Reflective Online Teaching: December 2013

JotForm, a Web 2.0 Assessment Tool for Online Learning

Web 2.0 assessment tools, like the ones found among Moodle LMS tools, can be used to track and evaluate student progress in online or blended learning courses. When learners use these tools to share, analyze, develop, and locate content, it not only increases student-student interaction, but also student-instructor interaction. This way of increasing interaction provides teachers the opportunity to assess students throughout the entire learning process rather than just at the end of it. Additionally, the interactive nature of these Web 2.0 assessment tools also increases student engagement and potencializes the learning experience and the achievement of learning goals.

Potencializing student learning and having them achieve learning goals can also be done with an additional Web 2.0 tool that instructors and learners can use, JofForm.Com, a Website where users can create all kinds of forms to gather all sorts of information from a great array of templates available just by signing for an account for free. JofForm.Com can be a great alley of teachers; instructors can easily create class surveys, online quizzes, and the like, which can be quickly gathered in his/her site profile. But this website can also be a good students’ alley when having to get information for term or research papers as well. One of its best features is that it can be easily embedded onto your Moodle platform so students can get to work directly on it or the form can also be sent to their personal email account.

If asked, how JofForm.Com could be used in class, within the Moodle Platform, or in an online course with Blackboard or a similar LMS, to help teacher and leaners, this can be easily answered by taking a look at the gallery of forms of all types we can find, and how they could be used.

Depending on the study field where instructors work, lots of different kinds of activities can be carried out. What counts here is the creativity of the instructor to use the free tool. Take a look at the following information which is mostly related to ELT (English Language Teaching) rather than other fields, but that can be easily adapted to other teachers’ needs:

JotForm	Use	JotForm	Use
Ask a question	To administrate short quizzes	Course Evaluation Form	To ask for partial or final feedback during a course
CV Submission	To create professional résumés	Student Progress Report	To provide timely feedback and grades to students
Hotel Booking	To practice bookings in tourism industry classes	Restaurant Evaluation Survey	To provide feedback on restaurant services & food
Employee Information	To gather data for human resources courses	IT Service Tickets	To help IT students to deal with clients’ needs
Instructor Evaluation	To get feedback from students	Medical History	To help medical school Ss get info about patients
Event Feedback	To gather feedback after a webinar or class event	Trivia Quiz	To create some sort of Scavenger’s Hunt
Purchase Order	To practice placing and responding to orders	CREATE YOUR OWN FORM	Open to teachers or students’ needs

In my particular ELT teaching situation, JofForm.Com can be easily used to have students gather information or practice specific language needed for their professional field of study. Let’s take a look at two possible teaching scenarios in English language learning with different groups of learners.

Tourism Industry Class

Objective: After being provided different examples of hotel reservations, students will be able to follow the correct steps to book a room with 100% of accuracy by means of an online system.

· Class will be divided into two different groups –the ones who book hotel rooms online and the ones who respond to their partners with the booking confirmation.

· A JofForm from the site gallery or one created by students will be used to practice both roles of the booking process.

· The teacher will scaffold the process to assist and have both groups change roles and practice reserving a room and responding to their clients.

Activity created by Prof. Jonathan AcuñA

Systems Engineering Class

Objective: After being provided different examples of IT tickets in different companies, students will be able to deal with IT ticket with 100% of accuracy by means of an electronic form.

· Class will be divided into two different groups –the company workers who send an IT ticket and the ones who respond and give a follow-up to the ticket.

· A JofForm from the site gallery or one created by students will be used to practice both roles of the IT ticket process.

· The teacher will scaffold the process to assist and have both groups change roles and practice sending an IT ticket and responding to their clients.

Activity created by Prof. Jonathan AcuñA

By means of both activities, which can be centralized jointly on JofForm.Com and on the LMS, student learning can be observed, monitored, and assessed. Following the methodological principle of scaffolding in TBLT (Task-Based Language Teaching), student performance can be enhanced and supervised by the instructor or even by peers. It just takes a bit of thinking and a bit of creativity to find new ways to exploit the use of this Web 2.0 assessment tool.