[NIFL-TECHNOLOGY:2943] response to Fran Keenan

From: Tommy B McDonell (tommy.mcdonell@nyu.edu)
Date: Thu Jul 17 2003 - 18:47:58 EDT


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From: Tommy B McDonell <tommy.mcdonell@nyu.edu>
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Subject: [NIFL-TECHNOLOGY:2943] response to Fran Keenan
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What is NRS? 

Fran, there has been some research that evaluates distance education programs, but not much in evaluating it in terms of ESL I don't believe. I know I briefly looked at these when looking for a dissertation topic. Part of the problem is, of course, identifying whether or not the person who has done the work is really the person signed up. 

I have rubrics in my class for evaluating online work that I have collected from various sources. I can't send them as an attachment on NIFL but would be willing to send them (in a week when i'm back from the vacation and on my home computer)to individuals. I have three or four of them from different universities. I also have a collection of articles on evaluating distance ed, somewhere. And I believe there have been dissertations on it recently to evaluate teachers. 

In the dark ages, when I did my dissertation, I studied the difference between online, video and computer conferencing. Some of this is still valid. 

But evaluation isn't something that I think we do very well. We talk about it--but what kind of test would we give a distance learner? Fluency I think is what we want but it is difficult to measure, eh, on many systems. 

Tommy

Tommy B. McDonell 
Tommy.McDonell@nyu.edu 
ESL and educational technology trainer and consultant 
Adjunct Marymount Manhattan College; 
Doctoral Candidate TESOL at NYU 
H: 212-414-8513 
F: 212-414-1293 



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