Grading Online Submissions

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Do you remember grading in your first year of teaching? It felt great to find your stride!
Usually, a veteran teacher gives helpful hints that help you find the right way to grade.

Online submissions are just different enough that you may need some more ideas. Here are some tips to help you find that stride – online!

Schedule Time to Grade

Blurred Calendar Reminder with links

 

Use your calendar to schedule a time to grade. Include links to the courses and any feedback spreadsheet you have created/borrowed/repurposed.

Work with your colleagues teaching the same modality/modalities as you at your school to assure you are in line with the turnaround time for grading. Post your grading schedule in several places (make note of where for future updates): Office Hours, Announcements, School website, etc.

Quality Comments

Consider what might happen if students focused on our commentary over a letter or numeric grade. Feedback to students should encourage reflection and confirm learners’ understanding (Garrison et al., 2010). While grading is a necessity, the teacher can mix up the percentages with a credit/no credit assignment to help students focus on teacher comments. Students are more likely to consider improving submissions using feedback than static grades. Providing timely feedback is a major component of Teacher Presence (Gurley, 2018).
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When building or revising an online course, consider the range of submissions from students. Perhaps the submissions range from an erroneous submission (wrong file/format) to complete and accurate submission. If you have the opportunity to build a rubric, build your feedback comments at the same time. If you make only one comment per submission, consider a comment which covers many possibilities and then you can just copy and paste a portion of the comment or delete a portion before submitting.
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Here is an example of a comment sheet for a course. I use emojipedia.org and the emojis copy and paste nicely between the Google sheet and the Canvas LMS SpeedGrader. Feel free to make a copy and modify it as needed.

 

There’s A Canvas Guide for That

How do I leave feedback comments for student submissions in SpeedGrader?

How do I use a non-scoring rubric to assess submissions in SpeedGrader?

How do I use free-form comments instead of ratings in a rubric in SpeedGrader?

References

Garrison, D. R., Cleveland-Innes, M., & Fung, T. S. (2010). Exploring causal relationships among teaching, cognitive and social presence: Student perceptions of the community of inquiry framework. The Internet and Higher Education, 13(1-2), 31–36. doi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2009.10.002

Gurley, L. E. (2018). Educators’ preparation to teach, perceived teaching presence, and perceived teaching presence behaviors in blended and online learning environments. Online Learning, 22(2), 197-220. 10.24059/olj.v22i2.1255

 

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2020 Summer Courses

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2020 is our 5th year of Blended Learning June offerings, we are excited to offer Hall County teachers access to professional learning around the most effective tools to use in a blended learning setting. Online offerings open for enrollment May 22nd.

All eLearning sessions are online this year.
Some sessions have a synchronous component, please check your calendars in advance of signing up.

As always eLearning keeps a waiting list and strives to fill any vacancies which arise, so please consider signing up for the waitlist if you were not able to get into your favorite offering.

*teachers are not eligible to participate in certifications if they already hold that certification.

Visit Catalog when signed into Canvas to sign up for these courses and more!

 

 

 

 

 

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How To: Webinar

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Webinar Image

What is a Webinar?

A webinar is a web-based seminar.  Since the term was introduced early to the mainstream it is sometimes used to describe any online meeting.  Precisely, you could attend a webinar and receive a lecture-type experience, host a webinar and be in charge of delivering information via an online lecture platform, or attend on online meeting and be expected to interact with the host and other participants.  Often the term webinar means different things to different people, so it is always good to start with a clarification of your role in any online meeting or webinar beforehand.

Technology

Web-based platforms host webinars.  Some have different features and benefits from others, but the basics are:

VIDEO, the host shares his/her image and it is polite of you to share your image as well.  The exception would be if where you are would be either distracting or has people in the background who should not be on camera (minors).

 

Participants need a laptop/computer to view the audio portion of a webinar.  Participants need a camera to share in the video portion of a webinar.

AUDIO, the host always shares his/her audio.  In some settings, your audio may not be turned on at all, or it may default to muted and you may turn it on when you need to speak, or it may default to on.  It is courteous to KNOW if your audio is on or muted and to mute accordingly.  Unless you are speaking to other participants in the webinar you should be muted.

 

Participants need earbuds, headphones, etc. to participate in the audio portion of a webinar.

Two popular webinar PLATFORMS in Hall County now are Zoom and Microsoft TEAMS.

Hosting a Webinar

Preparation

The host must set up the webinar within the platform in advance if the audience os unknown or other preparations need to take place in advance (guest speaker).  Invitations are often emailed but can be messaged via platforms such as Microsoft Teams.

The Day Of

Visually inspect and test any large displays projecting the webinar and have audio devices ready and tested for large audiences watching one display.

 

Remind participants if they are viewing individually on their laptop to update their devices, know the time and location of the event, and have the proper audio/visual equipment needed to successfully participate.

Right Before

All hosts should meet in the webinar platform right before the webinar to test everyone’s access and equipment.  Pass the hosting back and forth as a test for the actual webinar.

Attending a Webinar

 

Timing

If you are a participant to a webinar allow yourself plenty of time to be settled in front of your display in advance of the start of the webinar.  Know the date, time, and duration of the webinar in advance for your planning.  Log in a few minutes early in case there is an update to the platform you need to perform.

Settings

Some webinars default participants to audio and or video off.  It is polite to turn on your video once the webinar starts and keep your audio muted unless you are speaking.

If your audio is off, look for

 

other opportunities to participate with the host and other participants.  Often there is a chat feature in these platforms; note if the chat message goes to everybody or can go to just certain participants/the host.

Enjoy!

The opportunities for webinars is expansive; look for webinars from professional organizations and educational vendors. Happy Webinar-ing!

Online Video Learning Infographic

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Creating on Chromebooks

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We were fortunate to host Brian Buffington, Director of Instructional Technology at Pioneer RESA.
Brian joined us October 16th & 18th at the Hall County Instructional Support Center to work with us on Creating with Chromebooks.

Brian shared a Google Doc with the group which contained our agenda:

 

 

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Lucid Chart and Press Is Now Available

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Find Lucid Chart and Lucid Press on LaunchPoint for K-12 Hall County students and teachers.

Initial train-the-trainer training happened 9/26/19.  Find the session handouts at the end of this document.  The demonstration concept map can be found: bit.ly/LC-Demo and will work for anyone with a Lucid Chart account.

Lucid Chart

The Flowchart menu contains Flowchart symbols with specific meanings.

Lucid Chart allows for assigning a chart to students via Canvas.  Students receive a copy of the chart in their Lucid Chart account.  Students can submit their Lucid Charts to assignments (just like Google).  Additionally, student submissions can be graded and annotated in SpeedGrader within Canvas.

Lucid Chart offers the ability to create slides from the infinite canvas inside Charts.  The presentation is a “Prezi-like” experience and is worth your time to look at what this could mean for your classroom.

Lucid Press

Many products would benefit from the color palettes and/or the school mascot icons at identity.hallco.org.

Lucid Press offers Smart Templates with multiple product options.  More common products include brochure, flyer, invitations, magazine, and posters.  Lucid Press offers the features for high-quality printing for those interested in that specific facet.

 

Both Lucid Charts and Press offer the ability to collaborate between teachers and between students.  The share functionality can be activated through the platform and via a shared link.

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