Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: iTunes | Android | RSS | More

Dr Kym Simoncini

In this interview  Dr Kym Simoncini talks about how she and her tutors or markers use Automated Rubrics and eMarking Assistant.

Dr. Kym Simoncini is an Assistant Professor of Early Childhood and Primary Education at the University of Canberra. Prior to her academic career, Kym was a primary school teacher in North Queensland and England. Her research focuses on children’s learning and play. Kym’s current research is investigating playgrounds and family learning in Papua New Guinea and exploring young children’s STEM learning and how parents and educators and foster early STEM learning in Australia.

00:00 Peter: Introducing Dr Kym Simoncini from the Faculty of Education, Science, Technology and Mathematics at the University of Canberra.

00:20: Kym: Describes her role at the University of Canberra.

01:10 Kym: Describe how she graded papers before using Automated Rubrics i.e. printout the rubric, then circle the performance descriptors, enter the numeric mark, and then add up the totals.

01:40 Peter: Pressing F6 will highlight the performance level and calculate the weighted mark for that criteria.  Pressing F5 will vary the mark down and F7 will vary it up.  Pressing F8 will total the marks and convert it to a grade.  You can see a demo at http://eMarkingAssistant.com/products/rubric-o-matic

01:50: Kym: Use of the electronic rubric when working with tutors/markers in moderation to ensure consistent grading.

3:50: Kym: Use of F5 and F7 to vary assessment in moderation meetings and then pressing F8 to retotall the marks.
Continue reading →

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: iTunes | Android | RSS | More

Welcome to the first edition of the eMarking Assistant podcast where we talk to teachers and lecturers about how they electronically grade papers and mark assignments.

My name is Peter Evans and in this episode I’ll tell you a little about why I created the eMarking Assistant add-in for Microsoft Word. You can see a two minute video of eMarking Assistant at http://eMarkingAssistant.com/emarking

But before I tell you my story, I would be very interested in knowing a little about what you want in an electronic marking system? What would help you provide useful feedback to students? What would help reduce your workload? What barriers do you face and what would help you to overcome these?

Feel free to go to http://eMarkingAssistant.com/podcast001 and leave a comment or send me an email at peter.evans@emarkingassistant.com. Your comments will help ensure that this podcast series meets your needs.

I’ve been teaching online since last century and in 2006 I had a particularly heavy workload with over 600 first year students in an introductory communication course with 5 small written assignments, a presentation and a 2000 word essay. I had a limited amount of time to do the required grading and marking.

Like most teachers in this position I started experimenting with different ways to provide quality, consistent feedback on assessment and keep my workload to a manageable level. I used a variety of systems including macros that inserted full comments when a code it typed, Word comments, tracked changes and autotext, Excel based rubrics and even some web based grading systems. Over several semesters created and refined the eMarking Assistant add-in for Word.

Continue reading →