Assessment tools - Scanning Studies: Activities

Scanning Study: Identifying Activities on Which To Focus
Earlier in this tutorial we discussed some of the reasons for focusing on what students do with technology - focusing on activities that rely wholly or partly on their use of technology. If the focus of your scanning study is, "Where are the best success stories and/or the most worrisome problems in the ways we use computers, video and telecommunications to improve learning?" then that suggests some pretty basic questions for a scanning survey. Once you've listed the technologies you think are most important and the activities you think are the most important ways of getting educational value from those technologies:

1. How often are those activities happening?

2. How often is technology being used to help them happen?

3. How appropriate and valuable do the users see the technology when used for that purpose?

4. If the educational value of the activities isn't obvious, you should also ask whether the people engaging in the activity see it as helping them achieve the outcomes you've (or they) have in mind.

For example, your program may be encouraging students to do their homework together by using e-mail because you expect that collaboration should help them master the subject matter. So you might ask:

1. How often do you do your homework with other students?

2. How often do you use e-mail (etc.) to do your homework with other students?

3. How appropriate and valuable is the e-mail for that purpose? For example, if you didn't have e-mail would that make it harder, or impossible, for you to do homework together this often?

4. On a scale of 1-5 (5 being extremely valuable) how would you rate "doing homework together" as a way of mastering the skills taught in your courses?

The Fellows who created the case studies and vignettes on the Learning Through Technology Web site have created a list of activities that you might find helpful in devising your own scanning study; you also should take a look at the seven principles of good practice outlined on the site. I relied on those resources as well in creating my draft scanning study, which you should feel free to use as a template.

Introduction || Activities || Draft of Scanning Study || Suggestions