Download Lifeline - Valdosta State University

Physical Geography
Technology Enhancements
and Distance Learning
February 19, 2010
Donald Thieme
GEOG 1113K
• one of two introductory courses in Physical
Geography
• GEOG 1112 - Weather and Climate
• GEOG 1113 - Introduction to Landforms
• can be taken as a sequence to satisfy laboratory
science requirement for education and other
majors
Testing and Grading
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3 Exams (100 points)
Final Exam (200 points)
Videos (10 points each)
Attendance (25 possible points)
Lab Exercises (10 points each)
Lab Mid-Term
Lab Final
300
200
50
25
100
50
100
825
Practice Tests
• 40-60 multiple choice questions
• test banks provided by textbook publisher,
Pearson Prentice Hall
• Fall, 2007 and Fall, 2008 - a "Java" script
provided by Pearson Prentice Hall, accessed
through WebCT online
• Fall, 2010 - test bank imported into
BlazeView, Valdosta State University's
implementation of BlackBoard Vista 8 .
Accessed as an "Assessment"
2007-2008 Practice Tests
• "Java" script accessed through WebCT
online
• Students had to turn off pop-up blocker,
install new JAVA, etc....
• JAVA script would crash and leave students
half finished - - > Could not be timed.
• Students made mistakes on Name, Course
ID, etc... - - > Allowed multiple trials.
• Nearly 90% answered over 90% of questions
correctly.
• How many got "help"? ?
2009 - Practice Test
• BlazeView "Assessment"
• Students failed to read instructions and
reported some of the same problems as in
2007 and 2008,
• Test was timed initially, later opened for
multiple tries.
• Only 21% answered over 90% of questions
correctly.
• Still poor correlation with Exam 2 grades.
• Many students still not learning from this
practice.
2007-2009 Google Earth
Latitude and Longitude Coordinates
• short enough to be easily copied
• accurate enough to find the landform
Geographic Locations
• general enough to be familiar
• specific enough to be physically unique
3-4 Questions
• at least one process question
• all sets similar in difficulty
"Capstone" Experience in that it combines all
blocks of study into one exercise