Assessment Democratized

For those at today’s GLS session, here are the two streams of data:

1. Photo stream of the “GLS” pictures tag
2. Live map of the “GLS” pictures tag

…More to come!

Today we relaunched this website under a new name: Assessment Democratized.  Previously we were ECDemocratized.com.  This shift allows us to address issues of assessment more broadly than just the Evidence-Centered Design framework (ECD), and will also support our dual work in formal schools with learning goals, and in the nonprofit sector with social change goals.

We’re thrilled to be gathering a full presentation of design research — plus expert respondents from the worlds of assessment.  As a preview, here is our abstract:

ECDemocratized: A Democratization of Educational Assessment

Abstract: How might assessment be democratized and made more meaningful, especially for students? Too often, assessment is separated from the pleasures of learning, like a painful test after the game, or worse, a boring class. We introduce a design experiment with iPad graphics and user narratives called ECDemocratized. It blends the statistical rigor of Evidence-Centered Design, with a power shift to give students new agency over their assessment. It is designed for extended activities, like Rube-Goldberg engineering labs. While ECDemocratized is not a game, it will draw on lessons from games about mediating feedback and gathering data as part of player engagement. Panel respondents will challenge and critique ECDemocratized from two vantages: one is a senior literacy theorist in education, and the other is a psychometrician who has expertise in ECD-based assessments. Can assessment design be truly engaging, and even be a learning opportunity?  Let’s find out.

We just presented at DML2012 and had some great discussions with everyone. I’m posting the slides I presented here so that we have something up for conversation, but I plan to update these and share some of the discussion we had after the presentation later this week.

[Note that this was reposted from our original site http://ECDemocratized.com]

How might assessment be democratized and made more meaningful, especially for students? Too often, assessment is separated from the pleasures of learning, like a painful test after the game, or worse, a boring class. We introduce a design experiment with iPad graphics and user narratives called ECDemocratized. It blends the statistical rigor of Evidence-Centered Design, with a power shift to give students new agency over their assessment.

…more details coming soon!