Photographic evidence of learning and the cloud

I have used photographic evidence along with other measures to provide assessment insight into SC 130 Physical science.

Learning in the field of physical science, scientific understanding, is constructed out of interactions among a peer group using tools that measure the physical world as guided by the structures designed by the instructor. I would argue that this image provides evidence that this is occurring in the course. Indirect evidence, but when triangulated with laboratory reports and course tests, valuable evidence.

I think the photographic evidence is even more relevant when we look at articulation of courses via student learning outcomes. A college can produce student learning outcome outlines, but how to prove to other colleges that the student's are actually learning the material? That the course is "real"? Item analysis of test items aligned to the outline and sample student lab reports are part of the "picture" in physical science, but photographic evidence is intuitively powerful for people. I argue that one can "see" learning happening in this image and the images that follow.

I use photographic evidence in both my ethnobotany and my physical science course.

Of late I have been moving these pictures into the cloud - specifically onto this very blog. Pages such as photo pages from a recent simple optics lab and a speed of sound lab
are now simply a blogged.

Links integrated into locally held web pages provide the "glue" that webs together the network of pages on different servers.

For photographic pages my key tools include the Graphic Image Manipulation Program for balancing, cropping, resizing, and compression control. To catalog and post images I use Picasa. Picasa includes integration with Blogger, providing both cataloging and posting services.

Blogging the photographic web pages has effectively forced me to include more text, better descriptions, and simultaneously the Picasa "four picture" post limit reduces the number of images I post. I am forced to be choosier, with the result being a better edited, more tightly and carefully constructed photo evidence page.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Plotting polar coordinates in Desmos and a vector addition demonstrator

Image
In an earlier post I noted that Desmos did not directly plot polar coordinates. Not only was I incorrect, but Desmos responded to my blog to correct me! Although I had at some point seen that one could define a function f(x)=3x+5 and then have Desmos calculate f(6), I had not absorbed how this might be used to plot polar coordinates. The above works beautifully . Realizing that I could effectively program Desmos, I applied this thinking to demonstrating how to add two vectors when given the magnitudes m and the direction angles theta. The graph calculates the i and j components for the two vectors and then adds the vectors, graphically displaying the result while also providing information on the magnitude and direction of the vector sum. m1 and theta1 are the magnitude and direction angle for one of the two vectors, m2 and theta2 are the magnitude and direction for the other vector. All four are dynamically interactive and can be changed. The diagram purports to illustra...
Read more

Traditional food dishes of Micronesia

Image
Clara, Jennette, and Joanie presented ground hard taro cooked in an umw, effectively a hot rock oven. Pohnpeian: rotama. Pingelapese: sero. Mwoakillese: rodma. Mortlockese: Amahd. Kosrae: rodoma. After cooking in an umw the rotama is pounded with the petiole of a palm frond. Rotama is made from hard or swamp taro, known as mwahng on Pohnpei, mweian on Pingalap, pula in Mortlockese, and pahsruhk on Kosrae. In traditional times on the outer islands the women had primary responsibility for tending the taro while the men handled fishing and climbing tasks. Joesen and Noeleen presented fermented breadfruit from the outer islands of Yap such as Woleai and Eauripik. The raw ingredients were actually brought in from Yap, Noeleen prepared the maare.  The leaf wrap is ti leaf - Cordyline fruticosa. Pauleen, Barnson, Trisha, Verginia, Con-ray, and Maylanda from Kitti, Pohnpei brought in mahi umw, koahpnoair koakihr, and uht sukusuk. Above is breadfruit umw, mahi umw, o...
Read more

Setting up a boxplot chart in Google Sheets with multiple boxplots on a single chart

Image
The  Google Statistics  add-on for Google Sheets can display multiple boxplots in a single chart. The key is the layout of the data. One column should be the variable by which the data is to be grouped, the other column should be the data to be box plotted. Set up the Statistics add-on with the data to be plotted as the variable, and the grouping column as the "by" variable. In this image I had deselected all but the boxplot option, the result was the appearance of the Moment, Standard errors, and Confidence intervals options. The default is apparently a 95% confidence interval for the mean. The result is multiple boxplots on a single chart with a common scale. The new tab that is created also quotes 95% confidence intervals for the mean. Note that as of 2018 the Google Statistics add-on cannot be found by search in the add-ons. In addition, as of May 2018 the add-on no longer verifies, possibly due to the add-on not having been updated since August 2017. One may ha...
Read more