July 2008

Assessment is the process of investigating a learner’s work for evidence of understanding and competence.  Typically, we learn content and then we are assessed through a test at the end of the process.  But that’s not natural, assessment happens throughout the process of learning.

Let’s take the case of self-assessment.  When we teach ourselves a skill or new knowledge we are constantly asking ourselves “did I get that?”  We usually don’t move forward in our studies until we do.  We are self-assessing and it occurs constantly. I call this natural assessment and why should it be any different online or in a classroom?

Building learning materials and assessments to mimic natural assessment will create stronger knowledge foundations because learners will have their trouble areas flagged before moving onto new material.

The Dojo Learning course builder is structured in a way that creating natural assessment is encouraged.  At anytime in the process a journal object (those are our assessment objects) can be added.  This means that as an instructor you can see the progress of your learners and their level of competences within a unit rather than at the end of a unit.

This information is vital to understand your employee’s or client’s strengths and weaknesses and helps gauge if further training is required in your organization.

This is the second of a series of posts we'll be making about workplace learning and the ideas that went into making Dojo Learning for work. Make sure to subscribe through email or RSS to catch future posts.

We just finished a new lesson on "How to Use Dojo Learning."  Try it out by subscribing to it below.

http://www.dojolearning.com/course-action/id.96

We just finished putting up another series of updates to the site, including:

RSS feeds everywhere

Dojo Learning now publishes RSS feeds for the following things:

1. All lesson store pages have their own RSS feed you can use to include your lesson list on your own website or blog
2. The newest lessons and most popular lessons lists on the homepage also have RSS feeds of the same
   
3. Each topic has its own RSS feed of newest lessons in that topic

Dojo on Twitter

Dojo Learning now uses Twitter for two things:

1. General updates, news and stuff - http://twitter.com/dojolearning
   
2. Updating users about service issues - http://twitter.com/dojostatus
   

Scribd for files

Dojo Learning now uses Scribd.com's iPaper service to display common file types directly in lessons instead of making you download them to see them. This makes files like Word documents, spreadsheets, presentations and PDFs much more integrated into the lessons.

We've made a few bug fixes here and there as well, but the above are the most notable changes. Stay tuned for more where that came from! :)

We just made an update to Dojo that all you Mac users ought to like. First, if you're not familiar with Fluid yet as a Mac user, you should be. Go check it out, install it, fall in love with it. Then try making a Fluid app for your Dojo Learning account.

First, you'll notice the icon for your Dojo Learning app is nice and sharp, like you would expect from a proper Mac app:


Next, right click the app once you're logged into Dojo and you'll notice a fancy Dock menu with a few handy quick links available:


That's all for now, but I'm sure we'll be adding more support for 3rd party apps like Fluid over time, so stay tuned!

Adult learners in the workplace are accustomed to the the freedoms of adult life. Free will, independent thinking, and the ability to make choices are only a few of the joys of being cut loose from our constrained youth.

However, the straight jacket experiences of high school and adult control never leave us completely. We spend twelves years of our lives learning how to behave and perform for our teachers. Rebellion is part of this experience for some while others are picture perfect students through it all. One truth does emerge, in that as soon as we become adults we start to shed the shackles of control. Or at least we try to.

When workplace learners take professional development courses or go back for upgrading, an internal trigger is evoked. It can be subtle or overt, but a tension between independence and control creeps into the experience, especially during evaluation or assessment. Percentile grading places people on a social spectrum and often makes learners feel inadequate. It evokes an emotional response instead of offering practical indicators. Isn't the workplace supposed to be practical?

The real question that needs to be asked when evaluating or grading a learner is: "Did this learner understand and perform to the level that we deem satisfactory for the work they are doing?" Of course we all want our workplace learners to perform at the highest level, and over time they may.

One way to measure performance is through a system that measures outcomes to a specific competence level. To learn more about these assessment methods, visit the Centre for Education and Work at www.cewca.org.

At Dojo Learning, we use conversational assessment through our Journal feature. We believe that workplace learners are more interested in having an instructor provide conversational feedback because it provides learners with a way to understand what they’ve learned and what their gaps are. This way the company is ensured that their employees have achieved real learning and can plan for future lessons to meet learner gaps.

This is the first of a series of posts we'll be making about workplace learning and the ideas that went into making Dojo a unique tool for that. Make sure to subscribe via email or RSS to catch future posts as well.

Tonight we have officially begun launching Dojo Learning to the public. We just sent out our press release to all the Canadian sources we could, and we'll be doing additional releases online and internationally soon too. Here's an online copy of the press release as well:

Winnipeg Duo creates Web 2.0 Startup and Brings Social Learning to Life

Wish us luck!

We've been hard at work on a new tool to help lesson builders promote their lessons, which we just rolled out on the live site a few minutes ago. This feature can be found in two places:

1. As a new icon on your lesson listing page, and
2. As a new "share lesson" link in the lesson itself.

The "Promote your lesson" feature makes it easier to notify people about your new lessons either by email, on your website or blog, or through the various social news and bookmarking services. And with the "share lesson" link in the lesson itself, your existing learners can also share your lessons with their friends or colleagues in the above ways too.

We're pretty excited about this feature ourselves, and hope you find it as "nifty" as we do!

PS. Happy belated Canada Day, and Happy 4th of July everyone!