Jared Stein – Education, Technology, Culture, and the Internet

It looks like I’ll be presenting at the 2008 MoodleMoot San Francisco, June 9 – 11, 2008 South San Francisco Conference Center on our Open Mod for sharing open educational resources. I’ll be dragging Kenneth Woodward along to explain the technical facets of the mod, and to delve into the community of Moodle developers.

Of course, prior to the conference Ken and I will have to work pretty aggressively with Clark Nielsen and John Krutsch to ensure that the mod’s features and functionalities are stable and presentable.

Marc Hugentobler, John Krutsch, and I will be presenting our online cheating sessions a couple times this summer, and would like to welcome everyone to attend:

1. The Cheatability Factor at Distance Teaching and Learning 2008, Madison, Wisconsin
2. How to Cheat Online & The Cheatability Factor at Teaching with Technology Idea Exchange 2008, Orem, Utah

Here are some details, reproduced from the proposals:

Promotional Summary

What is your online course’s “cheatability factor”? 75% of students have admitted to cheating during their college career, and according to some studies online assessment makes cheating easier. This session considers technical, philosophical, and environmental factors that may increase or decrease the cheatability of online courses from design to delivery, and presents a rubric used to assess those factors.

Objectives and Description

Presentation objectives:

Participants will..

1. Discover the extent to which cheating-related problems exist in online education and online-based assessments
2. Consider factors that may contribute technologically, philosophically, or environmentally to online cheating
3. Examine a rubric used to measure the “cheatability” of online course
4. Discuss practices and strategies to avoid or minimize the impact of cheating

Presentation description:

Nobody wants students cheating in their online class, yet an estimated 75% of students have admitted to cheating during their college career, and according to some studies online assessment makes cheating easier. The problem is not only one of practical importance for educators, it is one of growing importance to instructional technologists, administrators, and anyone else with a vested interest in the validity and reputation of distance education and technology-enhanced teaching.

This session will first present information and collected research data that summarizes the state of cheating in higher education in general, and in distance education specifically. While a general awareness of the pervasiveness of cheating may be in and of itself an eye-opener to many educators and administrators, the motivations behind cheating and the responsibility teachers have to recognize their own influence on cheating can provide an alternative perspective on what is normally considered a quite simple choice. McClusky’s theory of Power-Load-Margin, for instance, informs teachers of the impact they may have on students’ lives, and the impact students’ lives have on their studies, both of which can lead students to choose to cheat. A number of environmental factors are particularly salient in online courses, such as ambiguity of definitions of cheating, actual or perceptual “distance”, level of instructor-student interaction, individual relevance or meaningfulness of activities and assessments, etc. Additionally, there are a number of more technical and technological factors that can increase or decrease both a student’s propensity to cheat, and his/her ability to cheat.

By considering these technical, methodological, and environmental factors, Distance Education at Utah Valley University has developed a rubric to assess online courses and report on potential factors that may increase or decrease the cheatability of online courses from design to delivery. This rubric is (1) provided to teachers engaging in distance education course development or instruction, (2) made available to administrators and department chairs as an example of our mutual interest in preserving the integrity of online education, and (3) implemented internally as a tool in our course design process to better evaluate and recommend online assessments before, during, and after an online course is delivered.

Because cheating itself is a complex and sensitive issue informed by experience and diverse perspectives, this session seeks to engage participants in a dialogue on cheating, online assessments, and technology. We predict there will be naturally flowing discussion and debate between participants who may favor one approach over another, e.g. a “direct assault” approach which seeks to thwart any and all attempts at cheating using technology or applied strategies, vs. “hearts and minds” pedagogical approaches that focus on course environment, assessment design, and student engagement.

Looking ahead to conferences in 2008, I’m already planning on attending ITC’s elearning conference in Florida in February as a pure particpant/observer. And of course I’ll be co-hosting and probably presenting at our Teaching w/ Technology Idea Exchange in June. There are a few other conferences that I’m interested in presenting at:

• Distance Teaching & Learning in Madison, Wisconsin (proposal deadline: Jan 15, 2008). I could do an online course showcase or two. Japanese comes to mind, and I’m pretty proud of my new version of Web Essentials. Or I could just push for a regular session proposal, but what topic? “Authentic Applications of Social Networking Tools”? or the yet-unfounded “LMS-Less”?
• Collaboration 2008 – The Southwest Vista User’s Group in Salt Lake City, Utah (proposal deadline: Jan 11, 2008). No idea on a topic here, as I’m not a BB Vista advocate, but I should try to present to support the Utah cause.
• WCET’s 20th Annual Conference is held in Phoenix, AZ November 5-8 this year. As far as I know, the call for proposals is not yet open, and I don’t see a proposal deadline. WCET sessions usually annoy me because each speakers get approx 15 minutes to talk, sharing a 50 minute session with other presenters who may or may not have similar ideas, and may or may not develop synergy. I would love to do a pre-conference at WCET this year, but am not sure how to go about suggesting one to the WCET folks.
• C()SL is sure to have another OpenEd 2008 conference, at which I’d love to present our still-alpha OpenMod for moodle. But will that ever be completed?

I think more than anything I simply need to motivate myself to come up with a good presentation and submit by said proposal due date(s). If needs be, I can use a vague title and determine the specific content as the months pass. I also am considering collaborating with colleagues on a presentation, though I myself often disdain presentations with multiple and unnecessary “support” presenters.

Which leads me to consider the fact that attending a conference can be quite different depending on whether I go by myself or with comrades. I’m a loner by nature, so the solo experience is wonderful in that I tend to learn a lot and reinforce my internal motivation to strive for excellence. I also tend to explore ideas fairly broadly. And I’m always concerned with the bang-for-buck factor of conferences, and so going by myself means the department has more money to spread around at the other conferences.

When I’m with colleagues or comrades, however, the experience is substantiated by the affective factor, and my exploration of ideas tends to be deeper as we discuss possibilities and scenarios together. We also seem to develop a stronger team relationship, and return from such conferences more socially engaged, which is, of course, a natural agent for productivity and innovation in the workplace.

Regardless, I’ll sure to be practicing my own peculiar style of session attendance, which has gained the dubious label of “The Jared Method” by Mr. Hugentobler, where I pop into one session, grab the printed materials, listen to the opening lines as I scan the materials to evaluate the session, then (often) pop out to investigate another session in like manner. If colleagues are involved I can often verify or correct my first impression of the session later in the day.