too fragile, due to subversion caprices -- buildbot uses its own clever SvnSource build steps that I have to configure manually) | 16:38 |
| mgedmin | (buildbot now uses Zope 3.2 branch) | 16:39 |
| th1a | OK, so either I forgot how the attendance UI is supposed to work or it isn't working on my svn checkout. | 16:39 |
| th1a | I'm logged in as a teacher, how do I do attendance? | 16:39 |
| alga | only section attendance is done at this point | 16:39 |
| th1a | Right. | 16:40 |
| alga | you choose a section, and click the attendance link on a calendar event | 16:40 |
| alga | you get to the "realtime" section attendance form | 16:40 |
| mgedmin | if you're a teacher, just look at your calendar | 16:40 |
| mgedmin | all section meeting events will have attendance links | 16:40 |
| th1a | OK. I see. | 16:41 |
| th1a | I guess we need to move our sample data to the spring instead of the fall now. | 16:41 |
| alga | we have sample data for fall and spring | 16:42 |
| alga | we can move fall 2005 to fall 2006 | 16:42 |
| th1a | Oh... I guess the spring semester hasn't started yet. | 16:43 |
| th1a | I was just confused because there are no classes today in the sample data. | 16:43 |
| alga | the little calendars on the left are handy | 16:43 |
| alga | you can zoom to december or february | 16:43 |
| th1a | Yes. | 16:44 |
| alga | I wish you were on IRC last week. I wanted to show you all this, but couldn't find you. | 16:44 |
| th1a | I was at my parents. | 16:45 |
| th1a | Yes, sorry I'm just looking at it now. | 16:45 |
| th1a | Overall, it looks very good. | 16:45 |
| alga | :) | 16:45 |
| th1a | The bit that I hadn't considered is that after the initial submission you can't add another absent student... which some people probably won't like. | 16:46 |
| th1a | On the other hand, it is probably the right way to do it. | 16:46 |
| alga | it does not leave any place for errors | 16:47 |
| alga | which is unusable in the real world | 16:47 |
| th1a | Well, it as as unusable as paper, if you have to send the form to the office. | 16:47 |
| th1a | We'll see what people think of it. | 16:48 |
| alga | but on paper you can erase, cross out, correct, etc. | 16:48 |
| th1a | Not if you have to send the form to the office at the beginning of class. | 16:48 |
| th1a | Well, the nice thing now is that we can have people in schools look at this and tell us what's wrong. | 16:49 |
| th1a | Absences can't be excused yet, right? | 16:50 |
| alga | true | 16:50 |
| srichter | we really should have a way to correct those things | 16:50 |
| srichter | one of the most annoying things at Tufts is that I cannot correct a grade online once I have submitted it | 16:50 |
| srichter | I always have to fill out stupid paper | 16:50 |
| srichter | but with many students, errors happen | 16:51 |
| th1a | There will need to be a way to make a correction, but it might not be as simple as simply checking the box. | 16:51 |
| th1a | But perhaps easier then stupid paper. | 16:51 |
| th1a | The point here is that the main office will want people to do this at the beginning of class and get it right. | 16:51 |
| th1a | And not be arbitrarily changing it thoughout the period. | 16:52 |
| th1a | So what are POV's work plans at this point? | 16:52 |
| th1a | Are you still focusing on SchoolTool? | 16:52 |
| alga | not 100% | 16:53 |
| alga | we are thinking of splitting into two teams though | 16:54 |
| alga | so that switching costs would be lower | 16:54 |
| th1a | So I should be expecting ongoing but slower progress? | 16:55 |
| alga | I suppose so | 16:55 |
| alga | we'll definitely do our best to meet the deadline | 16:56 |
| th1a | We're not generating any sample data for attendance yet, right? | 16:56 |
| alga | not yet | 16:56 |
| th1a | OK. | 16:56 |
| alga | do you have an idea how should it look? | 16:56 |
| th1a | Well, just a bunch of random absences. | 16:57 |
| th1a | So... getting back to the snapshot. | 16:58 |
| th1a | I'm satisfied with the attendance. We've got enough to get some feedback. | 16:58 |
| th1a | srichter: When can you have the tutorial done? | 16:59 |
| srichter | by Friday | 16:59 |
| srichter | (just to give me some extra time) | 16:59 |
| srichter | we are meeting on Friday, right? | 17:00 |
| th1a | We're meeting on Friday, right? | 17:00 |
| srichter | lol | 17:00 |
| srichter | yep | 17:00 |
| th1a | OK. I guess that'll have to do. | 17:00 |
| srichter | so you come and pick me up and then we had over to the school? | 17:00 |
| th1a | That sounds fine. | 17:01 |
| srichter | if you send me the address again, I'll look for a good route | 17:01 |
| th1a | OK. | 17:01 |
| th1a | So I guess the snapshot will be a week from today. | 17:02 |
| th1a | srichter: Have you looked at the assessment slides I made? | 17:03 |
| srichter | yeah, looks very good | 17:04 |
| srichter | I liked the visual representation | 17:04 |
| srichter | (and I think you understand adapters now ;-) | 17:04 |
| th1a | I'm getting there. | 17:05 |
| th1a | So no big conceptual errors? | 17:05 |
| srichter | not that I saw while reading through them casually | 17:06 |
| th1a | The rest of you guys should take a look at it too, although you probably won't directly be working on assessment. | 17:06 |
| srichter | it looked pretty much like an slightly extended representation of what the requirements package does | 17:06 |
| srichter | will I be working on this? | 17:06 |
| th1a | Yes, that's pretty much it. | 17:06 |
| th1a | The stuff at the end -- performance assessment and portfolios won't be done this year. | 17:07 |
| th1a | srichter will be doing scoring sections & the gradebook parts. | 17:07 |
| th1a | I'm amazed at how useful the requirements design is. | 17:08 |
| srichter | oh, I am glad! :-) | 17:09 |
| th1a | I suppose there isn't much else that needs to be handled in the meeting... don't want to drag it out. | 17:10 |
| th1a | So... anyone have anything else to say while we're all here? | 17:10 |
| th1a | OK, I guess I'm going to work on manually generating some sample attendance data for some screenshots. | 17:11 |
| * th1a bangs the virtual gavel. | 17:11 | |
| alga | th1a: making a sample data plugin might still be easier | 17:12 |
| alga | read schooltool/attendance/README.txt | 17:12 |
| th1a | Ah... good point. | 17:12 |
| th1a | I'll take a look at that. | 17:14 |
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| th1a | alga: One small problem with the attendance form is that as you narrow the page the legend overlaps the form. | 18:07 |
| alga | also if you enlarge the font a lot | 18:08 |
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| th1a | alga: Can we designate homeroom periods yet? | 19:21 |
| th1a | Apparently now. | 19:23 |
| th1a | Not, I mean. | 19:23 |
| alga | True | 19:24 |
| th1a | I think generating sample attendance data is in my ZPD. | 19:26 |
| alga | Googling ZPD..... done. | 19:48 |
| alga | Look at other sample data plugins. loop over all students, loop over all days in term | 19:49 |
| alga | erm. Loop over all section events in student's calendar | 19:49 |
| th1a | A little ed school jargon there. | 19:50 |
| alga | get ISectionAttendance(student) | 19:50 |
| th1a | Yes, I'm looking at the sample data for courses. | 19:50 |
| alga | add a random record of your choice... | 19:50 |
| alga | that should be it. | 19:50 |
| th1a | At this point I can just create absences and tardies. | 19:51 |
| th1a | Unexplained ones. | 19:51 |
| th1a | For individual sections, right? | 19:51 |
| alga | You can also explain them, too. | 19:51 |
| th1a | Can I do that through the web? | 19:51 |
| alga | no, not through the web | 19:51 |
| th1a | OK. | 19:52 |
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| th1a | alga: When I'm listing dependencies for the sampledata, do I need to include all sub-dependencies? | 20:50 |
| alga | nope | 20:53 |
| alga | it works them out | 20:54 |
| th1a | OK. | 20:54 |
| srichter | mgedmin: do we want to slowly move to schooltool.core? | 21:10 |
| srichter | should I create an empty package? | 21:10 |
| srichter | (I guess it would not be empty, since getSchoolToolApplication and ISchoolToolApplication should go there | 21:10 |
| th1a | srichter: For what it's worth, that seems like the right approach to me. | 21:15 |
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| mgedmin | srichter, +1 | 21:17 |
| srichter | th1a: yeah, the final structure MArius suggested looked really good to me and it solves our ZCML file mess as well | 21:19 |
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| th1a | alga: So, will ISectionAttendance let me loop through all the section events in a student's calendar? Using filter() to get a given time range? | 22:20 |
| mgedmin | th1a, ISectionAttendance will let you loop through all attendance recordings | 22:23 |
| mgedmin | it will not list section meetings where you haven't recorded the attendance yet | 22:24 |
| mgedmin | you can use ITimetabled(section).makeTimetableCalendar() for that | 22:24 |
| th1a | Since I'm trying to generate sample data, I want a list of section meetings that don't have attendance recorded. | 22:24 |
| alga | ITimetables(student).makeCalendar(start_date, end_date) | 22:27 |
| alga | IStudentAttendance(student).get(section, starttime) | 22:28 |
| th1a | ITimetables will give me a list of section events, and then I take the section and starttime from those to get the attendance records? | 22:30 |
| mgedmin | yes | 22:31 |
| mgedmin | get or set | 22:32 |
| th1a | Right. | 22:32 |
| mgedmin | getting section events is more important for recording attendance | 22:32 |
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| pcardune | hey ffsnoopy | 22:54 |
| ffsnoopy | hey | 22:54 |
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| jelkner | good afternoon | 22:57 |
| hoffman | Hi jelkner. | 22:58 |
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| jelkner | hi tom | 22:58 |
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| jelkner | i haven't had a chance yet to look at the new version of the presentation | 22:59 |
| pcardune | i'm looking at it now | 22:59 |
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| jelkner | happy new year, dave | 23:02 |
| dwelsh | same to you | 23:02 |
| hoffman | Hi dwelsh. | 23:02 |
| dwelsh | greetings | 23:03 |
| pcardune | hi welsh | 23:03 |
| dwelsh | glad you're back with us, Paul | 23:03 |
| dwelsh | still over seas? | 23:03 |
| pcardune | yep | 23:04 |
| pcardune | for another 2 weeks | 23:04 |
| dwelsh | and yet, here we all are!!! | 23:04 |
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| jelkner | mitchell tells me paul has been doing a great job getting him up to speed | 23:06 |
| jelkner | i'm wondering how we should proceed today | 23:06 |
| jelkner | clearly, tom's presentation is important to discuss | 23:06 |
| jelkner | but i need more time to look at the new version | 23:06 |
| jelkner | so i'd be more comfortable doing that by email | 23:06 |
| jelkner | unless there are any particular questions tom wants to address now? | 23:07 |
| hoffman | The changes are more for clarity than substance. | 23:07 |
| pcardune | (it looks really good to me so far) | 23:07 |
| hoffman | There is one fundamental question, however. | 23:07 |
| jelkner | shoot | 23:07 |
| hoffman | When we did performance assessment at Feinstein, we weren't directly assessing the student. | 23:08 |
| hoffman | The work was scored, and then that traced back to the student indirectly. | 23:08 |
| hoffman | My understanding is that conceptually, your competency tracking is directly tied to the student. | 23:08 |
| hoffman | That is, you're assessing the student, not the work. | 23:09 |
| hoffman | Correct? | 23:09 |
| jelkner | hmm | 23:09 |
| dwelsh | well, the essence of skills-tracking is hands-on | 23:09 |
| hoffman | It is a conceptual distinction. | 23:09 |
| dwelsh | so usually the student is there doing the skill | 23:09 |
| dwelsh | but I really like the integration of more media types into evaluations | 23:09 |
| jelkner | not so in computer science | 23:09 |
| jelkner | or not necisarily | 23:09 |
| dwelsh | so that you are grading a student portfolio | 23:10 |
| jelkner | right | 23:10 |
| dwelsh | in other words, their work, not the student directly | 23:10 |
| jelkner | yes | 23:10 |
| dwelsh | both types of evaluations are important. | 23:10 |
| jelkner | how is this important in terms of implimentation, tom? | 23:10 |
| hoffman | It is fairly important, actually. | 23:11 |
| hoffman | In my opinion. | 23:11 |
| jelkner | please explain | 23:11 |
| hoffman | Practically, one question is whether or not all evaluations should refer to the student being assessed AND have an optional attribute for evidence of the work. | 23:12 |
| hoffman | The alternative is that when you're referring to the evidence, you refer to that INSTEAD OF the student themselves. | 23:13 |
| jelkner | i could imagine a scenerio where a class or group is being evaluated (or a team) | 23:14 |
| jelkner | then it might make sense to do what you are describing | 23:14 |
| jelkner | but in our case, we will always have students as the end recipients of evaluations | 23:14 |
| jelkner | i would like to know what srichter thinks on this, but the xp approach is to customer driven | 23:15 |
| jelkner | so we need real user stories to drive development forward | 23:15 |
| jelkner | in our case we always have students | 23:15 |
| jelkner | if we could find a customer with some other user situation | 23:15 |
| jelkner | we could make the software support both | 23:15 |
| hoffman | Well, I don't know that either is harder at this point. | 23:16 |
| srichter | ok, I am here | 23:16 |
| srichter | let me read the log | 23:16 |
| hoffman | But you do want to be able to simply assign a student a score on a competency without referring to any evidence or assignment at all? | 23:17 |
| jelkner | if the evindence is visual | 23:17 |
| jelkner | like in a cpr class | 23:17 |
| jelkner | the only "evidence" is what the teacher saw the student do | 23:17 |
| dwelsh | how does "competency" relate to "assignment"? | 23:17 |
| hoffman | Ah, good question. | 23:17 |
| dwelsh | is a "competency" a "requirement"? | 23:18 |
| hoffman | Let's take CPR class then. | 23:18 |
| hoffman | Yes. | 23:18 |
| dwelsh | gotcha | 23:19 |
| hoffman | It is a requirement with more metadata. | 23:19 |
| srichter | I think the question Tom raises is valid | 23:19 |
| dwelsh | so assignments could be related to a number of requirements? | 23:19 |
| hoffman | Assignments can be adapted to act as a requirement or a set of requirements. | 23:19 |
| srichter | however, I think conceptually it is easier to think of the student being evaluated and "simulate" the other way if necessary | 23:19 |
| srichter | at the end of the day we have to ask ourselves: Why are we doing this? | 23:20 |
| srichter | What are the grades for? | 23:20 |
| srichter | For the government to show the effectiveness of schools? | 23:20 |
| srichter | To assess the qualifications of students? | 23:20 |
| hoffman | srichter: We don't need to go down that path. | 23:20 |
| hoffman | Actually, this is all coming together in my mind now. | 23:21 |
| srichter | really, I would have thought it is central to the question you are asking | 23:21 |
| jelkner | from a student centered teacher's point of view, we are trying to help students learn by making their skills more explicit and concrete | 23:21 |
| srichter | so then it is student-centered, in which case the current approach is better | 23:22 |
| jelkner | srichter is certainly correct to point out that there is educational philosophy embedded in the software | 23:22 |
| hoffman | Yes, yes. | 23:22 |
| srichter | hoffman: regarding the other sub-discussion, right an assignment is mapped to a requirement, which can contain other requirements | 23:23 |
| hoffman | OK... need to explain what I'm thinking. | 23:23 |
| srichter | in fact an assignment should always be adaptable to a requirement, because that's what it is | 23:23 |
| hoffman | So in your CPR class, "clear the airway" is a competency. | 23:23 |
| jelkner | indeed | 23:24 |
| hoffman | Now, unless you video it, you're not going to have evidence, per se. | 23:24 |
| dwelsh | right | 23:24 |
| jelkner | not in a computer data sense | 23:24 |
| jelkner | the teacher's observation is evidence | 23:24 |
| jelkner | the only data then is the score the teacher produces | 23:25 |
| hoffman | RIght. | 23:25 |
| hoffman | So there are two main approaches. | 23:25 |
| hoffman | Erm... | 23:25 |
| dwelsh | there is an important distinction between assignments and requirements | 23:27 |
| dwelsh | requirements are the discrete building blocks of assignments | 23:27 |
| hoffman | What I'm weighing here is how much that observation is a distinct event. | 23:27 |
| dwelsh | they tend to be graded differently | 23:27 |
| dwelsh | assignments are graded by rubrics and are more complex and subjective | 23:28 |
| hoffman | That is, each time you attempt to demonstrate you can clear an airway, should we treat that as an assignment in itself? | 23:28 |
| dwelsh | requirements are more discrete, straightforward, and then graded more by checklist | 23:28 |
| dwelsh | clear an airway is a requirement | 23:28 |
| jelkner | not in practice, tom | 23:28 |
| hoffman | dwelsh: It would be more precise to substitute "competencies" for "requirements" above. | 23:29 |
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| dwelsh | yes | 23:29 |
| hoffman | Requirements are more abstract. | 23:29 |
| dwelsh | are requirements rubrics??? | 23:30 |
| dwelsh | i.e. a good essay should have a compelling argument. | 23:30 |
| dwelsh | that is not a competency. | 23:30 |
| dwelsh | too complex, too subjective. | 23:30 |
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| hoffman | Requirements can be evaluated. | 23:30 |
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| dwelsh | so give an example of a requirement | 23:31 |
| hoffman | And they can be organized in hierarchies, and they can be subclasses of other requirements. | 23:31 |
| hoffman | They're a software idea, not a real world concept. | 23:31 |
| jelkner | submit a term paper by the end of the quarter | 23:31 |
| jelkner | that is a requirement | 23:31 |
| hoffman | That's why we picked a term that isn't really used. | 23:32 |
| hoffman | Colloquially in education. | 23:32 |
| hoffman | Or it doesn't have a specific meaning in education. | 23:32 |
| jelkner | where is this going? | 23:32 |
| jelkner | this is getting very abstract, we need to ground it in the application | 23:32 |
| jelkner | what are the user stories we are trying to impliment? | 23:33 |
| hoffman | Well, I often seem to be the only one who finds these abstract ramblings helpful, but I do ;-) | 23:33 |
| jelkner | it is important to think about these questions | 23:33 |
| jelkner | as long as we don't get lost in the discussion | 23:33 |
| dwelsh | would a requirement effect a grade/evaluation? | 23:33 |
| jelkner | the thing i love most about xp is that it keeps things real | 23:33 |
| hoffman | The concrete question to me is whether or not all CanDo evaluations should have an optional evidence reference. | 23:33 |
| dwelsh | yes, in my view, all should have an optional evidence reference | 23:34 |
| jelkner | it is optional, yes? so how does the answer to this effect the implimentation? | 23:34 |
| pcardune | in the end we want some capability for evidence, how that is implemented doesn't really matter | 23:35 |
| dwelsh | but evidence is good, starting with journal entries, but then branching out to url's, video, etc. | 23:35 |
| jelkner | in my case, all evaluations will be linked to computer data as evidence | 23:35 |
| jelkner | mostly web pages | 23:35 |
| *** kjcole has left #schooltool | 23:35 | |
| jelkner | so that they can in turn link to several other things | 23:35 |
| jelkner | in the cpr case, there will be nothing but a score | 23:36 |
| jelkner | over time, i'd like to see custom evidence capabilities built into cando | 23:36 |
| jelkner | but that will come later | 23:36 |
| pcardune | the question is, for the end users of this software, what percentage of the time will there be evidence involved? | 23:37 |
| pcardune | for what percentage of the competencies | 23:37 |
| jelkner | my guess is that most teachers will not use the evidence capabilities at first | 23:38 |
| jelkner | they don't have the ability to do that now | 23:38 |
| pcardune | well, what percentage of competencies even lend themselves to evidence? | 23:38 |
| jelkner | so it is not a regular part of teaching practice | 23:38 |
| hoffman | How do you guys handle it when there are multiple evaluations of a given competency with different scores? | 23:38 |
| jelkner | good question | 23:39 |
| dwelsh | only the latest one matters, in my view | 23:39 |
| jelkner | my inclination will be to replace the grade | 23:39 |
| jelkner | same as welsh | 23:39 |
| hoffman | How do you handle it in real life? | 23:39 |
| dwelsh | that's how I do it. | 23:39 |
| jelkner | we want to know the students competency attainment | 23:39 |
| dwelsh | students should be motivated to increase their totals | 23:39 |
| dwelsh | just like "Runescape"... keep adding to that defense level! | 23:39 |
| jelkner | if they couldn't clear the passage way last week, it doesn't matter as long as they can now | 23:40 |
| dwelsh | well, it mattered to the guy who died, but otherwise... | 23:40 |
| jelkner | (unless you were choking last week ;-) | 23:40 |
| jelkner | lol | 23:40 |
| dwelsh | lol2' | 23:40 |
| pcardune | ?runescape? | 23:41 |
| jelkner | in our case in va with cando, that is definitely what we want | 23:41 |
| dwelsh | Ask your techie 4th grader friend... it' | 23:41 |
| dwelsh | it's the RAGE! | 23:41 |
| hoffman | I guess one case is if you have one piece of evidence that was created by a group of students, but you are scoring different students differently for different parts of the assignment. | 23:41 |
| jelkner | a scr (student competency record) is a 2 dimensional array of competencies and students with 1 score in each cell | 23:41 |
| jelkner | srichter: are you still here? | 23:42 |
| dwelsh | there is no teamwork on competencies... only on assignments | 23:42 |
| dwelsh | each and every student has to prove s/he can do all comps. | 23:42 |
| hoffman | If you're going to the trouble of creating this system, it certainly should be tracking the previous evaluations, even if only the most recent one counts. | 23:42 |
| jelkner | yagni | 23:43 |
| dwelsh | you ain't gonna | 23:43 |
| dwelsh | ... | 23:43 |
| srichter | jelkner: yep, but it became too weird for me :-) | 23:43 |
| dwelsh | pardon the teacher talk | 23:44 |
| hoffman | You are gonna need it. | 23:44 |
| jelkner | when we have a user story from someone that needs it, we impliment it | 23:44 |
| jelkner | until then, we work on the stories we have | 23:44 |
| jelkner | i'm hoping srichter will either back me up or correct me on this ;-) | 23:45 |
| srichter | well, I think yagni would be ok here | 23:45 |
| srichter | however, | 23:45 |
| dwelsh | hoffman: is the new schooltool going to have a flexible grading system that encompasses both assignments and competencies??? | 23:45 |
| srichter | I have at least one very interesting use case | 23:45 |
| hoffman | dwelsh: Yes. | 23:45 |
| dwelsh | gotcha. | 23:46 |
| srichter | for a teacher (note that I am talking about myself here), it is often interesting to see the way a student reached a goal | 23:46 |
| srichter | seeing the history of grades/competency levels is one way of doing this | 23:46 |
| dwelsh | are requirements graded? it doesn't sound like they are | 23:46 |
| srichter | for example, if a student always immediately gets the best score, s/he is underschallenged | 23:46 |
| dwelsh | yes, but the philosophy of cando is awesome here. | 23:47 |
| dwelsh | s/he becomes a teacher of others... earning an extra expert mark | 23:47 |
| dwelsh | while the others get their competencies | 23:47 |
| jelkner | if you actually think you can use the data, srichter, then we have a user story | 23:48 |
| dwelsh | cando encourages top students to help others and repeat competencies | 23:48 |
| srichter | but this does not tell me much about the good/bad/average student itself | 23:48 |
| jelkner | for myself, i'm overwhelmed with the data i have already | 23:48 |
| jelkner | i just want to get cando supporting evidence | 23:49 |
| dwelsh | I agree. History is more important with grades than competency evaluations. | 23:49 |
| pcardune | jelkner: that's why you wouldn't see the score history | 23:49 |
| srichter | my goal is always to make the max grade unreachable at the beginning for all students, but bring as many students as I can to the max grade | 23:49 |
| dwelsh | right | 23:49 |
| dwelsh | but with competencies, you want all students to get all of them as FAST as possible | 23:49 |
| dwelsh | to set the stage for higher-level achievement on assignments | 23:49 |
| hoffman | For what its worth, I've convinced myself that requirement and evidence be separate references in CanDo and SchoolTool evaluations. | 23:50 |
| srichter | even if that means you are underchallenging the top? and overchallenging the bottom? | 23:50 |
| dwelsh | the soccer analogy... | 23:50 |
| jelkner | competencies are basic things | 23:50 |
| dwelsh | I try to teach everyone to kick with left foot as fast as possible | 23:50 |
| dwelsh | so that they will have more options on the attack (the assignment) | 23:51 |
| dwelsh | some will get it fast, some slower | 23:51 |
| dwelsh | I use the faster to motivate and help teach the slower | 23:51 |
| hoffman | There is a practical distinction there between a competency and a standard as we use them at Feinstein. | 23:51 |
| jelkner | but all can kick with the left foot | 23:51 |
| dwelsh | the faster become even better practioners (able to do it more often with more accuracy) | 23:51 |
| dwelsh | the slower get better faster | 23:51 |
| hoffman | By design, our standards may take years to achieve, so that's why we want longitudinal tracking. | 23:51 |
| jelkner | which standards do you mean? | 23:52 |
| hoffman | Showing progress in attempting the standard over a period of time. | 23:52 |
| hoffman | LIke "write a persuasive essay." | 23:52 |
| dwelsh | again, that's an assignment, not a competency. | 23:52 |
| dwelsh | write a topic sentence is a competency | 23:52 |
| jelkner | but tom, we won't be tracking that | 23:52 |
| dwelsh | without it, you will NEVER write a persuasive essay | 23:53 |
| jelkner | we will track "program completers" | 23:53 |
| hoffman | Well, being able to write a *good* persuasive essay is a standard. | 23:53 |
| dwelsh | so we try to get the building blocks out of the way quickly. | 23:53 |
| hoffman | Yes, I understand the distinction. | 23:53 |
| dwelsh | gotcha. we have standards too. | 23:53 |
| srichter | hoffman: I slowly see where jelkner and dwelsh are coming from | 23:53 |
| dwelsh | competencies just give us a leveraged way of helping students with standards | 23:53 |
| dwelsh | back to soccer, you won't win the state tournament without a bunch of kids being able to attack with the left foot | 23:54 |
| hoffman | Yes. | 23:54 |
| dwelsh | so trying to achieve the standard (the state win), means backing up | 23:54 |
| dwelsh | to focus on the competencies | 23:54 |
| dwelsh | you still may not with the state cup, but you've got a way better chance | 23:54 |
| hoffman | Are competencies explicitly tied to standards? | 23:55 |
| dwelsh | yes. the state of virginia is cross-mapping them | 23:55 |
| dwelsh | that has been done for my courses in a document called the curriculum framework | 23:55 |
| hoffman | Ah, yes. By the state? | 23:56 |
| dwelsh | yes. a great gift of the state to us | 23:56 |
| dwelsh | because it's a LOT of busy work | 23:56 |
| pcardune | dwelsh: it's just busy work because you guys are good teachers... who are already doing their job | 23:56 |
| dwelsh | appreciate your confidence in us! | 23:57 |
| jelkner | time check: we've been here almost an hour | 23:57 |
| jelkner | this discussion is helpful | 23:57 |
| hoffman | Yes, we're constantly punishing good teachers to bring the lousy ones up to mediocre. | 23:57 |
| jelkner | but i don't want to keep folks too long | 23:58 |
| hoffman | I'll have to make some more changes to the presentation. | 23:58 |
| hoffman | Do you guys hope to have some of the evidence features in CanDo 2006? | 23:58 |
| jelkner | did you get what you needed, tom? | 23:58 |
| jelkner | yes! | 23:58 |
| dwelsh | this stuff actually is quite important | 23:58 |
| jelkner | i am chomping at the bit for that | 23:58 |
| dwelsh | becase the educational philosophy is built in | 23:58 |
| dwelsh | that's what makes cando powerful | 23:58 |
| jelkner | i agree | 23:58 |
| hoffman | We'll have to start thinking about the evidence objects soon then. | 23:59 |
| jelkner | that will be in my first user stories for paul | 23:59 |
| jelkner | i'm eager to know when he can begin work on that | 23:59 |
| dwelsh | evidence and linking into digital portfolio is the future of all this, in my opinion | 23:59 |
| dwelsh | that's the full package. | 23:59 |
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